THANKS FOR POSTING THIS.
Funny thing. The problem I think is, that we as creative artists have so many ideas floating in our minds, that it would take 100 lifetimes to realize them. Still, most people try to realize them in a single lifetime.
On the other hand, maybe you have made 50 fast-food films, but seen together (in context) , this life’s work may amount to the same quality than a handful masterpieces of another person.
The real problem is being able to DECIDE ON YOUR OWN how long it takes to shoot a film. Corman needed a few weeks for a masterpiece, Kubrick almost three years for Eyes Wide Shut. Both were nevertheless in need of finishing the film as soon as possible.
The ideal would be, that you could shoot/edit, etc. the time you think is necessary. Maybe a month, maybe ten years – but of your own choosing.
Yup, you’re absolutely right Sano.
Speaking personally, I am a very prolific short filmmaker, having made 5 shorts already this year, but there are several reasons why I keep making them. One reason, and probably the primary reason, is that I truly enjoy making films, if I’m not making one I think of making the next one. Another reason is that I’m still learning and each film is part of the learning process, so I need to keep making them in order to learn. What differs filmmakers from other artists is that we’re probably the only ones who can’t practice our art everyday, so I try to make it my goal to make at least one short a month. I usually go on pure inspiration and don’t give it a lot of thought, allow the short to develop organically from the people I’ve cast, the environment, etc. Sometimes I just go out and shoot something that’s about absolutely nothing, as long as I’m shooting, that’s all that matters.
But yeah, what Kidlat Tahimik is referring to is feature-length filmmaking, and in that regard, I don’t think I’d be as prolific. It has taken me a year just to complete a 75 minute feature, and it’s taken a lot out of me. I only made the film to see if I could do it, and from what I learned and experienced, it’s going to be awhile til I make the next one. Time was a factor on the shoot, as the actors did have their own lives to get on with, so we were grateful for any time they could provide us. And that’s the constant factor that I rarely have control over in all my films, since I want to make film about human beings, I need actors, and it’s pretty hard to get them to commit long term if you’re not paying them. But I have slowly been building a group of actors who have faith in me and hopefully will make making a feature a lot easier in the future. I guess that’s why I love making quick shorts, I rehearse one day then shoot the next. Editing is pretty simple since I don’t really need anything fancy, although I do take some time from the shoot before editing just to be able to separate myself from the shoot and approach the footage with a renewed sense of…I don’t know. Anyway, so I will continue to make lots of shorts, and maybe a feature here and there.
Also, just to add context to the essay, it was written from a Filipino point of view, especially within regards to time. We as a people didn’t really have concept of Western time, we followed nature’s time-night and day, harvest time, meal time, etc…then the colonizers came and imposed a lot of Western systems, including time by breaking the day down hour by hour, minute by minute. I don’t think it has completely worked, cos I have observed in the provinces and having gone to college in a provincial town, there is hardly any sense of time at all. Even our classes tended to start late. There is a term that’s got a negative connotation called “Filipino Time”, which means we’re always late. But the only reason why we’re always late is because we have different sense of time, and we’re only really late in the point of view of Western time. If you ever read any of Lav Diaz’s interviews with him explaining why he uses really long, real time takes in his films, it’s exactly because of that, we have a different sense of time, and it’s almost nonexistent in Western terms.
Love your commnts about “Filipino Time”. I live in Germany, and it’s horrible here. Everything hs to go exactly as planned.
I’ve met Lav Diaz and watched his “Evolution of a Filipino Family”. Great film, and I’d wish the whole world would live in “Filipino Time”. I hate the fact, that days are divided by hours, minutes, etc. Such a waste and totally conrtadictory to human experience, imo.
Wish I’d have your disciplin with making films, too. %-)
Jon Jost filed this review of a new film by a young Filipino filmmaker Sherad Anthony Sanchez. I think it’s right in line with this thread’s topic.
Jost believes the camera used on this project was of the handycam variety, like a Sony HDR HC-7. Though he was unable to confirm.
Imburnal
Laying down his cards in his opening shot – a wide-screen image, mostly black, with a half-circle on the far left side, a rivulet of water dancing below, held and held, until finally one notices the small lump at the mouth of the sewage outlet, a boy’s still body; the shot holds on and on, leaving room to ponder this figure, ( is it dead?), until after many minutes the figure moves, and then slowly backs further into the tunnel. I didn’t clock this shot, but it could easily have been 10 minutes.
