PLEASING

Hits and misses are part of the deal when you are making films. There will be films that you will be able to please a general audience and there will be the ones that do not please the audience at all or only a small consensus. Does a filmmaker need to please the audience? Yes to a certain extent but one should not make a film with the audience in mind first. You, the filmmaker should be that specific audience first and foremost.

Funny thing that happened to me is the films that I did it out of the enjoyment of making films are the ones that clicked with the audience and the one that I poured my life in making it, audience tended to be confused. Where did I go wrong? Or... where did I go right? Right or wrong cannot be summed into this scenario as everything is part of the larger journey that I have to go through.

Each project that I do, I feel that I am evolving to be a better filmmaker. Better filmmaker? I guess that is my justification but I do feel it. Others might think that my later works are getting too anti-narrative that they don't make sense anymore. I have to concur to that all my works are of narrative nature and the only difference is that I am challenging myself to step out of the conventional approach and to experiment with other modes of presentation, for example; the usage of sound as a primary source of information rather than just a supportive source.

All my works are done while I am at that particular state of mind of the period. What I am capturing is where that state of mind is at that time and by making films outwardly, I am learning inwardly of myself.

EXIT was done because I wanted to prove that I am a versatile filmmaker. KILLERVATOR was done to fulfill the earlier unfinished KILLERVATOR that I did two years prior to the one that exists today and I wanted to have fun doing it. CHOICE is to voice out my concern over identity. ECHOES is about the guilt of adultery and the loss of a child. TRUE is about melodrama of young love.

Who am I pleasing? In all fairness, both myself and the audience, I hope. (Fairness exists only in human logics. Human wants justice and fairness to things and events. In the real world, that is not applicable.) By first pleasing myself, I hope I can then please the audience. You have to look into yourself first and use that as the yardstick before you venture out.