Pelikula Q&A: My Paranormal Romance An interview...

Pelikula Q&A: My Paranormal Romance
An interview with director Victor Villanueva by Jansen Musico

A paranormal romcom… Have you seen Joyce Bernal’s D’Anothers?

I haven’t seen that one yet, but mine is in Cebuano. [Laughs]

Why make a romantic comedy for your first feature?

Well I’m very comfortable with romcoms. I’m a big fan of cheesy movies, and I think it’s important for a first timer to be comfortable with the genre he’s tackling.

Why add a paranormal twist to the story?

[In] the early drafts of the story, MPR was actually a light drama with horror elements… I was kind of uncomfortable with the horror bits. I just kept laughing at the thought of myself handling horror. But then I re-studied the script, and somehow another story grew from it. So in a way, I kind of challenged myself by melding horror and comedy.

And I like the idea of having my main character, who is very brainy, be challenged by illogical things like the paranormal. When you get to know it, the paranormal can be very normal. And yeah, I kind of like to add comedy to the usual white lady and kapre.

Comedy is fairly difficult to pull off for a first-time filmmaker. Do you think you handled the movie well enough for it to be funny?

Well, I’m not sure how to answer this pa, but we were having so much fun in making the movie, so I’m curious, and kind of nervous about the humor of my movie. There’s a lot of Cebuano humor going on, so I hope ma-gets lang. So far, my shorts and viral videos seem to be funny, like the hit pre-nup wedding video I did on Youtube, When Mary Met Guido.

Since the movie deals with romance and relationships, are there any parts of it that were inspired by your personal experiences?

Well in a way, I made this film in the phase of me moving on in life. Moving on deals with a lot of changes, and so I thought what if those changes were things you wouldn’t normally understand? [It’s] like the paranormal. Moving on is about knowing and accepting things.

Love and studies come into play in your plot. Personally, what do you think is more important between the two?

Science tells us that the heart is never right… because it’s on the left. But sometimes you just got to follow your heart, and only then will you know if it is right. So I guess a right balance of both.

You collaborated with Diem Judilla in writing the screenplay. What was your creative process in coming up with whimsical stuff like killer refs and random rabbits?

We collaborated before for my short film Saranghae, My Tutor, set in Cebu. It’s about an ESL teacher who falls in love with his Korean student. It was a very funny short film. I was amazed by Diem for being able to write really fast and have very humorous ideas. I can’t write to save my life, and if I do, ang daming wrong spelling at “grammers.” [Laughs]

Diem is very down to earth and very open. He’s a talented writer. He saved my life when it came to scriptwriting. Diem would often fit the stories he writes to my style and aesthetics. I’m a very big fan of Mel Brooks, Japanese movies and animé, and he knows me as a person, as a very funny kind of guy.

For Cinema one, he had this script which I submitted for our second collaboration. The writing process was really fun. I just talked, and he wrote it all down. I was even more impressed that he also shared and threw out his ideas, which added a lot to the screenplay.

What was the trickiest thing you had to do throughout the whole production of this film?

A lot! First was, I underestimated my script. It’s so production and prop heavy, every scene, costume change… The second was the visual effects. We could’ve already started with the VFX parts if we finished early on our shoot, which brings us to the third [problem]. Binaha ang set namin ng bongga.

We were in the middle of shooting when the water came dashing towards our set. We had to evacuate quickly. I and some of the main crew stayed behind, thinking that the water would subside, but it became worse and reached chest level. The set was destroyed and ruined. Our vehicles were floating all over. [There were]a lot of technical casualties, like submerged lenses and props. Continuity hell! We had to halt shooting for a month, and it drained our finances. Hell hath no fury like Mother Nature scorned.

But thanks to my awesome crew, we were able to pull ourselves together.

You call yourself delusional. Why is that?

Ha? Me? Delusional?! [Laughs] Wait lang, papakainin ko lang muna yung horse ko.