APRIL - MAY 2012
“Hi this is Paul Busalpa, ABS-CBN Corporation. HR Recruitment. Please be reminded of your OJT TV Production Entertainment Orientation on March 19 & 20, 2012, 9:00am at ELJ Bldg 13 flr Training room B. Look for Ms. Dhana Dizon. Please do not be late and bring 1 valid ID. Thank you!”
TV Production Orientation
for Interns
“Hi this is Paul Busalpa, ABS-CBN Corporation. HR Recruitment. Please be reminded of your OJT TV Production Entertainment Orientation on March 19 & 20, 2012, 9:00am at ELJ Bldg 13 flr Training room B. Look for Ms. Dhana Dizon. Please do not be late and bring 1 valid ID. Thank you!”
During the two-day orientation, we were taught how to organize a script into four different breakdowns: sequence breakdown, location breakdown, continuity breakdown, and character/profile breakdown. These breakdowns all included props, costume, day or night effect, same day/another day, same night/ another day, title per sequence, characters per sequence, locations, etc. And we were trained to do all these three breakdowns in one seating in only about one hour! Not only that, but we were also required to know how to calculate running time of different shows: taped and live shows.
Two days of the internship orientation was honestly brain-draining and each activity brought us, trainees, so much body-aches, but at the same time, the orientation was as if we were taking up a more advanced TV Production classes good for one semester in only two days! It was an information overload experience but definitely we have absorbed everything slowly but surely. It was a great two-day training with my MC classmates Arnie Gallo, Maria Estipona, Ita Anisco, and Mheii Aguirre and the other trainees from different schools. In that orientation, we were all segregated to different shows. I was introduced to my assigned show, one of my local favourites, GANDANG GABI VICE!
Office Work at ABS-CBN TV
Prod Department
Ms. Yasmin Palanca, the HR accounts officer of the TV Prod Department, endorsed me to Ms. Kaye Majabague, the Production Assistant of Gandang Gabi Vice, and Mr. Allan Sunga, the Associate Producer or Gandang Gabi Vice. From then on, I was lead to the conference room of Gandang Gabi Vice staff wherein I learned more about the show and how it works. I also met the researchers and writers, as well as the Executive Producer, Mrs. Lani Gutierrez.
Unlike Araneta Center’s marketing department wherein we usually have our routinary office work, ABSCBN production’s office work was a lot lot different. It was more informal and irregular. What we do in the office are just to prepare tapes, labels for tapes, print out dressing room assignments, reading magazines to research about guests, routing memos, listening to youtube for more options for GGV’s songlists. The real work all comes from the production proper itself (pre-prod meeting, production, and post-prod).
What is Gandang Gabi Vice or GGV?
Gandang Gabi, Vice! is a Philippine comedy musical talk show hosted by stand-up comedian Vice Ganda, that airs every Sunday night on ABS-CBN and focuses on humorous interviews with celebrities, athletes, and famous people and also features live acts from various performers. Gandang Gabi Vice takes pride by having their show trend on twitter locally and globally consistently every week.
First Taping Experience
with Vice Ganda
Since this was my first GGV
taping ever and my first time to watch an ABS-CBN talk show production live, I
couldn’t help but feel awestruck, starstruck, and enthusiastic! Seeing that
famous studio with my two bare eyes was just so rewarding, and just imagine my
childlike excitement when I escorted Vice Ganda to the studio for her..his..(?)
rehearsal for the opening number, Katy Perry’s new song, “Part of Me”.
Guests at First Taping: the Younghusbands
The first guests were my
celebrity crushes and I couldn’t help but feel weak in the knees when I saw
them both with my eyes. I get easily distracted by them (especially during the
moments they played football and danced in the studio), but I immediately shake
my head off and go back to monitoring the script, the time recording, and the
line up of the props. My mom’s red shawl was used for the Titanic gimik,
wherein Phil and James will act as Jack and there would be audience
participation for the role of Rose. I can’t help but blush hearing Phil speak
Tagalog with full effort, despite his thick and lovely British accent!
