My Viva Days

Over two decades ago, I worked as a copywriter doing trailers and supervising voice-over recordings in a little shop that specialized in Viva movies.

On my first day on the job. I was asked to watch Alyas Baby Tsina. Ate Vi in a cheongsam. In the moviehouse. In Makati. By myself. That day marked my initiation to showbiz.

The eighties and the nineties were glorious times for the movie industry, and Viva was right up there, neck-and-neck with Regal Films. Both giants were churning from two to four movies a month.

As hundred-page scripts became ninety-minute movies, and my task was to condense the story into three minute trailers.

The very first trailer I wrote was for "ISLA" - a co-production between the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines (ECP) and Viva Films, starring Maria Isabel Lopez. It was a daring movie that went beyond the usual. Naturally, that, and more, had to be captured in the trailer. It was a big hit.

Just like Hollywood, each movie had a tagline, immortalized in a 20x40 poster.

"No stars are too high for those who reach out. No dreams are too far for those who believe."
-Bituing Walang Ninging, 1984

"Torn between the love of power and the power of love."
-Pati Ba Pintig Ng Puso, 1985

"When good is not always right, and wrong is not necessarily bad."
-Kailan Tama ang Mali, 1986
But just like in advertising, a trailer copywriter does not have a byline. How I wished then that a Famas category for "Best Trailer" would be created. I wanted some recognition. And then one day, a break came. One of the films (must be forgettable) was to have a bonus short film (they have yet to coin the name MTV) Lea Salonga was going to do a song number to be shot around Manila with Menudo, the hottest boy group to hit the country in the 80s. I was going to help write the script. Every one of my family and friends had to endure the movie before they saw my name in the credits, side by side with Jose Javier Reyes.
I must have written hundreds of trailers in about fifteen years. That's because long after I had left the sweatshop and and had moved on to an ad agency, I continued to write trailers as a "raket." By this time, however, my market had expanded. The freelance producers, editors and post production people I worked with recommended me to other film companies. Aside from Viva and its sister company Neo Films, I also wrote trailers for Moviestars Productions, RS Films, JE Productions, Seiko Films, FPJ Productions, MAQ Productions, MZet Films, Premiere Productions, and in a couple of instances, Star Cinema. I'd meet with Boss Vic one night and Robbie Tan the next. Other days, it was Jesse Ejercito, Ramon Salvador, Malou Santos, and the bitch who didn't pay me, Rose Flaminiano.
One day, I was called to a meeting at Mother Lily's Regal office in Valencia. She received me warmly. She asked where I had gone to school, and when I said UP, she said, "Matatalino talaga ang mga taga-UP." We discussed the marketing strategy for a movie and I was excited to work for her. The next day I got word that the arrangement did not sit well with Joey Gosiengfiao, Regal's resident trailer queen, and so the plan was scrapped. I had just lost my chance to be a Regal Baby.

Of course, the raket continued. Midweek, around twice or thriice a month, I'd go to Magnatech Omni in Panay Avenue, Sampaguita Studios in Gilmore, or LVN Studios in P. Tuazon to watch rushes - on 35mm film, undubbed, in several rolls and a combination of edited and unedited shots.
It was at Sampaguita where I met Ronwaldo Reyes aka FPJ, who only made movies once a year but requested me to write his trailers. Despite my dislike for action movies, I'd be thrilled each time I received a check signed "Ronald Alan Poe."

It was at one of these studios where I met a very young assistant editor, a UP IMC undergraduate named Joyce Bernal, her good friends Marya Ignacio and Elma Medua who, about twenty years later, would be the director, editor and supervising producer respectively of my first screenplay venture.

Looking back, this raket came with frills. I got to meet many stars who went to the studio to dub their lines: Robin Padilla, Bong Revilla, Phillip Salvador, Rufa Mae Quinto, Ai Ai delas Alas, Edu Manzano, and many others.

After the fifth day of showing of every movie, my family, maids, neighbors, and the secretaries in my office were happy recipients of theater passes - Admit Two; not valid on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
I vividly remember the night of September 29, 1994. I had come from an animation check for my day job, gone home, and then my husband drove me to Magnatech to watch the rushes of yet another action movie. I got home at midnight, visibly more tired than usual. In less than an hour I was out of the house again, on the way to the hospital. The next day I gave birth to my daughter. Two days later, I received a bouquet of roses from Moviestars Productions. The next morning, they were following up the trailer copy that was due two days ago.
Those were the good old Viva Days. Through blockbusters like Maging Sino Ka Man, silly Andrew E movies like Banyo Queen, cookie cutter action thrillers like Jabidah Massacre, tearjerkers like Abakada... Ina, slapsticks like Booba, to romance flicks Till There Was You, I can happily say that I had a teeny weeny bit role in showbiz, way behind the scenes.


A list of my Viva trailers may be found in Viva filmography on imdb.com - from 1984 t0 2002... #55-#370, give or take a few.

Photos from kabayancentral.com