monday

so monday is when the work really began. monday morning, i got a ride out to alabang (another city just under an hour away from manila) where the GC4 building is located.GC4 is an audio, video/film and 3D animation production house equipped with top-of-the-line equipment (the geek in me got really excited over the design lab where row upon row of G5's and gigantic flat screen diplays could be found) including a recording studio large enough for an entire orchestra, and everything else you would expect to find in such a place. GC4 will be responsible for all the post-production work for "The Inheritance," including the composition and recording of the score, the editing and the motion graphics/visual effects. i met quite a few of the GC4 team at the press conference the other night.

so when i got there, jamie, the director of the video editing department, set me up with a work station and i tried to get some work done. "Work" meaning trying to figure out how the hell i want the film's website to look. most times i work well under pressure and other times, i just don't. this was one of the "other" times.

later in the afternoon, jamie drove me out to the boondocks to meet the team that had been assigned to work with me on the website. The team members are all from a sister company of GC4's, called PC3 (they're quite fond of acronyms here in the Philippines, have you noticed?) the meeting was to be held at the home of the man who owns GC4, PC3 and is responsible for financing almost the entire budget for "The Inheritance." i've met this man before and he's a kindly, unassuming, older man....someone you'd never guess is the tycoon that he is. his home (which wasn't actually his real home but just his weekend home) was so incredible that i felt a little starstruck walking through it. i kept trying to restrain myself from drawing attention to my starstruckness by taking photographs but i couldn't help myself and ended up taking a few shots of the exterior. the interior was incredible but i couldn't bring myself to take photos inside too. the house was built onto the side of a cliff overlooking a bay and rolling hills of tropical jungle. no matter how many floors you went down (there were several floors), you could still see the view out of every window. there were several levels of terraces ( i only stepped onto 3 of them), an infinity pool, a sauna, guestrooms, a conference room (where our meeting was held) , several living rooms, an exercise room, a games room, a glass-walled dining room surrounded by a moat(!) full of swimming koi fish, etc etc etc.




the photos in order from top to bottom are: the conference room, the view from the pool terrace, a view of the pool from one of the upper terraces, the door going in to the steam room area, and the view from the lower terrace. geez. because the man owns so many companies, this house is basically for his employees to hang out in, for conferences, staff parties, etc. the house staff served us an afternoon snack on one of the terraces before our meeting began and what i found ironic was that we were fed sliced white bread, cheese whiz, slice upon slice of fried spam and instant coffee all served on fine china. hahaha ghetto styles in the lap of luxury.

so yeah, back to business. our meeting finally began and i met the team: two creative writers, two programmers, two designers, a project manager and jamie, the video editor guy. the meeting went quite smoothly despite the fact that i was pretty nervous. i've done lots of work in the past but i've never been in this position before where a whole team is looking at me to tell them what to do. they were all prepared with pad and pencil, a copy of the proposal for the website that i originally wrote for school and emailed to them when i was still in toronto, and the site map i also sent out a few weeks ago. the project manager told me that they had all been instructed to study the proposal i wrote and to review my website inorder to familiarize themeselves with my work. whoa. breathe, christine. i was so freaking nervous cuz all of a sudden i didn't know where to start and i felt this overwhelming sense of inadequacy. a part of me wanted to stand up and yell, "wait, you've got the wrong person!" nonetheless, i made it through the meeting, answered their questions, outlined a series of tasks to complete and set a date for the next meeting. everyone on the team is relatively young, i think (you can never really tell with filipinos) and very nice and enthusiastic about the project. i tried to get over the nervousness by telling myself i was just at school working on a group project but i'm still feeling pretty damn intimidated. the scope of this website is so huge and will take up all of the spring and summer. i will also be working on the print material accompanying the film's release, which is targeted for the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.
as of now, i still haven't figured how i want the website to look...my excuse is that i've been busy putting the digital sweatshop site together....but my next meeting is on friday so i gotta get crackin'. i've got this irresistable urge to go shopping today, however. must be the fact that i've been locked inside this computer room for the last two days, staring at this computer. its high time for some retail therapy! ;p