SAVE THE PHILIPPINE CINEMA

     Perhaps I am lucky enough to have "FILM" as the topic for me and my partner MJ's industry seminar because I myself is a film buff, be it Hollywood or a local film, aside from the fact that I am a practitioner in the said industry for years, in production and on cam.

     And for that reason, I would like to stress how piracy killed the mainstream film industry in the process.
     I will not deny that I, myself, buy pirated DVD because of dozens of advantages.
     Aside from the the fact that pirated DVDs are cheaper than the original ones, you can just lay your back and sit at the comfort of your couch in the bedroom while watching a good quality pirated DVD with regards to its audio and visual effects and most of the time, these DVDs come in advance than the actual showing of the movie in cinemas. So, how can you beat that?
     But of course, we are not promoting pirated DVDs. As what our speaker Direk Cesar Buendia stressed in his interesting talk, we should not buy pirated DVDs because we are actually committing a crime when we support these products. That is right, hence, we are going to try to stop buying pirated DVDs :( (actually, we already started boycotting pirated DVDs months ago).
     According to the Optical Media Board (OMB) Chairman Ronnie Ricketts, their agency is finding it hard to stop this kind of illegal activities. They can raid the locations where the vendors usually sell these products but the chairman admits that as long as the majority of the people are supporting and patronizing illegal DVDs, it will be difficult for them to stop it.
     In fact, the agency is even compromising with the illegal DVD manufacturers to please stop producing local films and instead, mass produce the illegal DVDs on Hollywood films.
     This should not be the case but because of the proliferation of the pirated DVDs and the massive support this activity is getting from the masses, the least that Chairman Ricketts has to do is to compromise.
     Actually, this should not happen because the agency should confiscate all illegal DVDs, be is Hollywood or local, but because of the saleability of illegal DVDs in the market, a settlement with the illegal manufacturers is the next best thing to do, the people from the agency believe.
     Thank God there are indie films which gave the mainstream industry a life extension.
     We suggest that aside from Cinemalaya, Cinemanila and Cinema 1, the government should give their full support on indie film producers to save the dying Philippine cinema which was leading in Asia years ago, in terms of the number of films produced per year.    

NEW GUYS IN THE NEWSROOM

The industry seminar about broadcast media this week was interesting for me because I have been in this business for years, aside from the print media.

When Sir Beaver asked our resource persons in broadcast media on what seems to be the glowing problem among newly graduates when they step into the real world of newsroom, I immediately raised a particular issue.

Most newly grads find it difficult to operate equipments in the newsroom.

To tell you frankly, newsroom is like a different world where everybody is on the rush doing their own business. Everybody is beating their deadlines so there is really no time to teach newly grads on how to operate a high-tech equipment.

Take this for example, when I used to work as a correspondent on TV5, I took pity on a certain newly grad who doesn’t have a hint on how to use the P2 player where you can view your P2 card and have the time coded.

And worst, when I asked the guy to please grab the P2 player, he had no idea what a P2 player is.

My classmate IC, who is the current executive producer of TV5’s morning show also raised an issue regarding the not-so-credible sources of newly grad reporters.

It is very basic for a reporter to have a nose for the news so it is also their primary duty to widen their clout in order for these new guys to broaden their sources.

NEWSPAPER IS NOT A DYING INDUSTRY!

It’s really amazing how the newspaper and other printed materials evolve into its version in the web.

Actually, the web version of the printed material already has its own domain and marketing potential just like any other newspaper or magazine, as discussed on the first industry seminar on sir Beav’s class about print.

I, myself, is a media practitioner working on a lifestyle magazine as an editor and as a columnist on national daily papers and until now, I must say that it’s really hard to beat the fast-paced development of technology against updating one’s self and learning on how to apply the practice on the digital version.

For one, before you knew it, there will be another latest program in lay outing available which is being used that you need to check considering that you are not actually totally updated yet on the recent program.

Our guest speaker from the Summit Publishing Company was right when she said that the digital version of the printed materials are more complicated in terms of preparation and maintaining as compared to the hard copy.

On the digital version, a lot of programs and apps should be learned in order for you to do the multitasking job in editing and lay outing whereas on the printed copies, basically, the editor will just edit the manuscript, send it to the lay out artist, supervise the lay outing and approve the final copy and presto, the printing press will work overnight for the product.

Also, we would like to stress that printed materials will not die as long as there is a digital divide and issues on technological change.

