Animahenasyon Naga Edition

Just got off from ACPI’s Naga-leg series of Animahenasyon 2007 which featured Ronnie del Carmen [Wikipedia on Ronnie here] of Pixar Animation Studios, one of few Filipinos who made it in Hollywood (with an Emmy, Annie and Eisner statue to his pocket) as main speaker. As Fr. Dan Isidro of Ateneo de Naga University puts it “get ready to be inspired, to be awed” and true I (and about 200 or more people mostly students) was in for a great ride, the whole lecture was more of  storytelling and he’s (that!) good, no wonder he has the best job in the world.

Photo http://blackwingdiaries.blogspot.com

Really good story no matter how simple or how ordinary it is if you can pass it and tell it the way people wanted it is the very core of any successful full-length or animated film.

Few personal insights I’ve learned.

1. Tell/share your stories no matter how simple it may be. Because even if you’re not here anymore it will remain to people you’ve shared it with.
2. Learn to be a very good listener
3. Always get others opinion and love what you’re doing.

Fr. Dan raised an issue that despite having many good writers they cannot sell their stories. I guess the answer would be is how good is it, one occurrence though I would like to see is the resurrection of local comics industry who died decades ago, I grew up on it and it’s a simple and effective way of storytelling and dig up someone’s visual creativity at least for aspiring students of Ateneo de Naga, UNC or PCFC who dreams of breaking into animation world.

As finale, he showed animated short 2D titled “Ulan” a simple story about his personal experience during his childhood on a rainy day, no dialogue just musical score and the movie was visually stunning, I was sitting last row, neck high.

Links of some Pinoy animators who’s on top of their game in the US: Finding Nelson Bohol on Global Pinoy site; Filipinos on Top of Hollywood Animation from Asian Journal

 

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Cracking down on plastic bags

photo from http://www.aolcdn.com/

A concern look for a person who walks everyday from office to home as you notice speck of plastic litter sprawled placidly over gutters and sidewalks at major street here waiting for cleaners. An environmental plea if not controlled can be an environmental plague comes a time when we ran out of landfill, still, this needs serious consideration and the city council should look into not just now. I don’t see Nagueños and business sector not cooperating, what we need is honest-to-goodness implementation and monitoring, and despite not having statistics I can be sure that the biggest occupant of Balatas landfill are plastic-made products.

Do we need facts kept on staring at us everyday to be really convinced? Rob Krebs says that “Every piece of litter has a human face behind it. If they are harm to the environment in terms of visual blight, then people need to stop littering”.

20-plus years ago we’re so much better, we’re more disciplined then every time we go to market we needed our bayong. Now every sari-sari store, super mart and mall issue plastic shopping (sando) bags so much for convenience. Imagine how many people stop and buy and not dare recycle it. We need a stop with this norm! Last month Santa Barbara, Iloilo became the first LGU in the country to ban plastic bags, I also post a similar reaction [here] before the TV news came about.

How do we go about it?

It’s not even a difficult question and not impossible to do. Start with super mart (LCC, Robertson, E-Mall, Cabral, etc.) come up with action to reduce plastic shopping bags and see if it ripples down. I see our vision of a Green Naga despite many trees re-planted not complete if we keep ignoring the call, habang kaya ta pa the solution to the plastic bag litter is to change people, not the product.