Friday, April 11, 2014

CEBUANA 'FAMILY RE-MEET'


It wasn't the idea I was told to recommend, but it was the idea my team and I believed in. Because it was real. And in its real-ness, a rare opportunity to truly help people and touch lives.

And so on that hot and humid afternoon, in the middle of Bizu Rockwell, in front of the media guys and to clients, I sold the idea. And in the months leading to its airing, I kept the original idea sold, despite the strongest threats of compromise and temptation to go 'the easy route' of doing re-enactments instead of filming the real thing - 'because clients are upset about why it's so difficult,' I was told by the Suits. I remember screaming in the middle of the open-plan office about how I was not going to compromise the effort with talents and re-enactments. Doing it for real was simply a non-negotiable. And everyone delivered.

When you have something special in your hands, you just know it. We were all squeezed into a little ante-room the size of a hotel bathroom. All of us - agency, client, producer, director, line producer, executive producer, with the multiple screens to monitor each of the six cameras hidden within the Cebuana branch. And after every filming, we got out of the room in tears. 'It isn't every day that we're able to do this job of ours and really help,' I told the kids, 'So remember this day, and remember this project, because it's special.'

A few months later, when it won silver Spikes, and a few months after that, when it won the Grande Lotus Roots at the Asian Adfest, I was just glad the jury saw what we knew from the start.

I thank these special people most - the sisters from Leyte, the father and son from Sultan Kudarat, the mother, her grandson and her son from Dubai - for filling our hearts with deep joy while doing this project. Truly one of my most memorable. 

As one of the Adfest judges said, 'This is what it's all about.'

1 Silver, 2013 SPIKES
1 Grande Lotus Roots, 2014 ASIAN ADFEST
2 Silvers, 2014 ASIAN ADFEST

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