With this opening gambit Sherad Anthony Sanchez, lays down the gauntlet for his audience, announcing in no uncertain terms, “take it or leave it.” Imburnal (Sewer), proceeds apace, in frequently very long shots, for three and a half hours, slowly sketching in the lives of a small community – one which in most places would be characterized as “a slum” – in Davao, Philippines. The atmosphere is ripe with sexuality, with children and adults openly discussing matters such as cunnilingus, blow-jobs, pregnancy, as well as being seen engaged in sexual acts. In one sequence, in the slatted light of a sewage outlet, 2 men “sandwich” a willing and desirous woman. The tropical heat is more than meteorological.
Primarily focused upon several young boys, this film declines to “tell a story” but rather languidly – as appropriate in the equatorial torpor – sketches out the lives of these street urchins who live in the sewage tunnels and outlets opening onto a river. In the same moment a broader portrait is given of the immediate community, centered on a large golden statue, with prominent balls and penis, which stands at the center of a small public park and gathering space. Young girls talk of sex with one another; boys masturbate; games are played, and adults seem banished for the most part to the periphery of life. While the sexuality is open and clear, the film is anything but prurient. Rather it opens out as an anthropological study, an observation of lives seldom given a glance, or if so, then subjected to melodramatic sentimentality in which poverty is romanticized. Here it is merely a given, a part of everyday life.
The imagery is a mix of static long – sometimes very long – takes, intermixed with sometimes jangly hand-held work, done with a fast shutter speed, as in a long sequence from a motorbike. Occasionally images are slightly out of focus, or camera movements are jerky and unsure. (Camera: Sanchez, Jose Bagane Fiola, Joel, Geolamen, Mark Limbaga, John Torres). On the track the sound sometimes cuts out abruptly a second or so before a shot concludes, and jarringly resumes on the next image, sometimes with an audible click. Other “flaws” recur often enough that over the time of the film they become clear signs of an intentionality, not the seeming errors that they initially bring to mind. Somehow the clash of styles and the meandering narrative meld together and hold the viewer’s attention, at least those willing to let go of conventional expectations and “go with the flow.”
For a film which seems so “realistic” there are some things left unsaid, explicitly or implicitly: that some of the characters are actors (Jelieta Ruca, Lawrence Garrido, Brian Monterola), or just what the real background is which finds the children living in the sewage pipes. It’s not just the tropical heat, but another kind: the boys are considered to be members of gangs, and vigilante groups of the area seek them out and kill them. None of this is shown on screen, or talked about – this unhappy element lurks in the background, unexplained.
Also unsaid, but to me very evident, was the preparatory time which Sanchez had to take to elicit such closeness and intimacy to his subjects. In this respect – and in some other aesthetic ones, though their styles are quite different – I was reminded of Pedro Costa’s work. In both cases there is a deep anthropological element which requires patience and time in order to excavate the essentials, and in both a clear respect and love on the part of the filmmaker for his subjects.
In the post-screening Q&A, which seemed to me pregnant with discomfort on the part of most the audience, which I think didn’t quite know what to make of this mixture and duration, I asked, after saying I had found the film beautiful and powerful, about this. He confirmed that he’d spent a year being with/around, learning and looking, and another half year shooting. I also asked about the matter of those “technical” things such as the sound-dropouts, and other seemingly ragged aspects. Anthony replied they were indeed willful and deliberate and had to do with a “personal” struggle inside him, presumably about film aesthetics, or artistic choices, and maybe a resistance to “professional” values – “slickness.” I am very sympathetic to such conflicts, having had my fair share in my own work (in which I used, deliberately, stumbling voice-overs, actors who friends said were no good, and other violations of film-world conventions), so I understand. Though in this case I felt some of the choices made damaged the final result, pulling attention in the wrong way to seemingly technical glitches in ways that did not function to make one aware of the artifice of the process, or to de-glamorize the reality, but rather simply stood out as seeming carelessness – something which the totality of the film certainly denied. Bottom-line, I didn’t think the tensions which these things introduced enhanced the film, but took away from it. In my mind I itched for having this most personal film handed to a sympathetic but not-involved editor, to cut out maybe 30 minutes, and delete the technical bumps. My bet is it would become a more powerful and effective film, able to reach a much wider audience. However, Anthony, as in his opening shot, made clear in his response he’d not buy such a re-do, and held his ground. Which I respect completely. I imagine in his own process, he’ll find ways to wrestle with these things in a way that works for him, and for the audience. He’s 26 and has ample time, and certainly the innate talents. I look forward to the next work he’ll do. Meanwhile there’s this film, which will be hard to find, but if you have a chance, see it. Imburnal picked up 2 prizes at the Jeonju festival.
