The Sining Lahi Polyrepertory Alumni Association
presents
CONNECT: A Lockdown Anthology
Written, Edited and Directed by Crisanto Aquino.
To watch and follow the social media accounts:
Facebook Instagram YouTube Twitter
Sining-Lahi Polyrertory is the resident theater group of PUP, I am their alumnus. This was founded on July 29, 1981 while the Alumni Association was founded on 2019 only.
Together in collaboration with other alumni members, we thought of creating something in the middle of this unproductive series of the life due to the covid-19 pandemic, then CONNECT was born. It’s a four-story ( TALK, SAYING GOODBYE, HELLO MARS, KUPS) in which the 4th story KUPS has 3 episodes. It’s 6 episodes all in all.
EPISODE 1: TALK
Genre: Romance
Language: Filipino
Duration: 11:10 mins
Cast: Stefano Perez and Cath Go
It’s a story between Stefano and Cathrine who’s relationship is challenged due to lockdown and will try to survive inspite of their physical absences.
EPISODE 2: SAYING GOODBYE
Genre: Family Drama
Language: Filipino with English sub
Duration: 18: 16 mins
Cast: Ferdie Aboga, Jonah Lizardo, Paul Jake Paule, Nis Obispo, Maria Alilia Bagio (Mosang)
Three conflicted siblings will re-connect thru online call to see their dying mother for the last time as she suffers from COVID-19.
EPISODE 3: HELLO, MARS!
Genre: Horror-Comedy
Language: Filipino with English sub
Duration: 14:30 mins
Cast: Sandy Moreno and Bj Ocampo
A frontliner goes home alone and calls his besfriend and lover to accompany him as he scares himself due to the death of his lola recently.
EPISODE 4: KUPS ( with 3 espisodes)
Genre: BL
Cast: Akie Castillo and Markel Gamboa
As Francis tries to finish his song thru the help of his best friend Topper, they will both realize that the song mirrors their kind of relationship. Are they willing to cross the boundary from being best of friends to lovers?
Each episode has 8-12minutes running time and all were recorded thru zoom conversation. All the actors from this series are alumni members of Sining Lahi Polyrepertory.
Crisanto Aquino wrote all the scripts, directed and edited it. He had a hard time to direct when your actors are on screen and you can’t touch them and internet connection of each participants are also factors. Sometimes they wait until the connection of internet becomes stable. One of the challenges also was the device being used by the actors, some device has low camera quality and they need to just deal with it, even the aspect ratio of laptop and cellphone are different from each other. Even the actual house of each actors becomes the actual set so sometimes they will find the most interesting background so they can finalize their angle.
But the most challenging part from Crisanto is editing. When you record thru zoom, it will be boxes of videos and black background. So he need to recreate an interesting background and lay-out. Through the help of Jerrold Tarog, Vanessa De Leon and Benjamin Tolentino and Julius Alfonso, he conquered his insecurities in editing. Jerrold suggested an editing software, Vanessa taught him how to cut some clip effectively, Ben commented on some off beat cut and titles and Julius commented more on the acting of the actors.
He also have 2 original songs created for Connect. The first one is for KUPS entitled “Mahal Kasi Kita” performed by Mike Villamor, he wrote it and his musician friend Bus Kee put some melody on it. They recorded it through the help pf Immanuel Verona. The 2nd one is “Ikaw lang ang mamahalin” for TALK composed and performed also by Bus Kee.
No one involved in this series was paid in any amount. They just asked if they want to participate and wait for yes or no. All of these are products of LOVE. Our mission is for ourselves to be productive and also to inspire more people to create something or anything despite the pandemic and also give them relatable stories that can give them hope that all this shall pass through.
Let this pandemic not become a reason for us to stop from creating. Let’s use it to be more creative and productive.
