Trofeo’s lure to digital photo journalism for the professional senior high school

Last Sept. 15, cinematographer-photographer Ricardo “Dik” Trofeo was the speaker of the OBMC Professional High School students of Greenhills. Mr. Dik Trofeo was a former deputy director general of the Film Academy of the Philippines. From May 24, 1999 to Feb. 12, 2001 he was network general manager, COO of the People’s Television Network, Inc. (PTNI). At present, he works as a film/video producer-director, cinematographer, video editor and photographer.

He had the privilege to train under prominent artists in different fields like Director Lamberto Avellana and Director Gerardo “Gerry” de Leon (both are National Artists for Film) in the art of filmmaking; Dick Baldovino, a renowned Filipino photographer and Sir Brian Brake (ESQ) of Time-Life and National Geographic for photography; and under Louie Stein, cameraman to Orson Welles, “Mr. Arkadin” and the French portion of Daryll Zanuck’s classic, “The Longest Day” for cinematography.

‘Creation’ in filmmaking

Mr. Trofeo addressed the 500 high school students in the Greenhills headquarters, one of the five OB Montessori professional high schools in Manila and Angeles, Pampanga. He began by recalling the Bible: “In the beginning when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. Then God commanded ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT’, and light appeared” (Genesis 1).

“My young friends, on that first day of creation God must have photographers in mind when He said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” In the film or video production the Director who plays ‘God’ in the set shortened this by just shouting, “LIGHTS!” Then you will hear “CAMERA!” a command to the cameraman to start the camera before he shouts, “ACTION!” That command orders everybody in front of the camera to do their assigned roles and what they were directed to do. The main cast and extras in the background must obey and create a make-believe environment. With this short sequence of command, you witness the process of CREATION and communication.

 “The DIRECTOR as ‘GOD,’ controls everything in a production. He controls the emotions from laughter to grief, silence and the noise with his decisions to come in for CLOSE-UPS, or pull back to show a chase scene with his FULL SHOTS and LONG SHOTS. The scene-by-scene process of shooting is the preparation for the bigger picture that will be assembled in the editing room to tell the story of what the film or video is all about.”

Focus on documentary productions to enrich journalism

“Like any film or video production, documentary film or video filmmaking has to go through three important stages - PRE-PRODUCTION (Preparation of the different aspects of the project); PRODUCTION PROPER (commonly called principal photography), the culmination of all the preparation of the project from script, casting, location hunting, production design and special effects to name a few; POST PRODUCTION (this is where the real making of the film begins. Editing is where you assemble all the footages and throw away the bad takes. The editor and his assistants compile all the good takes and its corresponding sound tracks recorded during the shoot.

“In making a film – the basic tools are free. It is you, your ATTITUDE and GOOD WILL to pursue a project from start to finish. A lazy person has no place in making films. Aspire to LEARN from each project. Read books on filmmaking. Use the internet to widen your interest in filmmaking, especially on photography. Develop your SKILLS in story-telling visually and imagine the sounds that will go with the images you will recreate – music or effects. Visit museums and see the works of the MASTERS, Renoir, Degas, Botticelli, Klimt, etc. Notice the play of lights and their composition.

“To start with, you must have a good story to tell, translated into a good script. Technically, later on, you can avail of better motion picture cameras (with good lenses ranging from prime lenses to zoom lenses, tripods, batteries), sound recorders/microphones, lights, graphics facilities (virtual), editing suite.

The digital age technology

“With the new technology, the digital age, the procedure has not changed much except the image and the sound capturing devises. No more laboratory processing of negatives and positive prints.

“Digital made everything easy for the filmmakers. A number of equipment can now be held in your hand, from an 18lb., 16mm camera to a lightweight mini DV camera. Now, even handy cams and mobile phones are potential tools for making films. Everybody now can make a respectable film with the new digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras that have flooded the market.

“Documentaries opened new avenues in production and distribution of new films aimed as propaganda and instructional materials for education. This new style to inform and entertain, later on refined itself to produce new cinema.

“One of the early pioneers of documentary filmmaking, John Grierson coined the phrase as ‘the creative treatment of actuality.’ Another authority on this new film medium Paul Rotha described it as ‘the use of the film medium to interpret creatively and in social terms the life of the people as it exists in reality.’”

Shooting documentaries

In our local scene the local television networks were fast to catch up with subjects and topics of the prevailing social conditions as an offshoot of their news programs. Documentary has become an effective airtime fillers, to entertain, EDUCATE, INFORM and make money. Examples of famous TV programs that produce documentaries are Animal Planet, National Geographic, Asian Food Channel (AFC), Travel Time with Susan Calo Medina and news programs like CNN, BBC, TV Patrol (Channel 2) and 24 Oras (Channel 7).

Mr. Trofeo said, “My involvement in documentary filmmaking was a personal choice. After resigning from the biggest commercial house in the seventies I ventured to go on my own as a freelance director, cameraman and editor, with an eye on doing documentaries. There were less practitioners of this kind of filmmaking. My former boss said the 16mm format is a small film, meaning small money, no market.

“My gut feeling then was I can create my market, not so much for the money but for the service I can offer through creative education and information – the things big corporations have been doing to create a knowledge-based society. I was able to prove my point by the projects I got myself into, from some of the blue chip corporations to the biggest dam construction projects funded by the World Bank for our government.

“A big jump was when I worked as cameraman in the restoration of the biggest Buddhist temple in Central Java. This opened more projects for the industrial and tourism departments of the Government of Indonesia. This was followed by a stint with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization as communication officer.

“Our own Philippine Government granted me many opportunities to document historic diplomatic missions. I also fulfilled a mandate to build a world-class film laboratory for the local film industry. Unfortunately, political winds of change cut short the function of that laboratory even after it had gained Hollywood recognition. Looking back I did my utmost best for every project as if it would be my last, but which proved to be stepping-stones forward.”

‘Visual communication is your language to the world’

At the end of his talk, Mr. Trofeo encouraged the students: “Technology will always be changing, but the constant factor is YOU, the eternal storyteller. Follow your dream… Focus on your God-given talent to communicate. Think Filipino. Remember visual communication is your language to the world. Thank you, my new-found friends.”

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