BUMP
Sano—but Germany has also made some slow films, too—Im Lauf Der Zeit immediately comes to mind. Has there been one recently? Maybe you could make that film.
I would love to see Evolution of a Filipino Family, I envy you for having seen it. And it’s apt that you mentioned it cos that a great example of a film made through the cup-of-gas method. Acccording to imdb, the film took 11 years to complete, “With shoestring budget, shooting were only done if there was money, and if the crew and actors were available.” (sic)
and Noel Vera mentions in his overview of Diaz’s films that the film was initially shot on 16mm and was completed by shooting the rest of the film on video. My high school classmate, Arvie Bartolome, who has collaborated on several projects Lav Diaz, told that Lav would even take up work has a waiter just to get funds to continue the film. I think Lav Diaz gotten the hang of it, becoming a very prolific filmmaker by averaging a film a year, with films that average 8-10 hours in running time.
KJ, thanks for posting Jon Jost’s review. Sherad Anthony Sanchez is not as prolific as most of his contemporaries, Imburnal is only his second film after 2006’s Huling Balyan ng Buhi, but his dedication to realizing the work by taking that much time is evident. Jost’s Pedro Costa comparison is fitting, as with Costa’s own No Quarto da Vanda and Juventude Em Marcha, they are both directors who don’t mind taking a couple of years to just live with their subjects (for lack of a better term) before even turning on the camera. Again, this a luxury that digital has given filmmakers.
I don’t know, I guess being a Filipino in Los Angeles I have adjusted to the Western time, although probably too much: I often find myself rushing when driving somewhere even though I don’t need to. It’s this city, it has way of doing that to you. And that’s probably another reason why I keep making shorts, is because I feel that everyday, the more I drive, the more chance I have of getting into an accident, so I have to make the most of my time, there is a real feeling mortality here.
Anyway, back to the topic, this is great, you guys are really making me do my research. So Kidlat Tahimik planted the seeds with his essay some 20-odd years ago, and the possibility of digital filmmaking set Filipino cinema free. Alexis A. Tioseco has great article on the New Philippine Cinema here.
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Granted, it’s a little dated, but there is still inspiration to be drawn from this. Kidlat Tahimik paved the way for Filipino Independent cinema, and his “Cup of Gas Filmmaking” philosophy was huge inspiration not only for filmmakers but other Filipino artists working outside the mainstream. His film Perfumed Nightmare which was a seminal Filipino Independent Film, Francis Ford Coppola saw the film while he was making Apocalypse Now in the Philippines and gave it distribution.
In a nutshell, Mr. Tahimik stresses that there is more freedom in not having money to make a film as there is no pressure of time to finish the film (even truer now with the advent of digital filmmaking), it will in fact leave you as a filmmaker more open to changes over time, new ideas, and possibilities that you probably wouldn’t have time to consider if the pressure of time and money were pushing you forward to finish the film. Time should be your friend in filmmaking, not your enemy. Anyway, Kidlat Tahimik explains it better:
(sorry for the typos, I just copy & pasted it from a PDF file that was scanned from a paper that was typewritten)
September 29, 1986
Kidlat Tahimik:
(Revised Paper)
The Challenge of Third World Culture
Cups-of-Gas Filmmaking vs . Full Tank-cum-Credit Card Fillmaking
Author’s Note : While writing this paper, I made a typographical
error : instead of “filmmaker,” it came out “filmmaker .” A cosmic
message—perhaps the core of this paper . So let the cosmic
typographical error be an objet trouve of the visual artist
trying to express himself in a paper medium .
Making a film is like taking a long trip . The film voyager
can load up with a full tank and bring a credit card along to
insure completion of the voyage in as short a time as posible .
