David
Sykes is being pursued by someone he does not know. With the help of his
friend, Victor Lien, they learn that it is Daniel Aviles who is after him.
Aviles uses Miguel Evans to continue to spy on Sykes but Chuck tries to stop
him and save Sykes.
Cast :
David
Sykes - Manuel Variacion Jr.
Victor
Lien - Alain Carlo Bandal
Daniel
Aviles - Jan Francis Lagare
Miguel
Evans - Paul Michael Boco
Kaitlynn
Devera -
Christine Durano
Nicole
Torres - Vengeline De Leon
Chuck - Carl Anthony Mejares
Director - Daryll Evan Mancao
Producer - Daryll Evan Mancao
Screenplay - Dycee Anne Leopoldo
Visual
Effects -John Christopher Tan
DOP - Paul Eliaquim
Tero
Production
Assistant - Al Villanueva
Blood Bound - this was actually the biggest project I have worked on, and the most memorable one. Of course, I did not work alone; I worked with 12 friends who are very talented and cooperative. Though I was the one who produced and directed the movie, the total output was a product of a collective effort from the team. We may never have done it if not because of teamwork and cooperation. This movie was a final requirement for our computer class, and also the last project we did before we graduated high school together. It was never an easy journey in making a movie; we were only students with very little experience in filming. And aside from that, we had to work with the movie while we were finishing our studies in high school. The whole process was indeed stressful, the shooting, the editing, the conflicts of schedule with our other school subjects, and all the difficulties we have encountered.. However, we will always treasure all the memories that we've shared together as a team, and all the lessons that we've learned together. And most of all, we will never forget how we have triumphed amidst all the challenges that we have faced.
It all started on a Monday morning during our computer class. We still didn't have an actual plot for our movie. All we knew was that we wanted an action movie since most of us were guys and only three were girls. Our previous project was actually an action-comedy short film which composed of us 7 members, all guys. Now, the girls, originally from another group decided to join us for the final project; and with this, we decided to add a little touch of romance for our plot. We began discussing and eventually formed a plot through our own individual ideas. I was really amazed on how smoothly everything fell into place. We were already a bit pressured since all the other groups already started filming while we were still on the first step of our movie. But wow, our brainstorming actually amounted into something that gave us an overall idea on what we would be shooting for.
For the whole month of February, we were always occupied in the weekends because of shooting for the movie. Thankfully though, we were also allowed to shoot during the schedule of our computer classes. In filming the scenes, we only used one video camera and one digital camera. The digital camera, however, was only used for the underwater scenes. Our videographers John V, and Paul T did a great job even up to the most difficult angles, and the running shots. They also did some directing in both acting and cinematography. Having a videocam was really an advantage; it provides better quality for the video and audio. We shot the whole movie in HD and we didn't have to worry about the audio since its microphone is unidirectional; the dialogues were recorded clearly. Digicams have omnidirectional microphones which make their recorded audio full of background noise. With only one videocam though, it was really a pain on times when the battery gets depleted in the midst of the shooting. Some scenes were shot more than once, but in different angles for better cinematography. Often times, we had to wait for the battery to be recharged; sometimes, we had to continue the shooting on a different day. We did not do the shooting from the first scene to the last; we usually shot them depending on which venue we were scheduled to shoot in. We had to be consistent with the costumes since the costumes of the characters depended on which scene we were shooting. Most of the time, they brought more than one set of costume in one shooting session. Another problem was choosing the appropriate venues. We shot most of the scenes inside the LIDE compound - on the pool, on the road, on the tennis court, on the beach, and on the houses of our members. There were two venues where we were not allowed to shoot in but we were lucky to find alternative spots. Aside from this, transferring from venue to venue was really tiresome and time-consuming since we had to walk with all our costumes and props under the heat of the sun. About the actors and actresses, we didn't really have much problems with them, just some very minor issues - like being late. Our lead characters -Manuel, Carlo, Christine, Paul B, Jan and the supporting characters - Carl, and Venge did a great job in their acting. the action scenes were choreographed by the characters themselves. However, there were some conflicts with schedule with our other school responsibilities. One time, we had to skip a clearance-signing just to finish our shooting. One member also met a minor motorcycle accident; but thankfully he was not badly injured. Time was our enemy; we had to shoot everything scheduled on the day before the sun would set. However, we were almost always behind schedule, and there were scenes that we were not able to shoot because we ran out of time. Some of the last scenes were even shot when the editing was more than halfway already.
