Experiences during childhood can shape the child’s future. This is true for filmmaker Ed Cabagnot whose career started in 1982 at the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines and taught students from the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, and De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde.
“When I was a child, my parents were movie addicts,” Cabagnot said.
Since childhood, Cabagnot visited the cinemas together with his parents and shared that employees of the theatre knew them. These employees even allowed him to bring a pillow inside the theatre.
On April 15-17, Ed Cabagnot facilitated a three-day Film Appreciation workshop as part of the 30th Summer Arts Festival at the University of the Philippines Baguio.
Lessons about horror
One of the basic human emotions is fear. Every human being experiences this and throughout the centuries, a lot of people have already talked about it.
Cabagnot explained that horror films are so much pervasive because it gives the audience the chance to put themselves in danger.
“But it is a danger after an hour and a half or two hours of it, we will come out of it unscathed… in the process of putting ourselves in it, we lose our stress.”
In creating a horror film, Ed Cabagnot shared that “each of the titles [is] unique but they share a common narrative.”
There is always a set-up and it is always about the location. The setting lets the viewer have an idea of the situation.
It always starts on a normal day. Then something becomes wrong creating the “Uh-Oh” moment resulting in a relentless pursuit until the end.
Then the production team puts everything together by combining the narrative such as the scriptwriting, acting, cinematography, production design, and editing.
He commended The Shining (1980) for breaking “a lot of visual language laws because when you do horror, ang favored color is dark right? The movie is 90% high key lighting [and] if you notice, [the movie] gets [its] horror by showing everything from the start.”
To Future Filmmakers
“When you make a film, you are able to talk about what you want to say and affect a lot of people so use that ability… you become a filmmaker by exposing yourselves to the best films – Filipino and the world cinema,” Cabagnot said.
He hopes that students would enjoy watching films and at the same time hone their critical abilities, to think beyond the box.
“The more critical you kids are, the more you can help your community,” he added.
Cabagnot encouraged the managers of Teatro Amianan in UP Baguio to create a “sustained regular schedule of very interesting, thought-provoking, film-related events [and] at least once a month may film screening with a discussion.”
“The program is not just for entertainment, but actually an investment in your future, as makers of the city,” he said. / Natasha Morano
The Panorama 