You Are Here was made in 2020 and we all know what happened that year :/

So back in 2019, we participated in the Filmathon mounted by Davao City Tourism and Mindanao Film and Television Development Foundation, Inc. with our film, Anong Nangyari Kay Andrew Magsilang? and we decided to participate again that year.

So for the uninitiated, Filmathons is like a 24-hour Amazing Race + filmmaking challenge. You have to win the tasks and races to get leg-ups with bonus equipment that you will then use for the filmmaking. But that year, because of the traumatic thing that happened that will not be mentioned, the filmathon was all online. Other teams went on hotel bubbles to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. But because we were all so apart in different areas, we decided to make everything virtual. That includes filmmaking remotely. This year, I teamed up again with my co-directors from Andrew Magsilang, Ivan Cabanial and Cris Manero.

the story

The story was simply based on the fact that the world just felt like it was ending. I wanted to write about a character who is estranged from his family and lover, but wants to get closure on his last day on earth. We got the actor, Ed Trumata, who I previously worked with on Condolence among other university related projects. Luckily Ed was in the same city as me so, it was fairly to shoot things. And he was so game to do it.

Since everything was online, from the start, it was built into the story that everything is scene through the screens of these characters. Even our read-through of the script was online.

making the film

The casting process was fairly easy. Because of Cris Manero's day job as a university professor, he has connections and we just used that to cast the film. Thankfully, everyone was also excited to do it. Danelle (Veronica Pio) who played Gesselle, Lu's best friend, was a brilliant actor who really leaves a mark with only one scene in the film.

CJ Buot who played Ian was also very game with shooting all the "social media" inserts and recording the voice messages. He even involved his father in shooting a "boomerang" instagram story. We also involved our friends, Andrew Tenajeros featured as a conspiracy theory Youtuber, we also featured David Shem Calida and his now-wife Denise Andrea Maceda in an instagram story insert. We also had a cameo from our Andrew Magsilang diwata, Pamela Framil. That was the fun part of making the film, just building out the universe of the film and how they react to everything ending.

We really saved a lot of money on the crew, since we did not need any crew members at all as we were recording with our phones and laptops. Overall, the experience was unique but I would trade it for the world.

the ending

The ending where Lu goes to the seawall and watch his last sunrise as he accepts his fate, was us just wanting the character to finally be outdoors and see the world. It was fun to shoot because despite the pandemic, there were a lot of people who were cycling and jogging there. But was still fun just the two of us waking up at 4AM and then just trying to figure out the space and how that will look like when eventually, gravity folds against itself. But we managed to do it. And Ed was fantastic in his portrayal of the character.

Overall, the experience of making this film was unique. I'm very proud of how far this little film came. It's now even free to stream on JuanFlix (what??) it participated in mutliple festivals and for that I'm just so thankful and I wouldn't have it any other way. Although, looking back at it, I don't know. The dancing budots for an extended amount of time in front my laptop while waiting for the officers to tell me I can proceed to the next challenge of the race was a bit scarring so...I would change that part if I could. Lol