The editing was the best part for me. Well, directing was kind of difficult and stressful; and editing was also stressful but I was so enthusiastic in working with it because I already had much experience on it. I was feeling euphoric the entire time seeing everything coming together. It's like the process wherein you are actually turning your ideas into reality. It all started on paper and now it's really becoming a film. One day we were just discussing ideas, and now we're already witnessing all those coming to life. Together with my friend, John Tan, we edited the videos scene by scene. He was in charge of the scenes that needed special effects, and I worked on the remaining scenes. We were really lucky to have him in the group since he's really skilled in video editing, special effects, and other multimedia and computer stuff. Day and night we worked on the editing for 3 days. During these days we didn't only work for the movie, we also came up with a teaser video, and an official trailer to make it more legit. I was really so excited in seeing the final product so I wanted everyone to share our excitement through those short vids. Scene by scene, we gradually finished editing; and after all the scenes were already finished, we compiled the various scene clips to compose the movie clip itself. Then we added the title and the credits. At last, the 50-minute movie was now ready.
Screenshot of the video-editing process:
We thought our troubles were over; but more struggles were yet to come. Now we had to do the most tedious and exasperating process - the rendering. It's the process wherein your project is converted to a video file. Through my video editing experiences, this was always the greatest challenge. Rendering takes too much time, even a 3 minute video might reach up to an hour of waiting. It also takes much space if the output format is in good quality. And to think that this project was a 50-minute HD video, the difficulty level is exponentially heightened. The first time we rendered it, there was an error when it was more than halfway of the process. It was such a dilemma since we have been anxiously waiting for it to finish rendering for more than 3 hours. The output video was not complete, and the file size reached up to 100+ gb- which is insanely large for any single file. Good thing we had an external drive with a 1 terabyte capacity. We had no choice but to delete it and re-do the rendering process. The next attempt was finally successful, but still with a very large file size. We finally viewed the video, after all our uncontainable mixed feelings of excitement and anguish. On the first minutes of the video, it was all smooth; but on the middle part, the audio did not match with the video. It was really frustrating. Again, no choice, so we did the rendering again. It was no joke since rendering really takes almost half a day. Finally, after all the failed attempts and forever of waiting, a perfect video file was produced - except with its file size. We searched on the internet on how to solve that problem and we found out that it's either we had to change the video output preferences or probably use a program that could compress the video file. Well, it was John who searched for a means to compress the video since I didn't know anything about those stuff. Later on, I received some unbelievably good news. The 133 GB video was compressed down to 350 MB! That's a very unimaginable difference! I really couldn't believe it; there must have been some sort of sorcery. Then we watched the entire compressed video. I was feeling so ecstatic the entire time; because we have actually triumphed against the great adversities that we were faced with. And despite the compression, the video's HD quality was preserved; the video was excellent, and the audio was clear. Finally, our movie was ready! The last step was to burn the video into DVD discs; and I did work on it from that night until the morning of the next day - nonstop. It took some time since I had some difficulties; but those were just negligible compared to the previous ones. That morning, we passed our final project to our teacher.
And the official trailer:
Here's the full-length movie:
After all those exhausting yet fulfilling times of shooting and editing, we rested for a week. Those times, our movie, alongwith the other entries were simultaneously shown in the computer lab of our school. The impact was phenomenal. It was really funny how our actors and actresses became celebrities for a week with our younger schoolmates calling them with their screen names. Not only that, even some of our teachers asked for copies of the movie and they actually liked it. I have also uploaded the movie online on my Youtube account so that our distant friends, family and relatives could view. The positive feedbacks we received were indeed incredible.
