Plot

Phillip (PJ Pagalan) finds himself walking in the middle of a busy bridge, somewhat disoriented as to why and how he got there. He points to the sky as if touching a painting and saw the whole scenery turned to a ripple, like water in a pond.

 

His disorientation increased when he suddenly finds himself inside a Motorella (a public transportation which uses a motorcycle; similar to that of a “tuk-tuk” in Thailand) with a beautiful girl, Jamailah (Kor Garces). Phillip and Jamailah (which at first he calls “Mai”) argues about their one night stand which supposedly happened three weeks earlier.

 

Both were then transported into an open grass field which Jamailah refers to as her “house”. They continued on resolving their scandalous affair. Phillip suspects he is dreaming because he couldn’t read the text messages in his cellphone.

 

Phillip then finds himself in Jamaila’s room which appears to be an unfinished and abandoned house. She warns her that he shouldn’t be in her room for if her boyfriend finds out, he would surely beat him up. Jamailah’s landlady peeks in her room and suspects that they are having an affair and is not in favor of it. Indeed, Jamailah’s boyfriend, Khalil (Dennis Flores), arrives in their house. In panic, Phillip suggests that he would pretend he is gay so not to agitate her boyfriend’s destructive temper and to avoid being beaten up. When confronted, he did pretend he is gay which convinced Khalil and let him go outside with Jamailah.

 

Both are now transported to an empty pathway. They started reconciling their differences and found out that Jamailah still has feelings for him despite the uncertainty. Jamailah decide’s to go back to her room to her unsuspecting boyfriend while Phillip finally confirms to himself that he is in fact in a dream and he can control everything-including making a gun appear.

 

Jamailah went back her room to find out that Khalil knows about her and Phillip. This made him burst into anger and vowed to find Phillip and kill him.

 

Phillip went back in Jamaila’s house with a gun and finally shoots Khalil.

Phillip wakes up in the real world beside Jamailah who appears asleep. Phillip walks away from the bed, unaware that Jamailah is dead due to a gun shot on her forehead.

 

Cast

PJ Pagalan as Phillip

Kor Garces as Jamailah

Dennis Flores as Khalil

Evelyn Otoc as The Landlady

Marilyn Evanghelista as The Neighbor

 

Production

Cloyd woke up from a lucid dream one early dawn in October 2014 and was bothered about it. He wrote it down on his laptop like a diary.

 

“In my dream, I was with my Christian-Maranao friend and we were talking inside a motorella. Then she invited me to her house and her boyfriend showed up. He was so pissed and I was afraid that time though we weren’t doing anything bad. The only defense mechanism I came up with at that moment was to pretend I was gay. I knew that time that I was in the middle of a dream state so I decided to go outside and get a gun then shoot him. In my dream, I said the exact words that Phillip said before pulling the trigger. The gunshot woke me up eventually. It was a really strange dream and I was bothered by it. But dreams are supposed be like that - not make sense."

 

In January 2015, an old friend, Theion Macalam, offered Cloyd to produce a film on the condition that he would also act in it. Cloyd thought of his lucid dream and went over what he wrote. Despite his friend’s reluctance of the strange plot, he suggested that this would make a good short film and wrote the first draft of the script. He conducted an intense research on lucid dreaming.

 

Cloyd used the name Phillip in reference to his favorite science fiction author Phillip K. Dick, who also in his life suffered from psychosis and hallucinations due to drug use. He used the name Jamailah as it would fit the nickname “Mai” in which reference he would not reveal. Khalil is a reference to Cloyd's favorite author Khalil Gibran and it is also the name of his Maranao friend in College. As a fan of the the Film Noir and Neo Noir genre, Cloyd decides that he would shoot the film in Black and White. He cites films like Inception, Paprika, Nightmare on Elm Street and Dreamscape as his major inspirations. He quotes Sigmund Freud and a line from the movie Inception at the beginning of the film.

Cloyd first approached model/beauty queen Sherelyn Doloriel for the role of Jamailah but she was reluctant to commit. NCAA Arts Fest Best Actor nominee Jameelon Rivera, a good fiend of Cloyd’s, was asked to play Khalil but refused (At least seven actresses were interviewed and auditioned for the part of Jamailah before it was given to Kor). Theion went overseas and the project was shelved.

 

In May 2015, Cloyd heard about the Puerto Layag Film Festival through artist Rhyan Casiño, the event organizer. Cloyd reopened and rewrote the script and expressed that wanted to join the festival. He felt that LUCID’s very strange and controversial plot did not fit the criteria for the festival’s wholesome and positive theme so he pleaded to Rhyan that he would accept his entry even though it surely won’t win. Cloyd committed to start production once his travel documentary with the I am Walrus foundation would commence.

 

Cloyd met with Barangay Guapo 2013 Grand Winner PJ Pagalan at a production meeting on a proposed MTV shoot with acoustic band Jenzpeak. PJ expressed his interest in acting and Cloyd thought that he would be perfect to play Phillip.

 

Only 2 weeks before the deadline of submission and Cloyd still

doesn’t have a Jamailah and a Khalil. He asked Dulaang Atenista

and local indie film actor Dennis Flores to play Khalil. He thought

it would be a perfect contrast for his frail appearance for him to

have an explosive temper. Model Rain Rafal was asked to play

Jamailah and she committed.

 

Only 2 days to go before the shooting schedule, upon reading

the final script, Rain backed out from the shoot for personal

reasons. She felt she could not portray the sexy character and

was apprehensive about the kissing scene in which she already

had agreed during the meeting. She recommended her close

friend, model and beauty queen Kor Garces. Cloyd met with Kor

the day before the scheduled shoot at a Gil Macaibay Fashion

Show.

 

 

 

 

Filming

Saturday, May 30th 2015 was the first shooting day. The cast and crew met at Kor’s Boutique, Denim Dollhouse. Two hours before the scheduled shoot, Kor expressed hesitation with a couple of details on the script, She would agree on the kissing scene but was apprehensive that she would be wearing underwear in one shot and would say the word “fuck” a few times in one scene. She was, that time, the reigning Miss Pangantukan (Bukidnon) and was afraid it would give her a bad image. After Cloyd finally convinced her, she finally agreed to it on the condition that the particular dialogue would be revised. That day, they shot the Motorella scene around city proper, then the grassy vacant lot and the empty pathway around the SM area.

 

The next day, they shot the empty room scene at an abandoned house in Camaman-an, this time with Dennis Flores. Kor was the one who suggested the place because they did a photo shoot in the same place with photographer Joey Baldoza. Joey also shot some behind the scene stills during the shoot and provided Cloyd with a 35mm f1.8 lense. Kristine Rafal was on the set as production assistant while Kor’s boyfriend Ken Rumarate was the lighting director.

 

On June 6th, Cloyd went to upper Puerto to shoot a scene with businesswoman Evelyn Otoc. The festival requires that at least one resident from Puerto should be a cast member. Cloyd shot all close ups of Evelyn behind an unfinished building to create the illusion that they were all shot in the same room together with Kor, PJ and Dennis. Evelyn only appeared in three shots in the original edit of the film.

 

Upon submission and initial viewing of the film, the Puerto Layag committee were a bit dissatisfied with the very short exposure of a Puerto resident (Evelyn Otoc). Bgy. Captain Achas offered his help in providing transportation and reqested that Cloyd would extend Evelyn’s scenes. The next day, Cloyd reshot the scenes with Evelyn, and another Puerto resident Marilyn Evanghelista this time together with Dennis Flores at the same location in Camamanan.