WHEN WATCHING A movie, yes, we tend to be fascinated by the breathtaking scenery of verdant hills or a luscious orchard or a graceful dance, otherwise, rarely are we awed by not so beautiful images and imagery being projected on the screen.
Especially horror films with scary contents like zombies or gore and blood or disgusting scenes of filth and dirt, we tend to keep our eyes shut.
We almost forget that line and color, depth of field, perspective and symmetry, light and shadow etc. are essentials in each scene of any genre no matter how ugly.
BEAUTY AND UGLINESS
In the school of naturalism as a cinematic trend, though, there is beauty in ugliness.
These and many more are elements (for there are still other factors including mise-en-scenes) of cinematography.
In the local entertainment industry, however, cinematography isn’t always informed to the audience or to the reading and watching public unlike news if not hot gossips and rumors on stars being churned out daily.
In the recent past, however, I was lucky enough to have been introduced, if only through an heir of the late award-winning cinematographer Ricardo Marcelino.
FILMMAKERS
Thus, this little story.
After an out-of-town fellowship as part of our recent UST Arts and Letters ’75 golden jubilee celebration at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City, I was speaking to my fellow Lit major in college, Nette Marcelino nee Mercurio, for a post-reunion talk.
On our way back to the hotel, Nette informed me that her husband, Ding Marcelino, belongs to the family of filmmakers, her late grandfather-in-law Ricardo Marcelino was the award-winning cinematographer Ricardo Marcelino.
Nette brought down to the hotel coffee shop (where we had a postscript) a huge family tree of the Marcelinos, many of them artists.
As a matter of fact, Ding is a visual artist.
ARTISTIC PURSUITS
Now based in the US, Nette and Ding share artistic pursuits on the side—she as a literature buff and he as a painter.
Ding told me that her grandfather Ricardo, nicknamed Andoy, would tap him to play minor roles in movies mostly done in the 1960s and 1970s by Premiere Productions which had its studio in Caloocan City.
“Natatandaan ko, nakaganap na ako bilang batang Cesar Ramirez yata “yon, hindi ko na matandaan (I remember, I was able to play, I think young boy Cesar Ramirez, I cannot recall anymore),” recollected Ding.
“Malapit sa Premiere Productions ang bahay namin noon at lagi akong nanonood ng shooting ng lolo ko na (Our house was near the studio and I always watched shoots of my grandfather) cameraman,” he added.
CINEMATOGRAPHER
No, his granddad wasn’t only a cameraman.
He was a cinematographer, the one who conceptualized and shot the scenes, according to the directorial instructions and vision of the director, considered as the captain of the whole film project.
A cinematographer must have aesthetics of his own complementary to the director.
No wonder Ricardo or Mang (a term of endearment to an elderly man) Andoy was a gifted artist who had an eye for beauty as complemented by his director, one of them the now National Artist for Film Gerardo de Leon, also known as Gerry de Leon, also a physician.
Even as an independent cinematographer (known these days as Director of Photography or DoP), the patriarch Marcelino was a creative photographer.
FAMAS AWARDEE
Mang Andoy won his first Famas Award—when the plum was still highly coveted—for Best Cinematography in “Huwag Mo Akong Limutin,” a film starred in by Cesar Ramirez, Cynthia Zamora, Aura Aurea and Arsenia Francisco in 1960 directed by de Leon.
Earlier, Mang Andoy, won his first Best Cinematography award in Famas in 1954 for “Habang Buhay,” a film that topbilled Jose Padilla, Jr. with Nena Cardenas and Carol Varga directed by Teodorico Santos for Manuel Vistan Productions.