An Interview with Paolo Dy
May 31, 2007
Paolo Dy is the mastermind behind the short film suspense-thriller titled "QWERTY" which is featured on the site "On the Lot"
Background and about yourself:
So what was your background like? Did you go to a film school? If so how did you like it?
I didn't start out in a full-time film school; I graduated with degrees that were just about as far from film as you can get (Management Engineering and Economics) haha. But my film education started in college, or rather, in the DORM of Ateneo. There was one summer when I borrowed my dad's video camera, and with the help of a bargain-basement rinky-dink editing card (that would only do 320×240 video at 15 frames per second) I and my friends would do our own little music videos and short films. We'd also do some small ads for the dorm resident's association and so on.
One of my friends was studying to be a priest at the time; he showed my work to Fr. Johnny Go of the Jesuit Communications Foundation, and that's how I got my first professional job as an editor.
Afterwards I sought out every chance to study the craft. I burned through every book about filmmaking that I could get my hands on. I soon moved up from editing to directing (I still believe that all directors should start out as editors!) and worked on a number of corporate and music videos.
I had a short stint as a director in one of the major networks, but I was frustrated by the experience — I had a pretty recalcitrant crew and they just wouldn't follow some of my instructions, claiming some technical issue or another. I don't know how much of that was motivated by the old-timers being stubborn and sticking to what's worked for them before, and how much was because I was a young wet-behind-the-ears whipper-snapper director who didn't know their jargon and thus couldn't communicate to them in their own language.
That's when I decided to study cinematography — I didn't want any cameramen or lighting crew giving me any more mumbo-jumbo excuses that I wouldn't be able to refute. I joined a workshop on film and commercial lighting given by renowned cinematographer Roberto "Boy" Yniguez, who later invited me to apprentice under him. It's safe to say that I'll always owe 98% of what I know about cinematography to this genius.
I was also fortunate enough to have been able to study under some world-famous cinematographers in New York and Rockport, Maine, under the International Cinematographers Guild and Rockport Film Workshops. The instructors were members of the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers (those guys who have "A.S.C." next to their name in Hollywood film credits) — Declan Quinn ASC, Fred Elmes ASC (Eraserhead, The Hulk), Freddie Murphy ASC, Barry Markowitz ASC (Sling Blade), Steven Fierberg ASC (Secretary, Entourage), and Jacek Laskus, ASC (The Whole Shebang). It was fascinating to see how they approached lighting challenges and learn about how they prep for a feature film.
Today I'm usually busy with a mix of projects: commercials, music videos, corporate work. I rarely do TV though.
What was your first film? (you have links for it?)
My first short film was 'MIKO', which starred Sam Concepcion and his dad Raymond. You can find it on my website, www.paolody.com 
'MIKO' was screened at the 2006 Cinemanila International Film Festival, and won First Place at the Bogen-Manfrotto Short Film Competition in New York
When did you conceptualize the film? What inspired you?
I got the idea for 'QWERTY' about five years ago. I had seen some sort of article or news segment about a man (I think he was handicapped somehow) whose hobby was typewriter art. He'd hold a piece of paper loosely in the typewriter spool, type one letter, then move the paper again and repeat.
I was amazed at the products of his work, they were really beautiful. I then wondered, "What if someone had the ability to do this, but on a much larger, multi-page scale?"
And then it hit me that if there was such an artist, and if someone came by who wasn't familiar with his art form and saw one page of it, that person wouldn't understand what was on that one piece of paper; he'd think it was random garbage. And that's where the idea for 'QWERTY' came from.
What was your budget?
It's hard to pin down a real budget because a lot of things we were able to get free or at a large discount; donations and support from our suppliers and the people we do a lot of work with. (I was so thrilled at how generous people were, they're a huge part of why we were able to pull this off).
If you budget this at commercial rates (which are obviously higher than film or TV rates) you can probably say that QWERTY cost upwards of PHP 300,000.
This looks like it was shot in digital video, are you comfortable with this format? Because many older filmmakers seem to cling on film, this seems very progressive of you as a film maker.
Oh, I believe any true filmmaker will shoot with whatever's given to him. I love film, make no mistake, it's still the best-quality origination format, bar none. But digital's edge is its immediacy and convenience; it's pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get. After shooting you can pop your data cards into the computer and start editing right away.
The tradeoff is that you don't get the resolution and lens characteristics that film offers; there's still nothing like the look of a great 35mm prime lens like a Cooke S4 or Zeiss Ultra Prime.
What's great nowadays is that the quality of digital origination has improved drastically in the past few years, and the cost has plummeted significantly. It's really hard now to justify a 16mm shoot, when HD is so available and easy to use nowadays.
But again, bottom line, you will shoot what you have to shoot. Between shooting digital and not shooting at all, you *will* shoot digital.
Any behind-the-scenes stories that you would like to share?