Perhaps there would be a decrease on the number of readership because of the competition against the web version but printed material will always have its share of market.

IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN

  

    Tsk…because of an inevitable coverage somewhere in the South, I’ve wasted an opportunity to partake in Sir Beav’s discussion last Tuesday about ethics in media especially when he posed the question about celebrities: Are they entitled to have a private life when being a public figure is part of their job?

     Being in the entertainment beat for years, I have my own share of view about the question.

     Celebrities especially in entertainment are like creatures living in an aquarium where every move they are going to make is being magnified by their fans and the media. In a way, a life without privacy is already a part of their career they have chosen.

     Why? Because traditionally speaking, supporters have the right to know almost everything about their celebrity idols. Because these supporters are the ones who are following their idol’s projects, endorsements, reel and real partners, to the extent of fighting against another group of fans.

     And remember, these supporters are the ones who are paying and supporting their idol’s movie project which is the primary basis of the celebrity’s popularity.

    In the business of entertainment, popularity for every celebrity is like having a cash machine which keeps on ringing because of the series of huge talent fees they are getting.

    Fact is, there is an delusionary feeling for these supporters that they actually own these celebrities and in return, these celebrities owe them their private life.

    And for these reasons, when celebrities are complaining about privacies, we usually throw them the cliché: if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

    Simply put, if you want to live a simple private life, then get our of the entertainment world.

     There is also a question of sensationalism in entertainment press when giving interesting stories about celebrities.

      Remember the nip slip of Anne Curtis live on national TV? Because she is a popular personality in entertainment, the issue was sensationalized for approximately two weeks.

     Her supporters, mostly males, felt that their illusions were materialized by reading stories about Anne’s nip slip.

    If she is not a celebrity and the nip slip happened somewhere, then who gives a shot to feast on the story?

    This is one price the celebrity has to pay being in the entertainment world.

DELIGHTING YET INTERESTING DEBATE

   

     When was the last time I participated in a formal debate?

     Whoa…that was in my college days complete with the podium and all. Vox populi was the name of our three-man team with half of the university’s population watching.

      Then came the informal debate which was organized by Sir Beav last Tuesday in our class.

      There were two topics.

       First.The best approach to reduce the negative impact of the rapid evolution of media: External body or self regulation (we argued for the self regulationJ)

       Second. Is Western media really that powerful?

       I can describe the informal debate experience as fun, informative and refreshing.

       It was fun because we enjoyed our arguments. There were no losers and winners. There were no huge crowd. In fact, we were only nine students participating in the informal debate. There were laughter and applause.

       Informative.We learn as we justified our stand. We also gathered some good points from the other side of the argument.

       Refreshing because it stimulates our mind. We sort of brushed up our memories about the topics discussed. It was indeed a stimulating discussion.

       With the informal debate in our class, I just realized that arguments from both sides in a debate can be easily comprehended if done with Sir Beav’s informal style minus the serious and feisty faces of the traditional debaters extremely pushing for what they stand.

      Just a wishful thinking. If only debates can be done with fun and laughter, not in a monotonous manner, and yet with informative and intelligent arguments, then the discussion would be inspiring and interesting.

     

SORRY SIGHT ON CYBERCRIMES!

SORRY SIGHT ON CYBERCRIMES!

The lecture of sir Beav last Tuesday about the issues on digitization zeroing in on cybercrime struck me for a reason. I want to share an experience depicting cybercrime, as an activity which is already being operated widely in our country by people who are sick and insane.

I tried to wind back my memories when I used to work as a hands on publicist (read: tagging along with the raiding team) of Bitag Live of Ben Tulfo where the program exposes illegal activities including cybercrime like cybersex.

Yap! While most of the people indulge themselves with the satisfaction and the support new media brings, there are also some users, majority of them are minors, who are willing victims of cybersex because of economical reason: the need to survive in this material world where having money means power to buy.

I had a chance to have a personal experience in hitting a cybercrime when I tagged along with the raiding team busting a cybersex den where I saw girls whom I think were in their adolescence stage strutting it out in front of the computer camera and monitor, fully naked. It was indeed a very sorry sight considering that these little girls were supposed to be in the schools busy with their academic lessons or perhaps in the streets playing with their buddies.

The evolution of technology is so fast and our lawmakers are just starting to study and enact laws in connection with the rapid scattering of illegal activities in cyber space.

