My firstborn

a public service announcement (PSA) against drunk driving (or drink driving, as they say here) for mtv and diageo. diageo had already been running an events campaign built around the idea of guardian angels who would remind you to not drink and drive. on their second year, they decided to partner up with mtv, mtv decided to call a pitch, and we decided to go for it.

it was my first time for a lot of things: win a project for my company, conceptualize and script an idea that i eventually had to actually take charge of and produce, and later on, the first time i ever had something air in four countries: singapore, malaysia, india and the philippines.this was where i started learning the ropes of production and earning the second half of my writer/producer job title. our production exec happened to be on vacation during pre-production, so it fell to me to take care of all the nitty-gritty production details from scouting for parks and bars to casting babies and caucasians, to booking the makeup artist and snapping photos of the wardrobe selections.

i learned what it really meant to work on a budget, coming from my world of virtual costs at gma. i discovered how a seemingly simple idea on paper could actually turn out to be a dizzyingly complex one when it came to execution. my idea, requiring three flashbacks, a little boy, two accident scenes, a crying baby and celebrity endorsements in 30 seconds, turned out to be the latter. i'm sure in the world of production, this is nothing, but for a first timer it was like two weeks of excruciating labor... and i mean the giving birth kind. as we spent the greater part of an hour on set prodding, poking, jiggling and startling the most cheerful baby on the planet to get it to cry (he just giggled and gurgled cutely), lilian grumbled, "deepa, next time no more babies okay???"

and it was on the guardian angel set that i overcame my fear of directing. james installed me as his assistant director largely because of his english handicap -- i could better explain to the talents what he wanted, and i had a knack for reading james' mind. later on i began making suggestions of my own, which worked, and that was great.

casting the angel was a real bitch. this was where i encountered the word "pan-asian" for the first time -- a highly prized commodity among regional promo efforts, a talent who could look like he was from everywhere and nowhere and thus work well across all markets, usually used interchangeably with "eurasian".

ngayon. sa loob ng dalawang linggo, try mo maghanap ng guwapo at murang pan-asian male na magaling magsalita, dito sa buwakanang lungga ng mga payat, singkit, at baluktot ang dila. then you will understand why rob, a research manager by day and a product of my secret casting pool, was truly heaven sent. he was cheerful, tireless despite flying back from a business trip hours before his call time, memorized his lines, and to james' great delight, registered on cam as "cute and likeable, like a chubby robbie williams". at! higit sa lahat! mura siya!

so here it is, my first born promo. i must add that after a whopping sixteen rounds of revision, the original script took a fair amount of nips and tucks. but it got out into the world, eventually, in some form and fashion. and that can only be a good thing.