This photo is probably my favorite from the set 'cause Sir Garmsen said this photo is nice. Woot! :)

So here's the part two of the Pia + Pathways post. Hahaha! You can view the part one here. There are more sets to come so please bear with us. Haha! I really love how the photos came out! So dramatic and hippie and artsy... Ah, love it. This is probably my favorite set! (This photo shoot is a requirement for my Photography class. You can read the part one for more details. )

Here are the photos! Enjoy!! 

The pathway. This pathway actually leads to a beautiful place. We went there when we were really young and I can still remember the beauty of the place.  

Here comes the photos of Pia. Please carry on. Hahaha! :)

I'll upload the rest of the photos later. I'm just really busy/lazy right now. Hahah!

Location: Darangan, Binangonan, Rizal, PH

Oh by the way, if you want to post/use these photos somewhere else (which I doubt anyone would), it's okay, just link to this post/ blog and credit me. These photos are not yet copyrighted so you would not face any legal consequences if you ever steal these. But stealing is still stealing. Plagiarism is plagiarism. 

Thank you for viewing/reading the entire post!

<3

All Images Copyright © 2014 Bienne Sisante, All Rights Reserved.

It was during my crazy finals schedule when we did this 'photo shoot'. This is for my Photography class under Sir Garmsen. We were tasked to do a photo story. My first choice was Kids at School because I already took photos when I went to my Nanay's school for the photojournalism project. I stayed longer because I thought I was hitting two birds with one stone. I was wrong. When I submitted my proposal, my choices were Kids at School and A Girl in Different Pathways. The second choice is really just for the sake of a having a second choice. Sir Garmsen did not approve the first one because, according to him, that concept is already approved for someone else. </3 When he was discussing what I should do with my photo story, I was not really paying attention. In my mind I was like I totally do not have enough time to do a photo shoot!! 

But I did not have any other choice. 

So I immediately contacted this girl to be my model. Why? Because I know this girl's more than willing! Haha. So here are the photos for the first pathway. I am seriously an amateur. Do not hate! Hahaha! And my camera is just an entry level dSLR with crappy lens. Yup, the photos are grainy. I did not know I was on IS0 400 the whole time! :( I did not have enough sleep, this was during the crazy finals week. I'm not even exaggerating; it was really crazy. 

Still, enjoy the photos! We worked hard for this, I swear!!

Here's my nanay with her jogging outfit! She was with us the whole time! Thanks, Nanay.

According to Sir Garmsen this photo is okay na, kaso may mali. Can't you tell me what's wrong with this photo? Clue: May nakuhaan ako na hindi dapat.

I'll upload the rest of the photos later. I'm just really busy/lazy right now. Hahah!

Location: Darangan, Binangonan, Rizal, PH

Oh by the way, if you want to post/use these photos somewhere else (which I doubt anyone would), it's okay, just link to this post/ blog and credit me. These photos are not yet copyrighted so you would not face any legal consequences if you ever steal these. But stealing is still stealing. Plagiarism is plagiarism.

All Images Copyright © 2014 Bienne Sisante, All Rights Reserved.

I spent my free day with my Cinema 101 classmates and professor at Mowelfund located in Cubao, Quezon City. Movie Workers Welfare Foundation, Inc. (Mowelfund) is a non-profit social welfare that helps movie workers. Mowelfund is also home to Filipino movie collections like props, costumes, articles and the like. The Mowelfund museum tells the history of the film industry in the Philippines.

It is always refreshing to have an out-of-the-campus activity like this, so I was glad, despite our hectic schedule, that we went out of the room to discuss more about the Philippine film industry. 

We first went into the Fernando Poe Jr. mini museum where we discussed little about him, and about Mowelfund. According to our tour guide, Sir Alfie, Jospeh Estrada founded Mowelfund. He said, Mowelfund is like SSS, is just that Mowelfund is exclusively for movie workers. He also told us that a huge percentage of the earnings of the annual Metro Manila Film Festival goes to Mowelfund.

We also watched a short film that was produced by the workshoppers of Mowelfund. After the introduction,

when then proceeded in our tour.

Here our some of our pictures taken at Mowelfund. 

Thanks to Shanelle San Pedro and  Vaughnette Erika Salimbagat for the photos!

Me with friends

My favorite of all is the horror room! Here we are pretending to be scared and all...

Me and friends in the Walk of the Stars area. This is where standees of local artists are placed alongside the pathways.

This is Nino Mulach when he was young. So cute!

Sir Abbas having a discussion with some of my classmates.

Nora Aunor photos and awards

Me in one costumes room. What saddened me is that the costumes are bare; they were not protected by anything such as glass. You can touch them and do whatever. 

Ryzza Mae Chacha Dizon, so young and relatively new in the industry, already has a standee inside the museum. This girl is surely going places.

Me enjoying the light reflection in my shirt inside the horror room.