With our experience mentioned above and considering the development of technology with great speed , can we still control and regulate the almost absolute freedom that we are experiencing in using the new media especially on illegal activities? 

   That is one question which is also a move to call the attention of our authorities to act on these cybercrimes rapidly so we can spare our children to become victims of this kind of criminal act in cyber space.

  It is also worthy to note how the Republic of China secure their cyberspace by putting up the Great Firewall of China. 

   The Republic of China struck a deal with Google in 2006 to have a search engine that have launched as an official Internet Service Provider that has a self-censorship which protects illegal and unnecessary content to the consideration of the country.

    In the protection of their country’s national security and threats, even cyber terrorism, China decided to build architecture of censorship and information control that can challenge and empower technology since it have been seen that China is a source of spam mails and a hub for ICT development.

     The internet censorship in Mainland China started when various threats were made, hence, a technology was introduced which controls and monitors the internet traffic. It also filters the system and tends to block out specific information or sites but this kind of technology in China didn’t stop from there and as the new technology evolves so does their restrictions. 

       Now, can our local officials policing our cyberspace do the same thing and have the will power to control our own local cybercrimes?

THE POWER OF GLOCALIZATION

BLOG
THE POWER OF "GLOCALIZATION"
     We cannot help but agree with how the alternative concept of appropriation radically changes the mind set of a certain group by "GLOCALIZING"  a certain product, meaning, bringing in foreign items from West to East, and in the process, letting the people consume the product which leads to eventually changing their traditional mind set because of the idea of "GLOCALIZATION".
     Being in the eastern part of the globe, we frequently emulate what the people in the western side are doing and that is because they already positioned themselves as the experts, thus, we have left no choice but to adapt the foreign symbols they established.
     FHM magazine was cited as an example in the last lecture that we had in sir Beav's class. This particular brand is widely popular in the West as a sexy men's magazine, showing a lot of skin, narrating wild sexy stories and even soliciting wild sexy pictures from the readers.
     Back in the Philippines, we used to have a mind set where narration of sexy stories in print were actually forbidden and considered as "low class", where posing seductively wearing almost nothing and having it printed and circulated publicly discriminates us in a group and where we feel humiliated when we have our own real sexy stories publicized.
     But with the "GLOCALIZATION" of FHM magazine, there was a sudden change of mind set and notion that the publication of sexy stories and showing a lot of skin among women are not actually bad and considered as "low class" if these are all in the pages of FHM mag.
     In fact, most of the peple believe that you have already reach a certain standard if you happen to be at the pages of FHM Magazine.
     This is a real and perfect example where "GLOCALIZATION", as one of the alternative concepts in advertising, affects the traditional mind set of a society. 
  

COMMERCIALISM VERSUS CREATIVE JUICES…

COMMERCIALISM VERSUS CREATIVE JUICES…

   Let’s talk about hyper-commercialism as one of the changes in media landscape.

   As sir Beav pointed out in his last lecture, hyper-commercialism is the combination of the media content and advertising messages. It can also mean as an aggressive advertising or using every space available as a medium for advertisement.

    But in the local filmdom, there is also a kind of hyper-commercialism which is now the usual practice in mainstream movies and indie films which is, of course, being tolerated by the producers ( more product appearance means the continuous ringing of the producer’s cash machine), but most of the time, it is not in line with the creative juices of the director and the scriptwriter. 

    Most of the movie goers notice this kind of advertising scheme and this is the ultimate example of hyper-commercialism in the local film industry.

    Take this movie for example.

     In one of the scenes of a Kris Aquino movie, have you noticed the location held at Goldilocks resto while she’s pulling all the mamons and ensaymadas for pasalubong? And the height of this kind of hyper-commercialism is the “Goldilocks pasalubong” magic words which were relentlessly inserted in her dialogue, thus, ruining the supposed-to-be melodramatic, tear jerking scene.

     Remember, Krissy is an endorser of the said resto.

     How about a Sharon Cuneta film when she served a glass of Nido to her kid in one of the scenes while discussing the importance of drinking milk before going to sleep?

     Yap, what the Megastar was saying in her dialogue may be true but the movie is not about the importance of milk. Remember, moviegoers are watching movies primarily to be entertained and not to be informed.

     Now, do you really think that these kinds of scenes are part of the movie? Nope, they are not.

