Backtrack...I've got a new project.
Project Code: "HL"
Kind: Full-length
Position: Continuity
Location: The Gritty Side of Tondo
Big film. Big group. Big dreams. Compared to the last one.
I haven't had the chance to chronicle my daily adventures in the Bronks, but my incessant coughing and one-night-fevers reminded me to do just that...
First of all, if you've seen me before I started to work in this film which was around late January I bet you wouldn't recognize me now, or it'll take at least a second longer to do so. I'm burnt. You ask if I went to the beach? No, it's the Tondo tan!
Mention Tondo and you'll think of the siga, tattoos, and trash. Well the place is both underrated and overrated.
Although it is true that poop's everywhere in the Tambakan, (Beware of puffed-up plastic bags, step on one and you'll get a surprise gift) the smell's not that bad, what's worse is the black smoke you'd inhale from the Ulingan and from fumes of burnt plastic. I'm amazed that families can live right next to where they burn dead wood for charcoal. I'm not exactly a wheezer, hardly got sick when I was younger, but our first day in Ulingan got me dizzy and paper-white. Our LP and Director now makes sure we kids drink our vitamins everyday. (They once fed me 5 capsules in one sitting, imagine our vulnerability to sickness).
And I don't know if our Security, more commonly known as the Homeboys, is just effective but I haven't been stabbed nor harassed...so far *knock on wood*. A man once shouted at us for not getting permission for shooting in his turf, had a warning that one certain area had gang fights when the dark bites, and our PD thought she saw something like a dead man's bloody face in the mountain of trash, but no actual casualties. I don't discount the fact that the Bronks is not the safest place to strut your jewelry nor pick a fight, but not ALL areas are hot spots for guns and violence. Men covered with tattoos don't eat little children, they're Dad's ad Uncles who just drink a lot...unless you force them to draw their weapons that is.
I somehow got familiar to the place after more than a week of immersion, and I welcome the discoveries I have yet to encounter. Wag lang ma-gripuhan, keri lang.