MANILA, PHILIPPINES–Creative people are infamously moody people. That is to say, they have to be in the right frame of mind in order to unleash a wave of creativity that is bursting from within. That talent is often unexplainable, as is the process by which that creativity is unlocked, but it has proven time and again to be true. What then can creative people do to tap into that creativity when locked down in the midst of a pandemic? That is at the heart of the webinar recently held by adobo magazine in partnership with ASUS and Microsoft. Host and moderator MM Gigante was joined by Associate Professor of Art Studies at U.P. Diliman and Eraserheads album producer Robin Rivera, founder and CEO of Homonym and SONIK Philippines Mike Constantino, Blacksheep Manila photographer Ben Chan, and filmmaker for Netflix and HBO Mikhail Red. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhx7liAcaEU Watch the session on Facebook or YouTube. Each panelist comes from a creative field and has had to face different challenges since the pandemic brought the country to a stop. In Mike’s case, as the lone music agency of its kind in the Philippines, Homonym had no template to follow. He had to gather their gear from their office once lockdown was implemented to work remotely. “We had to change the way we do business, hibernate some of the services that are not relevant” he shares. Ben admitted that the work itself has been very difficult from a photographer’s standpoint. With even his assistants in lockdown and most of his work being product-centric, he was fortunate that his studio is in his home. “It’s been tough because even the assistants are locked down. I had to make everything myself, but since the assistants cant go, lahat ng gears, even the gears have to be light, the set-up you have to choose something light. You have to make it as small as possible but siyempre without sacrificing the output pa rin,” he says. As both a professor of art studies and record producer, Robin has been in two creative fields. Whereas before, he could easily be in the same room with his students, he’s had to adjust to the new norms of teaching “I’m going to have to learn several types of platforms because remote teaching requires a number of platforms all at once. And I had no one to teach me.” For his part, Mikhail found some things he enjoyed as an effect of the lockdown. “Usually as a director, you’re doing your job when things aren’t going the way as planned. That’s when your skillset comes in. Filmmaking is suffering and problem-solving and I’m used to that kasi I started as an independent filmmaker where you really don’t have a lot of resources and these obstacles and parameters actually challenge you to be more creative.” Mikhail also notes that, “We have more time to prepare, we have more time to develop, to give importance to the script development maybe it’s also good for me na it helps me slow down kasi I really felt like yung past year, the opportunities kept coming, I was being aggressive but now I got to reassess things and it’s a change of pace.” The pandemic has also caused a shift to digital in these respective creative endeavors, resulting in interesting projects that the panelists have observed and taken note of. Robin noted that virtual collective recordings have been happening in the 1980s where bands and choirs record from their homes and somebody stitches it together, but more frequently now. “There have been a lot of people doing things like virtual choirs, virtual orchestras, virtual bands, virtual everything—several people playing altogether but they immediately grabbed the space, they made full use of the technology available.” “If you look at art, if you live in a consumerist society, ang tendency ng tao is to buy. Buy art, buy music, watch films, and you don’t participate in making it but with this thing now, you have no choice. This is good for the professional side because it brings awareness to the intricacies of production.” With Ben attaching his own personal work to the same lifestyle he had at work, he said that, “I married my lifestyle and my passions altogether so that work doesn’t consume me, it doesn’t burden me. It doesn’t become a daily routine that you just have to do.” Mike gave a solid example of a project for Nissan that changed suddenly because of the lockdown.”To illustrate how we’re creating for the industry these days, we have this project for Nissan. We started planning for it December 2019 and we were about to shoot it already, the boards were there, we have licensed the song, we had pre-shot BTS, we have booked the talents.” “We ended up changing the storyboard and tweaking the story to fit our situation now. We were able to get Barbie Almalbis and Zsaris to do a rendition of a classic Hungry Young Poets’ song sung by Barbie then we shot remotely.” “Nissan coordinated with their local branch. It’s a very interesting process,” Mike notes. The result was a musical collaboration between singer-songwriters Barbie Almalbis and Zsaris doing a cover of Barbie’s classic hit with Hungry Young Poets, “Money For Food.” The catch was that the aside from their guitars, the music would emanate from a Nissan X-Trail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmOWhtEG010 “I try to steer clear off work so I try to look for different avenues and different interests so that it keeps me from boredom,” Ben relates. “Right now, I’ve been starting to go with the biking community and personally, I’m trying to learn it so at least I know, when I’m doing the images, I know the form, I know the dynamics, I know the parts.” Mikhail’s work with HBO is the first mini-series shot in the Philippines about Filipino folklore. “Even distribution is going to change. I was very lucky that I rode that transition to streaming early on when I had the opportunity to release films on Netflix and now it seems like things are speeding up. Kailangan nating sabayan yung viewing habits ng audience cause now, everything’s online and streaming.” This all-new digital landscape that has emerged because of the pandemic has had their respective effects on communities, and the panelists’ “tribes” were not spared. “We never thought that the live side of what we do would be taken away for this long. Most of us in the company were performing musicians so we hang out a lot in shows, we hang out a lot in gigs tapos we meet people at events, and activations. I haven’t toasted a beer with my bandmates in five months. We’re not doing anything, we can’t gig. Nagkaron ng super huge influx of online performances, online DJ sets for the first couple of months but now there’s fatigue,” Mike discusses. “Because we miss everybody, we put up this thing called Homonym Hangs where we just put up a Zoom room, have a topic, invite people from the industry, so I can see people.” “I had to connect with my department,” says Robin. “We had to learn how to take care of each other. Because we were one of the smallest departments, we had that attitude. There are a lot of things that we don’t know how to do and we don’t have access to.” Mikhail then shares that since the local film community is relatively small, they really do need to look out for each other. “I advocate for the cinema experience,” he insists. “It’s going to be a struggling industry, theatrical chains, but there’s still value in that and I hope that when things get back to normal, we still support local movies on the big screen and also on streaming.” With his tribe, Mikhail has been working closely with cousin Rae Red in developing films like Eerie and its prequel, as well as his younger brother Nikolas Red who edited most of his genre work while also co-writing Dead Kids. He is still working with producing partner Micah Tadena on other projects and have been getting financing via Zoom meetings with investors in Japan and elsewhere. For the panelists, their creative juices have remained flowing despite the country experiencing stagnation in the midst of different levels of quarantine for the past few months. The challenges have been real, but they have learned to adapt accordingly and, in some cases, learn or re-learn skills that they otherwise might not have considered in a pre-COVID world. Yet even in these difficult times, these four have shown an ability to survive and even thrive by staying busy, looking for ways to keep their minds engaged, and keep themselves moving forward no matter the circumstances. Watch the full webinar on Facebook or YouTube. RELATED ARTICLES: Events: ‘Can creative experts drive business?’ with Yani Donato, Herbert Hernandez, and Quark Henares – by ASUS Expert Series and Microsoft Events: Create anywhere, create anytime with Sid Maderazo, Paco Guerrero, and Raxenne Maniquiz — by ASUS ProArt StudioBook Series and Microsoft
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