I HAVE acted as extras in several indie films before, mostly directed by my filmmaker friends. The more recent extra roles I played were as a chauffeur in Bagane Fiola’s “Sonata Maria,” a tea-drinking politician in Teng Mangansakan’s “Moro2mrw Book 2” and just last March, I played a Japanese tourist in Charliebeb Gohetia’s dystopian drama, “Winters of May.”
Recently I got a chance to work in a teleserye. The GMA started shooting their new primetime series “I Heart Davao,” which stars real-life couple Carla Abellana and Tom Rodriguez alongside Ricardo Cepeda, Benjamin Alves, Betong Sumaya and Maey Bautista.
Directing the series is film and TV director Marlon Rivera, who is known for his film "Ang Babae sa Septic Tank" while the teleserye scriptwriter is no other than Chris Martinez, who penned several critically-acclaimed movies and television series.
It was a surprise as I hadn’t auditioned for the show though I half-kidded to the local talent coordinator if I could appear as an extra, perhaps part of the crowd.
Though Davao had an active filmmaking movement and a small television industry, where it had a small available pool of ready talents, the manpower requirements of "I Heart Davao" for local talents was huge, particularly for middle-aged characters.
Filling in part of the requirement for extras was the film acting workshop held last April, which was conducted by the Mindanao Film and Television Development Foundation, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Film Development Council of the Philippines and the Philippine Information Agency where participants were mentored by veteran actor Mon Confiado and filmmaker Benjie Garcia.
Several of the film acting workshop attendees got roles in the teleserye mostly playing as cacao farmers.
The teleserye revolves around a cacao farm in Davao being run by the family of Ponce played by Tom Rodriguez and the family of a Manila-girl named Hope played by Carla Abellana, who plans to buy the cacao farm.
The series actually puts the spotlight on the thriving Cacao/chocolate industry in Davao. Aside from Malagos farm, the teleserye takes viewers to various tourists’ spots in Davao like the white water river rafting in Calinan, the Matina Town Square, Aldevinco, Waterfront Hotel and many others.
So how did I get the role? It started with an early Saturday morning call from local indie film actor Ferdinand Mesias and Jeff Sabayle, who are part of the local cast in the teleserye. They were looking for an extra for the day’s scenes.
And that Saturday was one of the few times, my weekend was vacant so I freed the day up and went to the shooting location at the Puentespina cacao Farm in Malagos. When I was fetched at the meeting point, I was given a script.
Lo and behold what I thought was just a walk-through character or part-of-the-crowd role was actually a speaking role with four sequences or scenes. I play some sort of a construction foreman employed by Ponce for a building.
I would be exchanging dialogues with Tom Rodriguez and Joel Saracho, a noted veteran theater actor. There was little time to prepare for the scenes and I had to memorize my lines in a jiff. Plus, the shooting of the sequences were consecutively done.
Fortunately a teleserye shoot had an easygoing vibe, it was act and react thing. I would say my lines, Tom or Joel would reply and I would reply with my line. The jitters of working with two acting professionals was replaced with a sense of pride that I was able to adequately play out my part.
We just shot three sequences out of the four but these sequences would be pivotal in the teleserye, which was a worthwhile experience. Plus I received praises from my impromptu performance as an actor which was not expected, though I would admit the experience in working in film and video productions where we would multi-task which include being actors in the video we produced helped me a lot in controlling on-camera jitters.
The local actors also did very well considering some of them were working in several local indie films like Jeff Sabayle, Ferdinand Mesias, Christine Lim, Chona Ongkingco, the other bevy of local support actors also did well which would raise hopes of having an expanded pool of acting talents for future film and television productions.
I am hoping that there would be more films and teleseryes that would be shot and produced here in Davao City but before that can be realized, an adequate pool of actors/actresses must be trained not just in acting competency but also in the protocol in working for established productions.
I Heart Davao was announced to be shown this June and is a primetime teleserye on GMA.