     I remember when I had the chance to interview the critically acclaimed director Joel Lamangan about this matter and he was indeed saddened by this particular kind of advertising.

    For one, it is very tough to argue with the producer against inserting this kind of advertisement even if it is not in the script because this is one way of getting back the financier’s investment while messing up the creativity of the director but usually, it is the producer who usually wins the argument against the creative side.

     According to Direk Joel, considering the continuous slump in the movie industry, they have no choice but to compromise with the producer and the advertiser even if it is against their will. Direk Joel reasoned out that they also need to understand the need of the producer to earn and the need to produce more films to bring back the glory days of the local cinema.

     Now the question is, until when are we going to tolerate hyper-commercialism in the movies at the expense of the ingenuity and the inventiveness of the production side?

  

    

POWER IN COMMUNICATION…AMAZING!

  

     I ran in a little bit late for Sir Beaver’s class last Tuesday and while I was catching my breath from taking three steps at a time in the stairway going to the third floor, I was struck and got immediately interested with the initial discussion.

     I knew  from the start that it was a jump-off from last week’s discussion regarding Thompson’s various type of power.

     Sir Beaver was already discussing the third and the fourth type of power but of course, I gathered my notes and browsed to catch up with the first and second type of power so I could follow.

      Being in the mainstream media from the start of my working profession, I have already realized how vast the power of communication is and it is very interesting to think that we really need to communicate in order for us to perpetuate the various type of power, as per Thompson.

     Focusing on the Coercive type of power, we cannot help but give US army as perfect example because we always have the instant notion that American forces are one of the bests if not the supreme all over the world.

    Now, here is the question that I want to raise. Why most of us perceive the belief that Western armed forces are formidable and unbeatable?

   This impression is the product of long term stratcom plan to perpetuate their coercive power in the international circle.

    Communication experts use worldwide television and print to drumbeat America’s latest and high tech military gadgets, thus, intimidating other aggressive nation. Also, we should take note that in increasing differences among nations, US military force will always be in the middle of the conflict but communicators always make it to a point that in giving out photo releases, we can see that they are well equipped and are always ready whenever they are needed.

     This image using communication and media definitely perpetuate coercive power that the US forces want to project.

      Remember how US forces shot and eventually killed the elusive Osama Bin Laden after years of running after him?

      Communication experts carefully gave out releases and statements from the US military officials capitalizing on how the special squad systematically planned the whole thing, thus, recognizing US military power as one of the best.

THE CLAIM OF CAREY THAT TRANSMISSION VIEW IS THE MOST COMMON AND DOMINANT APPROACH IS NOT PERFECTLY CORRECT

        I would like to raise a note, with regards to Sir Beaver's discussion last June 26 in our Communication class, that a communicator can deliberately design his communication style in accordance to the view the receiver is going to perceive the message, whether it is transmission or ritual view, base from the readings coming from Carey (1989), about the two ways in understanding the field of communication.

       A communicator can create a distinct style of delivering a message in order for the receiver to view it as ritual.

      For instance, if the communicator wants to persuade the opinion of the message receiver, then one has to create a different kind of approach in creating a message, hence, deliberately producing the message in order to view it as ritual.

     But then, if the communicator just wants to send the message across the receiver in a very technical manner, then the communicator can deliberately create the message to have the receiver view it as transmission.

     If we notice the editorial notes of newspapers or the way columnists write their stories, it is very evident that the readers will initially view it as ritual for these are basically opinion articles.

     Opinion articles include sharing the writer’s idea or experience which can stimulate the interest of the reading individual. Editorializing a story can definitely solicit a reaction from anyone who has an interest to the article.

     According to Carey, ritual view should solicit participation and sharing of ideas which is exactly how opinion writers write their stories.

     On the other hand, a straight news in a newspaper is far different from an opinion column. Usually, a straight news includes the what, where, when, who and how of the story. Quotations from the subject and other participants can also be included.

     And when a receiver of the story reads a straight news coming from a newspaper, most probably, he will view it as transmission as the message was just basically sent to the receiving end and there is a little chance to view it as ritual because the story was not deliberately created to solicit opinion.

     With this discussion, perhaps the claim of Carey that transmission view is the most common and dominant approach is not exactly correct because ritual view is also prevailing depending upon the motive of the communicator.

      Ritual approach is also obviously dominant on persuasive speeches, speaking on a fellowship, PR or advertising campaigns wherein receivers of the messages are expected to participate and share.