The voyager can also load up with a few cups of gasoline and
drive until he runs out and scrounge around for subsequent cups
of gas to get to his destination, without worrying about how long
it takes to complete the voyage .
Completing the artwork is the voyage all artists set out to
do, whether painter, writer or filmaker . The length of the trip,
TIMEWISE, is a matter of choice depending on the combination of
ingredients—inspiration, resources, tools and working materials
available, personal circumstances like family or emotional
disturbances, etc .
Assuming the filmmaker has the optimal mix of these
ingredients to complete a filmic work of art, he can still choose
the timeframe : Either to follow the dictum : “Time is money”, and
battle with the clock to finish his artwork: in the shortest
period, or to allow time to be his ally and open up to cosmic
inspirations provided by a relatively free timeframe .
The efficient path (i .e . timesaving) is the usual mode of
commercial productions, whether one is doing a Hollywood Cecil B .
de Mille film or a Third World box-office hit . This is dictated
by the laws of the investment world, where films are mainly a
consumer product to be served like McDonald’s hamburgers . The
McDonaldization of films is a reality I accept and do not want to
waste energy . fighting it]
The inefficient road (i .e . time-indulging), full of detours
and explorable nooks, is a choice which can be a luxury of
artistic filmmakers in the richer countries (i .e . the First
World) and can be a matter of necessity in the case of Third
World filmmakers .
As a filmmaker, it takes me usually two or four years to
complete a film, partly a necessity dictated by Third World
realities and partly a choice to avoid the formulas dictated by
bankrollers .` Some can look at it as a lack of discipline, but
discipline is always relative to preconceived “laws” of
fillmak:ing learned in . film schools .
technologically dependent art form, there is a need for some form
of discipline . One has to discipline oneself to save Lip for the
nest cup of gas, to buy a roll of film . One has to have the
discipline to have enough light to enter the filmshutter, or to
focus to register a good image .
But the discipline of time required in Hollywood is not an
essential in the making of a good filmwork:, especially if one
chooses the discipline of allowing time to be one’s co-director .
4f It takes a sort of discipline to resist the emperor’s-new-
clothes perception that time is an adversary always to be
contended with (i .e ., finish as many artworks as you can in your
lifetime) .
My film being made now might just be an extension of a
“film” I lived in some previous life, or just a transitional
rush this life’s scenario? And if I don’t finish the film in
this life . . .it’s only a film. So my cups-of-gas drifting can
continue into the next several lifetimes .
The Full Tank-cum-Credit Card (FTC) method of fiIImaking is
not confined to Hollywood, of course . If we consider Hollywood a
process determined by an infrastructure, then one can say the FTC
fillmaling is also done in the Third World . The result of this
FTC fillmakinq is the same formula films (formula : sex, violence,
crashing cars), only with Filipino actors, and a more awkward way
of crashing the cars .
With hindsight, I can say I have taken a detour from cliches
because I have avoided the FTC=using OPM, or Other People’s Money
formula, which makes the real director of the film the
comparative cost of capital in time deposit . Who directs the big
budget films?
The efficiency required by the OPM formula dictates time,
deadlines, schedules like a a taxi meter . Time is money . My
lack of resources can become a blessing because my time frame. escapes this deadline obsession, and allows me to discover
motifs. The film becomes an interaction between me and the
cosmos, because I have escaped the straitjacket of FTC
fillmaking .
Sour grapes? I could conceivably look for some FTC funding
in my own country, with the credentials that Perfumed – Nightmare
has picked up . But looking back, I am beginning to discover ten
years after I started making my first film that the shadow side
of establishment fillmaling is not worth making 20 blockbusters
in a decade .
Of course I could use a little more money to give me elbow
room, but the drug of big budgets can restructure my whole way of
expressing myself . For instance, originally (looking back
not so originally), I had conceived Magellan in my current film
Memories – of – Overdevelogment [the story of Magellan’s voyage from
the viewpoint of his Filipino slave, the first person to
circumnavigate the globe and return to his place of origin], to
buy his slave in a Malacca slave market, examining him like a
horse during the transaction—a traditional, cliched view of the
slave-master encounter .
The cups of gasoline for that scene came months later .
I happened to gather odd furniture from different friends’ houses
to fill a market stall . Instead of the original scene, what now
happens is that Magellan, while buying furniture for his cabin,
discovers the slave hiding in the chest from his angry Chinese
master . In the process, the slave ends up in a buy-one-take-one
deal . Time and the cosmos provided this new sequence . So who is
to say that-time is my adversary?