Then came March 11 - the 2nd ECAY Film awards. Our crew, and all our other batchmates dressed up our best for the event. We took pictures, and had some chat with our friends to somehow ease that nervousness.
It was the time when our movie entries would be judged and given awards. The program started with each movie recognized and each group were called on stage. Then finally the awarding began. In every award, fragments of video clips were To sum it all up, here are the awards we have garnered:
Up to today, May 2, 2014, I still treasure that very meaningful day; and all those friends whom I shared wonderful memories with. I haven't heard much from them ever since we entered college; but sometimes they send me messages, asking about how life has been. Well, I thank you for remembering me; and I want to let you know that this blogpost is dedicated to all of you. I wrote this to preserve the feelings in that short wonderful time we have shared. Thank you for being a part of the best moments of my life. Thank you for all the memories, and lessons we have been through. Thank you for being for being a huge part in that expedition where we turned ideas into reality.
...
The editing was the best part for me. Well, directing was kind of difficult and stressful; and editing was also stressful but I was so enthusiastic in working with it because I already had much experience on it. I was feeling euphoric the entire time seeing everything coming together. It's like the process wherein you are actually turning your ideas into reality. It all started on paper and now it's really becoming a film. One day we were just discussing ideas, and now we're already witnessing all those coming to life. Together with my friend, John Tan, we edited the videos scene by scene. He was in charge of the scenes that needed special effects, and I worked on the remaining scenes. We were really lucky to have him in the group since he's really skilled in video editing, special effects, and other multimedia and computer stuff. Day and night we worked on the editing for 3 days. During these days we didn't only work for the movie, we also came up with a teaser video, and an official trailer to make it more legit. I was really so excited in seeing the final product so I wanted everyone to share our excitement through those short vids. Scene by scene, we gradually finished editing; and after all the scenes were already finished, we compiled the various scene clips to compose the movie clip itself. Then we added the title and the credits. At last, the 50-minute movie was now ready.
Screenshot of the video-editing process:
We thought our troubles were over; but more struggles were yet to come. Now we had to do the most tedious and exasperating process - the rendering. It's the process wherein your project is converted to a video file. Through my video editing experiences, this was always the greatest challenge. Rendering takes too much time, even a 3 minute video might reach up to an hour of waiting. It also takes much space if the output format is in good quality. And to think that this project was a 50-minute HD video, the difficulty level is exponentially heightened. The first time we rendered it, there was an error when it was more than halfway of the process. It was such a dilemma since we have been anxiously waiting for it to finish rendering for more than 3 hours. The output video was not complete, and the file size reached up to 100+ gb- which is insanely large for any single file. Good thing we had an external drive with a 1 terabyte capacity. We had no choice but to delete it and re-do the rendering process. The next attempt was finally successful, but still with a very large file size. We finally viewed the video, after all our uncontainable mixed feelings of excitement and anguish. On the first minutes of the video, it was all smooth; but on the middle part, the audio did not match with the video. It was really frustrating. Again, no choice, so we did the rendering again. It was no joke since rendering really takes almost half a day. Finally, after all the failed attempts and forever of waiting, a perfect video file was produced - except with its file size. We searched on the internet on how to solve that problem and we found out that it's either we had to change the video output preferences or probably use a program that could compress the video file. Well, it was John who searched for a means to compress the video since I didn't know anything about those stuff. Later on, I received some unbelievably good news. The 133 GB video was compressed down to 350 MB! That's a very unimaginable difference! I really couldn't believe it; there must have been some sort of sorcery. Then we watched the entire compressed video. I was feeling so ecstatic the entire time; because we have actually triumphed against the great adversities that we were faced with. And despite the compression, the video's HD quality was preserved; the video was excellent, and the audio was clear. Finally, our movie was ready! The last step was to burn the video into DVD discs; and I did work on it from that night until the morning of the next day - nonstop. It took some time since I had some difficulties; but those were just negligible compared to the previous ones. That morning, we passed our final project to our teacher.