Of course, after taping the segment, I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass...”Excuse me, Mr. Younghusband, would you let me have a picture with you????!”
Guests at First Taping: Ms. Ruffa Gutierrez
Seeing ‘the Ruffa Gutierrez’ was a treat to the eye, she looked so gorgeous and she looked a lot like my favourite Hollywood personality, Kim Kardashian! She was a very funny woman and she was such a good sport. It is safe to say that she has brought more life and laughter in the studio with her low sosyal speaking voice and her ultra funny singing voice!
Post-Production -
Digitizing and Editing at the I-Post Bay
The taping started 6pm and ended at 10pm, at usual companies, one’s time out of work is 6pm, but for us in ABS-CBN there is no such word as ‘uwian’ in our vocabulary. We were all needed to stay for the next 36 hours without sleeping and without going home to digitize the taped show and edit it into the show that will be aired on Sunday. Now, this is where coffee overdoses are much needed!
In this post production process, we all worked in the I-Post section of the ABS-CBN building wherein the place was full of machines, equipments, wires, buttons, tapes, and tech people. It was overwhelming to see those things you think you’d never understand, but then you would get to know more about this process the longer you stay and work with it.
The next thing I know, I was already heading the digitizing process from being supervised to not being supervised anymore and I was doing the shouting “Kuya, pacapture po”, “Patched to Edit room 13, ready to capture”, “Rolling!”, and the dreaded “Kuya, nakain po yung tape ng DVCam2!!! (which is normal)”
After digitizing, the next step is to do the editing. It is the associate producer’s job and the editor’s job and usually interns are needed there to give assistance to emergencies like lyrics, graphic designs, etc. Editing usually takes 24 hours and more, never less. And after editing, the next step is to do the dubout wherein we record the edited video file into the tape for airing..on Sunday!
Pre-Production Meeting for
Next Taping
The Researcher’s Task
For the next episode, from being the Production Assistant’s assistant, I am now moved to wark as a researcher’s assistant. In this job, I am tasked to interview our next guests in any way I can, personally, through phone calls, through reading magazines, through interviewing the people close to them, etc. So I was given the guests’ cellphone numbers and to my surprise, I realize I had Daniel Padilla’s number on my phone, same with Enrique Gil, Khalil Ramos, and Ms. Janice de Belen. I was able to interview Enrique and Daniel face-to-face professionally as a writer, leaving my inner fangirl outside the door and coming back to it after the interview. It was just such a weird surprising experience!
I was also able to interview Nikki Gil and Empress through sneaking around in the dressing room during the ASAP show. According to my researcher boss, Lyndon Dizon, interviewing artists are not as easy as making appointments with them, most of the time, you have to sneak around, get real lucky for a chance to interview. Good thing, both girls were nice and I could easily relate to them since Nikki Gil and I came from the same school institution and both of us were of the same faith. It felt nice having to talk with the stars!
Second Taping Experience with GGV
Guests: Janice de Belen,
Daniel Padilla, Khalil Ramos, Enrique
Gil, Nikki Gil and Empress
Third Taping Experience
with GGV
The Researcher and
Writer’s Task: Kiray and Igiboy
After being the PA’s assistant during the first taping and being the researcher’s assistant during the second taping, I was now assigned to the writer’s assistant in this third taping. It was still research work. I was able to talk to Kiray Celis on the phone for two straight hours to interview and I got a lot of funny and juicy information that the show, Gandang Gabi Vice, looked for. And with that, I came up with my very own and first segment script! My writer boss, Dianne, gave me the opportunity to write a segment for Gandang Gabi Vice. I really felt honoured that she trusted my humor and writing talent so much. And fair enough, the Kiray and Igiboy segment top-trended in Twitter and the viewers loved it!
THE GANDANG GABI VICE
FAMILY
Reward for the Hard Work:
