Survivor: Capones Island
I was asked by my good friend and PD Trinka to be her costumer for a shoot with National Geographic in Pundaquit, Zambales. She briefed me on the matter in between shoots for a TVC that she was doing and I was doing another shoot for an AVP. I didn't know what to expect but I found myself back and forth in Divisoria, SM Harrison Plaza and SM Mall of Asia to source costumes and materials. I found myself a little stressed and very overwhelmed over making costumes for 27 Aetas since they would be having around 3 costume changes. It was a good thing my helpers were so enthusiastic in giving me a helping hand and in the end making most of the grass skirts while I made all the wood bark skirts and embellished everything else with shells. Trinka came over to do a costume check right before I went to the last day of the Gary V concert. We were stressing over the costumes since we didn't really know what to expect from the National Geographic guys. Anyway, we kept on making ourselves believe that it was an easy shoot. It would be like shoot then laze around the beach....
Day 1: Arrival and Ocular Inspection
Mang Rey comes over to my house to pick me up but Marco and Ekis (the setmen) were late. So we get to Trinka's place in Simoun St. and she's also late (I think due to Joc-joc Bolante over at the Batasan. The night before Enrile et al made a senate coup and ousted Villar as the Senate President). Trinka arrives super late and we head our to Mcdo for breakfast and then on to our Zambales adventure. We get lost several times, since Mang Rey isn't the best navigator. When we get to a certain point we went around in circles and had to wait for Henry (the Philippine "fixer" for the Nat Geo crew). Then we head on out to Megan's Resort which was going to be our home for the week. We get there around lunch time and we were told that we would be doing an ocular inspection at the other islands (so do not expect to eat lunch in a while). Oh yeah, I got to meet the crew. First was Isham, the consulting producer then Chad, the director, next was Jim the DP and Mike the AC. The last guy who both Trinka and I met for the first time was Rob the sound guy. I got them all confused for the first 2 days. Then we took a boat ride out to Capones Island, the sky was blue, the clouds were fat and the waves were boat friendly. I didn't know why but I was lagging behind most of the time and it's not as if I don't walk a lot or work out but I was too freaking slow that day. But then we trekked across the island and we were walking on sand with my havaiianas on and we did climb a hill. We then went to the next island which was Megan's cove and this was where they were deciding whether it would be a good idea to have one or two locations. We got back to the resort dinner time already, I'm sure the boys were as famished as we were. We were greeted by a cold lunch fare which consisted of Sinigang, pork chops and tangigue which were both hard as rocks! We were then off to bed in our shower-right-beside-the-lavatory of a bedroom.
Day 2: Prep Day.
Trinka leaves with the Nat Geo team for another ocular, while I get left behind to make some more loin cloth costumes. Mike and Rob get their big breakfast while the Aetas arrive. I spend a few shy moment with them and I learn so many new things like cooking rice inside bamboo, using pung-git leaves to protect yourself from rain and wetting dried wood bark to make a "bahag". Trinka and the Nat Geo team arrives lunch time and I discover I have to make burlap look like leather/animal skin. Good luck to us. Later in the afternoon the team decides to get their feet wet and start shooting some scenes. So they bring some of the costumes over and some of the Aetas out to Capones Island. RSVP Film crew arrives and is set to sleep over with their equipment over at Capones. We had a good dinner care of Inky, the Philippine producer who cooked for us. Then we were off to bed!
Day 3: First Actual Shooting Day
We wake up at around 430am because we decided that we will just take a shower when we come back from a long day of shoot. We head out to the beach and see that the weather has turned on us. The sky was grey and the clouds were thin, the waves were crashing. No banca would allow us to get to Capones Island. Trinka had to take charge and talk some of the smaller bancas to take us to our location. Finally, they agree to take me, Trinka and Manny the setman over to Capones this was around 8am which was 4 hours behind schedule. We wanted to land on the other end of the island where our first "location" was to be at but the waves were just too high, the beach too rocky and dangerous for us to land. We had to circle back to the original landing. So we get there and we trek to the other end of the island with all our things. When we get there the RS boys were already about to mutiny from hunger and thirst. They already walked across the island carry the jimmy jib and its counter weights. Trinka and I had to step up to be translators and assistant directors to the Aetas. How do you translate intense to an Aeta? HMMMMM... Anyway, we move on to the next location shoot till it was 5:30pm. Let me just explain for a bit that this was a deserted island, there were not bathrooms or even a man made shade. It was just an island with a hill and by the time it was 5:30pm it was too dark because there was no electricity. So Trinka told me that we would stay and I tried to argue. She convinced me if they Nat Geo team was staying we would have to suck it up and stay. I told her that we are girls are we deserve a normal bathroom not the wilderness. But she said she didn't want them to think that we were any less since we couldn't survive without the comforts of civilization and the producer Inky told us that it would be safer if we didn't ride the boat this late. We then trek back to the landing and we have dinner, after which we went back to the other side of the island holding hands feigning bravery. I told Trinka that we should just pick the farthest shed (which she made as part of the set) and as we were about to settle in, I see thing thing which reminded me of the spirit from "Spirited Away". It had that flat smiley face and it was wiggling it's small body and tail. (of course this was all in the darkness but starlit!) Trinka decides that it's a frog (I still think it's some weird creature) and we agree to sleep under the stars. So we spread her malong out as out mat and i have her another malong to use as a blanket and I have another as mine. We then walk to the shore and take our first leak of the day (UTI, HERE WE COME!) We walk back to our bed and Trinka then covers us with a mosquito net and I uncomfortably slip into a fitful sleep.
Day 4: Second Shoot Day
I wake up around 1:30am because I felt drops of water on my face. I pray that it disappears but before that I make Trinka promise me that we'll move to shelter. We then scoot to each other's butt to get more body heat because it was too damn cold out there. We wake up at around 530am because we had to make sure we woke up and did our business before the guys decide to move around. While we were walking to the shore, the American Consulting Producer Isham was following us, we stopped and he told us to get out of the 1st location of the day. SHEESH!!! We retreat to the bushes and I discovered that I have gotten my period. My beige shorts was drenched in blood. I had to try to wash the damn thing on the shore while trying not to be hit by the waves. It was a good thing that I had the Filipino producer's husband bring me a pack of sanitary pads and that I bought an extra pair of panties for the Aetas, which I all wore behind the bushes. Oh, I am not a poop in the wilderness virgin anymore! God just wanted me to do it all in one go during this trip. Man, that was an experience. Good thing, I packed 2 extra shirts the day before and I changed into that and strapped on the malong as a make shift skirt. On with day 2, we starting shooting early in the morning. I was starting to get pangs of dysmenorrhia but I had to suck it up and tried not to be a liability. Breakfast as usual came so late and the RS boys were acting up. I had told them several times not to make snide comments since the women had to take off their tops and they told me if they couldn't make comments to the Aetas they were going to direct it at me. Sexual Harassment! (Hay nako) By the time breakfast arrives, I go over and get my food and I look at the Aetas and ask the producer Inky if they Aetas have eaten. When she tells me that she hasn't asked, my stomach does a flip flop and I feel bile rising to my throat. I loose my appetite for breakfast. Trinka then finds out that the Aetas haven't eaten and just fell apart from the lack of sleep, frustration and the stress. I don't really want to get into details of that but I have never been to a shoot where the lead actors were made to cook their own food. And in order for them to make the early call, the Aetas weren't able to cook their food. Finally, we were done for the day and we all go back to Megan's! I was so happy to be back in our crappy resort, where even if the lavatory was right beside the shower at least we had them! I took a shower and lay down on the gross bed with our air conditioning in turbo cool. We then went for beers because even if it wasn't a wrap yet, we felt like the worse was over. I got a little tipsy but it was all good. Tomorrow was an additional shooting day but what the heck, we were just going to float a raft. Before we went to bed, I called it. I told Trinka, it would be a clear day with fat clouds, blue sky and calm waves.
Day 5: 2 1/2 Shooting day
True enough the Clouds were fat, the sky so blue and the waves at the bare minimum! We went over to Capones in high spirits. But we were shooting just the raft scene on open waters! So we were just on boats the whole time, roasting on the bancas. And eventually getting seasick from the wait. I head that Jim, the DP almost fell into the open water with his steady cam on and that Mike had a hard time making the scuba gear work. After hours of shooting, Chad the director finally calls it a day and gives the island one last shot from the boat and as if on cue, it starts drizzling. We head back to the Megan's resort, have lunch, a beer, take some pictures with our new friends and wait for Henry (the producer's husband and 2nd fixer) to pay for everyone. Then we head back home back to our normal lives.
Day 1: Arrival and Ocular Inspection
Mang Rey comes over to my house to pick me up but Marco and Ekis (the setmen) were late. So we get to Trinka's place in Simoun St. and she's also late (I think due to Joc-joc Bolante over at the Batasan. The night before Enrile et al made a senate coup and ousted Villar as the Senate President). Trinka arrives super late and we head our to Mcdo for breakfast and then on to our Zambales adventure. We get lost several times, since Mang Rey isn't the best navigator. When we get to a certain point we went around in circles and had to wait for Henry (the Philippine "fixer" for the Nat Geo crew). Then we head on out to Megan's Resort which was going to be our home for the week. We get there around lunch time and we were told that we would be doing an ocular inspection at the other islands (so do not expect to eat lunch in a while). Oh yeah, I got to meet the crew. First was Isham, the consulting producer then Chad, the director, next was Jim the DP and Mike the AC. The last guy who both Trinka and I met for the first time was Rob the sound guy. I got them all confused for the first 2 days. Then we took a boat ride out to Capones Island, the sky was blue, the clouds were fat and the waves were boat friendly. I didn't know why but I was lagging behind most of the time and it's not as if I don't walk a lot or work out but I was too freaking slow that day. But then we trekked across the island and we were walking on sand with my havaiianas on and we did climb a hill. We then went to the next island which was Megan's cove and this was where they were deciding whether it would be a good idea to have one or two locations. We got back to the resort dinner time already, I'm sure the boys were as famished as we were. We were greeted by a cold lunch fare which consisted of Sinigang, pork chops and tangigue which were both hard as rocks! We were then off to bed in our shower-right-beside-the-lavatory of a bedroom.
Day 2: Prep Day.
Trinka leaves with the Nat Geo team for another ocular, while I get left behind to make some more loin cloth costumes. Mike and Rob get their big breakfast while the Aetas arrive. I spend a few shy moment with them and I learn so many new things like cooking rice inside bamboo, using pung-git leaves to protect yourself from rain and wetting dried wood bark to make a "bahag". Trinka and the Nat Geo team arrives lunch time and I discover I have to make burlap look like leather/animal skin. Good luck to us. Later in the afternoon the team decides to get their feet wet and start shooting some scenes. So they bring some of the costumes over and some of the Aetas out to Capones Island. RSVP Film crew arrives and is set to sleep over with their equipment over at Capones. We had a good dinner care of Inky, the Philippine producer who cooked for us. Then we were off to bed!
Day 3: First Actual Shooting Day
We wake up at around 430am because we decided that we will just take a shower when we come back from a long day of shoot. We head out to the beach and see that the weather has turned on us. The sky was grey and the clouds were thin, the waves were crashing. No banca would allow us to get to Capones Island. Trinka had to take charge and talk some of the smaller bancas to take us to our location. Finally, they agree to take me, Trinka and Manny the setman over to Capones this was around 8am which was 4 hours behind schedule. We wanted to land on the other end of the island where our first "location" was to be at but the waves were just too high, the beach too rocky and dangerous for us to land. We had to circle back to the original landing. So we get there and we trek to the other end of the island with all our things. When we get there the RS boys were already about to mutiny from hunger and thirst. They already walked across the island carry the jimmy jib and its counter weights. Trinka and I had to step up to be translators and assistant directors to the Aetas. How do you translate intense to an Aeta? HMMMMM... Anyway, we move on to the next location shoot till it was 5:30pm. Let me just explain for a bit that this was a deserted island, there were not bathrooms or even a man made shade. It was just an island with a hill and by the time it was 5:30pm it was too dark because there was no electricity. So Trinka told me that we would stay and I tried to argue. She convinced me if they Nat Geo team was staying we would have to suck it up and stay. I told her that we are girls are we deserve a normal bathroom not the wilderness. But she said she didn't want them to think that we were any less since we couldn't survive without the comforts of civilization and the producer Inky told us that it would be safer if we didn't ride the boat this late. We then trek back to the landing and we have dinner, after which we went back to the other side of the island holding hands feigning bravery. I told Trinka that we should just pick the farthest shed (which she made as part of the set) and as we were about to settle in, I see thing thing which reminded me of the spirit from "Spirited Away". It had that flat smiley face and it was wiggling it's small body and tail. (of course this was all in the darkness but starlit!) Trinka decides that it's a frog (I still think it's some weird creature) and we agree to sleep under the stars. So we spread her malong out as out mat and i have her another malong to use as a blanket and I have another as mine. We then walk to the shore and take our first leak of the day (UTI, HERE WE COME!) We walk back to our bed and Trinka then covers us with a mosquito net and I uncomfortably slip into a fitful sleep.
Day 4: Second Shoot Day
I wake up around 1:30am because I felt drops of water on my face. I pray that it disappears but before that I make Trinka promise me that we'll move to shelter. We then scoot to each other's butt to get more body heat because it was too damn cold out there. We wake up at around 530am because we had to make sure we woke up and did our business before the guys decide to move around. While we were walking to the shore, the American Consulting Producer Isham was following us, we stopped and he told us to get out of the 1st location of the day. SHEESH!!! We retreat to the bushes and I discovered that I have gotten my period. My beige shorts was drenched in blood. I had to try to wash the damn thing on the shore while trying not to be hit by the waves. It was a good thing that I had the Filipino producer's husband bring me a pack of sanitary pads and that I bought an extra pair of panties for the Aetas, which I all wore behind the bushes. Oh, I am not a poop in the wilderness virgin anymore! God just wanted me to do it all in one go during this trip. Man, that was an experience. Good thing, I packed 2 extra shirts the day before and I changed into that and strapped on the malong as a make shift skirt. On with day 2, we starting shooting early in the morning. I was starting to get pangs of dysmenorrhia but I had to suck it up and tried not to be a liability. Breakfast as usual came so late and the RS boys were acting up. I had told them several times not to make snide comments since the women had to take off their tops and they told me if they couldn't make comments to the Aetas they were going to direct it at me. Sexual Harassment! (Hay nako) By the time breakfast arrives, I go over and get my food and I look at the Aetas and ask the producer Inky if they Aetas have eaten. When she tells me that she hasn't asked, my stomach does a flip flop and I feel bile rising to my throat. I loose my appetite for breakfast. Trinka then finds out that the Aetas haven't eaten and just fell apart from the lack of sleep, frustration and the stress. I don't really want to get into details of that but I have never been to a shoot where the lead actors were made to cook their own food. And in order for them to make the early call, the Aetas weren't able to cook their food. Finally, we were done for the day and we all go back to Megan's! I was so happy to be back in our crappy resort, where even if the lavatory was right beside the shower at least we had them! I took a shower and lay down on the gross bed with our air conditioning in turbo cool. We then went for beers because even if it wasn't a wrap yet, we felt like the worse was over. I got a little tipsy but it was all good. Tomorrow was an additional shooting day but what the heck, we were just going to float a raft. Before we went to bed, I called it. I told Trinka, it would be a clear day with fat clouds, blue sky and calm waves.
Day 5: 2 1/2 Shooting day
True enough the Clouds were fat, the sky so blue and the waves at the bare minimum! We went over to Capones in high spirits. But we were shooting just the raft scene on open waters! So we were just on boats the whole time, roasting on the bancas. And eventually getting seasick from the wait. I head that Jim, the DP almost fell into the open water with his steady cam on and that Mike had a hard time making the scuba gear work. After hours of shooting, Chad the director finally calls it a day and gives the island one last shot from the boat and as if on cue, it starts drizzling. We head back to the Megan's resort, have lunch, a beer, take some pictures with our new friends and wait for Henry (the producer's husband and 2nd fixer) to pay for everyone. Then we head back home back to our normal lives.