To take another example, trying to create a castle scene in
Memories, I could have hired top notch production designers to
make a cliche-acceptable,“realistic”-looking chateau . Instead I
used a little chapel in my neighborhood, whose main richness is a
beautifully tiled floor . (I had to avoid framing the chapel wall which looked modern) .
Many spectators would be disturbed by a floor-dominated
chateau visual, but the suggestion is enough . And by permitting
an abset_trouye to determine a scene, I manage to break: out of
cliches of what the royal courtroom should look: like . What may
provoke viewers to feel that Kidlat Tahimik is caricaturing
“reality” is actually a free act of shooting the tile floor that
was beckoning to be filmed .
‘Another example : The American boss in Perfumed_Nightmare in
my original conception was to look like a Madison Avenue executive
going to the Philippines for a Miss Universe beauty pageant . But
in shooting, the only Caucasion available was my clumsy-looking
cameraman . So I forced him to go in front of the camera in a Boy
Scout suit—the Boy Scouts are a very big movement in the
Philippines—since that was what was available . And now film
buffs say, ’What a great caricature .’
In Perfumed Nightmare, little Kidlat, the hero, is
fascinated by Werner von Braun’s world and Cape Kennedy and hi-
tech society . He comes to realize that his strength is in his
own Filipino identity . For the music in Perfumed_Nightmare, I
had a Kidlat theme . It’s a piece from the Koran . I had been
provided with tapes of ethnographic music, including three tapes
of Muslim music from Mindanao . But of so many tunes I
instinctively chose a particular tune without understanding the
Arabic text, and repeated it throughout the film . After my first
screening in Paris, an Egyptian student excitedly asked me how I
had chosen the music and said that the words were so relevant .
Then he explained that in the song, after Abraham was asked by
God to sacrifice his son, he is confused about why God would ask
for blood . In trying to understand God he sees the moon and
asks, “Is that my God?” The moon disappears ; he is disappointed .
Like wise the sun provokes him to ask “Is that my God?
The sun rises and sets . He continues questioning . The stars
come and go, finally he concludes that God is within himself .
Many professionals tell the beginning filmmaker, "You should
not take too long to finish a film, because too many changes
happens within the individual filmmaker .” That is a great rule
for time-efficient FTC fillmaking . But allowing oneself to be capsulized in the cocoon that is Time-is-money means closing out the cosmic offsprings.
Time incorporated as an ally into one’s filmmaking brings a
different dynamic into the film . And therefore the film should
be viewed with non-Hollywood filters and should be appreciated
and criticized with different criteria . Third World films are
perceived as slow by the fast-cutting habits we are used to .
Perhaps we have to learn to use a time frame similar to the
neverending story of ramayanas or odysseys .
But of course in America one doesn’t have the luxury of time
to watch a 48-hour film, like an Indonesian watching shadow-
4 puppet theater for several days . What I mean here is accepting
the time-frame of Third World filmmakers even i f watching a
standard two-hour-long film .
Watching films or reading novels is a matter of habit . The
visual excitement pumped and overstuffed into FTC films, which
today is equated with quality in films, may in fact be crutches
to disguise the lack: of any inner quality, any profundity of
spirit .
Formula films probably get the kinds of audiences they
deserve, and even condition them to accept these as the only
valid style of filmmaking . And I might add that the filmgoing
public also deserves the kind of films they support .
Producers call for a sex scene or a mugging about 45 minutes
into a film, because scientific studies of ass-behavior – show that
Western butts get restless at this point . But when you think
about the Indonesians squatting for days on end, is it possible the
quality of the performance that affects the restlessness? Should
butt-habits determine the quality of the film? Cups-of-gas
audiences have to be developed over time . Those who have learned
to accept the filmmaker’s time framework have probably learned to
depose the butt-dictator .
These audiences will continue to grow, because the
McDonaldization of films will sooner or later—probably much
later—call for new menus coming from the world of Rochester
(home of Kodak) spaghetti. Hollywood fast foods will succumb to
the Third World lariat (slo-mo banquets) . What would you like to
order, sir? The Purple Couscous of Cairo"’ or “The Yellow Big Mac
of Texas”?
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