Oh, not much, except that every actor, crew and staff member was absolutely, positively professional all the way. We shot QWERTY in just one 24-hour day, because we had some technical issues with the camera that had to be sorted out. But everyone just stood by the project and saw it through to completion. I'm very proud of everyone on the team.
The lighting on this scene is really good compared to other Filipino films, any comments on why is that?
Thank you for the compliment! I'd like to think it's because I took the approach of lighting digital to look like film. This is different from lighting digital the same way you light film, which won't work because digital's latitude is far narrower than film's.
Lighting digital requires much softer light sources, and a little bit of post-production filtration and softening to take the edge off and get the warmth of film. In a big way lighting digital is actually harder than lighting for film; film is far more forgiving of slight exposure errors.
What software packages did you use for editing and post-processing?
Final Cut Pro for editing, and After Effects for some minor 2D effects.
Did you use any of the shelf sound effects on this film or purely made by the sound designers?
Our sound designer Jasper Perez has his own arsenal of sounds; I'm sure he uses a combination of stock and proprietary sound effects and just mixes the all together untill you don't know where one ends and the other begins I love his work, it's a form of alchemy.
There was a part where Benny is seen through a television, was that done on the set of part of the post-processing?
Yes, that was the easiest way to do that scene.
On the scene where the doctor presents the typewriter to Atty. Ortega, was the flickering scene was meant to be flickering lights?
Actually, that was partly an accident. The 12K HMI light was showing a bit of flickering, and we were thinking about whether to replace it or not. Ultimately, we all agreed that the effect actually enhanced the eerie and uncomfortable mood of the film, so in violation of practically every cinematographic tenet we knew, we kept the flickering. I love how it looks in the final film.
About Philippine Films and TV:
What do you think today's Filipino films and TV?
I think that while we still have a long way to go before we catch up with the best in the world, these are exciting times for Filipino cinema and television. The digital revolution is well upon us, and this has led to the empowerment of younger and newer directors and filmmakers with new ideas and styles. What's needed now is a movement towards better writing, better acting, better filmmaking overall; we should try to uphold much higher standards of quality in every field.
The enemy is always the phrase "pwede na."
Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate the challenges that the current crop of filmmakers and television producers face: shrinking budgets, network corporate demands, the star-dominated tastes of the Filipino audience. But they should remember that throughout film and TV history, the biggest hits have been those that buck the trends. STAR WARS was not expected to be a hit, because sci-fi films were not in vogue at the time, and because anything with the word 'WAR' in it was almost taboo.
I think it takes some amount of creative risk-taking on the part of the powers that be to shake the status quo. It's a gamble, always, but again, the greatest film producers of all time were known to gamble on their gut feel about what makes a great movie.
I still believe it takes just one great film — that breaks all these rules and makes a massive killing at the box office — to send the entire cinema industry flying off on a totally new and better tangent.
Current Filipino TV/Films seems to be overdoing the blue/green screen compositing and this makes the quality suffer, you yourself where do you think they are headed?
Green-screen compositing is just a technique, by itself it won't determine whether your film is good or bad.
But any technique when badly done will distract your viewer and make your film look cheap.
I feel for our special-effects compositors on local shows; you won't believe what kind of pressure they're under. They have to produce in mere days what a Hollywood team five times their size will take four weeks to do. Of course their output isn't going to be as clean or as slick as the ultra-high-budget foreign stuff. They try, God knows they try.
Any comment on lackluster quality of film and TV today?
When we talk about quality, we always have to ask what standard we're using to measure quality. If you hold local shows up to the standard set by big LA productions like LOST or HOUSE or HEROES or GRAY'S ANATOMY or any of the hits on TV today, well of course the local shows will look dismal by comparison.
Bottom line, everything comes down to either SKILL or BUDGET. I believe we have the skills, but sadly we don't seem to have the budget to get terrific shows together. Why? Because our economy can't support it. We make films and tv shows only for Filipino audiences, and that audience doesn't have the kind of purchasing power that a US or European audience has. Therefore advertisers won't spend as much to sell to them, and therefore show budgets certainly won't be as huge as American shows have.
One thing we certainly should try to improve: the writing. Writing is the single biggest determinant of a show's quality.
A new breed of Filipino film makers seem to be gaining ground on independent films, instead of studio produce shows, why do you think so?
They have more freedom. They're not bound by commercial concerns, like the requirement of putting in a "star".
The Future:
Do you have any future films in the works?
We're working on a couple of feature-length projects, yes. I'll be sure to keep you posted on these when they move forward.
Would you like to give us some hints about it (them)?
Well, one is a ensemble comedy, and the other is turning into an epic production; don't expect us to come out with it for a year or two, that's how big it is haha
I would like to thank Mr. Dy for doing this interview!
As for QWERTY fans, I'm sure it's disappointing that he was left out, but here's a letter from Paolo and his team to the fans