It was nice to walk through the history of Philippine film industry.  I really had fun with my classmates.

I hope the Philippine film industry will flourish once more. With the help of organization like Mowelfund, I hope preservation of films and things related to it will always be done.

Photo from Daily Grind House

There is beauty in watching films of which you have no idea what it is about, what is going to happen, who are the actors and who directed it. The kind of film that was presented to you in surprise. The element of surprise will always be present. The same thing happened when I saw David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. Eastern Promises was indeed a surprise. For an audience who did not know what to expect from the film, the opening scene of Eastern Promises was a shocker. That throat slashing scene is totally unexpected.You know the opening scene is good when you instantly catch the audience's attention, including the unwilling ones. Eastern Promises' effect is just like that.

As the story progresses, it keeps on getting interesting at the same time, questions arose. Then, a young girl bled as she collapsed. The girl was brought to the hospital where the midwife, Anna (Naomi Watts)

photo from Fiancee Bodas

, found her diary inside her bag. Unfortunately, the girl died, leaving her child alone. Next day, Anna's Russian uncle, Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), was reading the diary. We get to know that the girl is named Tatiana. Uncle Stepan told Anna to bury the diary, her secrets, together with Tatiana's remains. But Anna is determined to find Tatiana's family so that the baby will not go on fostering program. Anna found Trans-Siberian's calling card in the diary. Thinking this will lead to finding Tatiana's family, she went to the restaurant. At this point, Cronenberg established the importance of the diary in the story.

Photo from Post-Punk Cinema Club

When Anna arrived at the restaurant, we see two gangster-looking men, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) and Kirill (Vincent Cassel). At this point I was sure they are the bad guys. When Anna rang the door bell, an old man, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), open the door. He let her in, showed her around and was incredibly nice to Ana. Semyon, I thought, is the one going to help Anna.

There were occasional sleepy stretches all throughout the film, maybe because of the lack of music, but still Eastern Promises is one surprising film. 

photo from Pop Babble

Probably the best scene from this film is the fighting scene between Nikolai and the Chechens. Tuns out Semyon set up Nikolai as Kirill so the Chechens will mistaken Nikolai as Kirill. The scene was set in a public bath, Nikolai fought naked with no weapons. This scene is undeniably violent. The use of knives instead of guns made the scene more violent. Two dressed men armed with knives, versus a naked man without any weapon, this shows how Nikolai is so inferior of the two Chechens. I could not remember how many times I looked away because I could not take it anymore. This scene is so intense our whole class was going crazy and screaming at the top of our lungs while watching this scene. The  most brutal, gruesome, painful and intense scene I have watched to date.

But what I liked the most from Eastern Promises is its major plot turn. At first who I thought the bad guys turns out actually the good one, and the good guy is actually the bad one. It was revealed that Nikolai is not a mafia or a chauffeur, he is actually an agent of the KGB, a Russian government security agency, who penetrated the Russian Mafia organization in London. I love how at first I thought he is dangerous, and mysterious when he started to help Anna, only to reveal he is an ally of the good.

photo from New York Times 

I recommend Eastern Promises to people who love crime films. This is a crime film that actually has a story. A god story.   

Watch the trailer here:

Then

Paramount Pictures
photo from American Cinema

During the period of 1930s to the late 1960s in Hollywood, the studio system controlled everything from the directors, writers, stars, equipment, filming and the likes. All of the people who worked for the studios lived under one roof in acres of lot owned by the studio. All of them were under an exclusive contract with the studio. This means they cannot work for another studios. Studios acres of lot where they also shot films they made. From the pre-production stage, down to the distribution, and even the promotion of films, everything was controlled by the studio. They distributed films they made only to the movie houses they owned. For example, MGM then owned thousand of studios,and they would only distribute their films in movie houses they owned.

Marilyn Monroe
photo from Wikipedia

In the Star System, actors were being taken care of as if they were gems. The Star System honed these actors into superstars. They prepared them for super stardom by giving them thorough training for dancing, singing, acting and the likes. The Star System created almost perfect being from then normal people. These actors were being owned by the studios they were under contract with. Actors were usually under contact with studios for five to seven years. They were expected to be perfect all the time; no negative images and dirty acts, that's why these kinds of things happened without the people knowing.

Now

In the present time, it seems that The Studio System and The Star System then, is the total opposite of what we have today.

Studios are still there, but the studio system is already gone. The studios no longer monopolize all the works in the film industry. The directors no longer work for a studio system alone. Directors now can work with whatever studio they like to work with, or they can work on their own. The studios no longer distribute films in their owned movie houses; films are being distributed anywhere. They no longer film in studio acres alone, they film outside. The stars no longer work under a particular studio alone; actors can now work anywhere they please. And negative images and dirty acts are no longer being covered.   

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Source:
Jenkins, S. (Director). (1995). The Star [documentary episode]. In American Cinema- 100 Years of Filmmaking. Arlington: PBS.