Here's the preview:
And the official trailer:
Here's the full-length movie:
After all those exhausting yet fulfilling times of shooting and editing, we rested for a week. Those times, our movie, alongwith the other entries were simultaneously shown in the computer lab of our school. The impact was phenomenal. It was really funny how our actors and actresses became celebrities for a week with our younger schoolmates calling them with their screen names. Not only that, even some of our teachers asked for copies of the movie and they actually liked it. I have also uploaded the movie online on my Youtube account so that our distant friends, family and relatives could view. The positive feedbacks we received were indeed incredible.
Then came March 11 - the 2nd ECAY Film awards. Our crew, and all our other batchmates dressed up our best for the event. We took pictures, and had some chat with our friends to somehow ease that nervousness.
...
It was the time when our movie entries would be judged and given awards. The program started with each movie recognized and each group were called on stage. Then finally the awarding began. In every award, fragments of video clips were To sum it all up, here are the awards we have garnered:
Best in Visual Effects John Christopher Tan
Best Actor Manuel Variacion, Jr.
Best in Cinematography Paul Eliaquim Tero, John
Vincent Magaway
Best Director Daryll Evan Mancao
Best Editing Blood Bound
Best Musical Score Blood Bound
Best Motion Picture Blood Bound
Wow. With every award we got, we were all jubilant; all our extensive efforts actually paid off. Those weeks of shooting, those days of editing, those hours of rendering - they amounted into something greater than we have expected. And even if we didn't receive these awards, all the memories and experiences we have shared together as a group are immeasurably more meaningful to each of us. Those awards were just consequences of our effort as a team; it was not something we aimed for from the start. It's more of trying to do a good movie, and enjoy the process of it. I do not really remember everything I have said on my speeches; but I was very thankful to my members, and even to all my batchmates. Even though there were grouped into different contingents, there was never an atmosphere of competition; it was more of a very triumphant celebration for all of us as a batch.
...
The last speech was when everyone of our cast were called on stage for the best motion picture. On that moment, I thanked every member of my cast for doing their individual roles excellently. It would never had been successful if not because of their cooperation and support. I greatly acknowledged all the sacrifices they have committed for this project, and our parents who were supportive of our endeavors. I also mentioned all the difficulties we have encountered during the production of the movie, and how we triumphed on each. I wanted to let everyone know how a collective team effort can overcome the greatest challenges. I was honest in saying I almost gave up on that movie; I greatly doubted myself because first, I never saw myself as a leader. Second, I barely knew anything on making a movie; and I didn't think it was even possible for me to do it. But the trust and support of my members were firm enough to break my fear and doubts. They were always there to support me, and to console me when I was almost giving up. If not because of them, the movie may have never been possible. And I also thanked our computer teacher, Mr. Ryan Ramos, for being a supportive and understanding mentor, and most of all - for giving us the opportunity to engage in this wonderful experience in film-making. It was the most meaningful and most memorable project that I have passionately worked on. And that moment on stage was one of the best moments of my life. It's when I actually understood the concept of leadership; it is bringing the best out of your members, and letting them see a common goal. We were all euphoric on stage, we were teary-eyed because of the immense joy that we were experiencing. I almost broke down in the middle of the speech, and most of the members were already crying so I had to end it after everything I wanted to say were expressed.
...
Up to today, May 2, 2014, I still treasure that very meaningful day; and all those friends whom I shared wonderful memories with. I haven't heard much from them ever since we entered college; but sometimes they send me messages, asking about how life has been. Well, I thank you for remembering me; and I want to let you know that this blogpost is dedicated to all of you. I wrote this to preserve the feelings in that short wonderful time we have shared. Thank you for being a part of the best moments of my life. Thank you for all the memories, and lessons we have been through. Thank you for being for being a huge part in that expedition where we turned ideas into reality.
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment