Acclaimed Screenwriter Bing Lao to bring his highly-popular workshops to Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Following the success of scriptwriting workshops held in Manila, the “Found Story Regional Summer Tours” will come to Cebu with acclaimed screenwriter Armando “Bing” Lao.

For the first time ever, Bing will be bringing his highly popular scriptwriting workshops on tour through the "ufo workshop series," thereby giving the opportunity to those in the different regions of the country to hone and develop their writing skills, learn the techniques, while interacting with Bing himself.

According to Monchito Nocon, workshop tour coordinator, the ufo workshop series, which is now on its second year, prides itself in being a mentor-oriented program that features leading lights in the field of filmmaking, scriptwriting and acting.

Among its mentors are award-winning director Jade Castro of the film "Endo" and ace cinematographer Louie Quirino; Tammy Dinopol who has headed film and TV creative teams, and veteran thespian and actor Soliman Cruz of Actors’ Pleygrawnd.

This unique system, Nocon said, has proven to be highly effective in nurturing and developing the creative talents of their participants and has fostered a positive relationship between student and mentor.

In the workshop, Bing Lao will expound on what he calls the “found story code” -- a scriptwriting process that he says best tells the story of the Filipino reality for it is derived from objects or phenomena found in real life.

The different modalities under this code is the real-time mode, dramatic time and poetic time, and that among the films that have done in these modes are Jeffrey Jeturian's “Kubrador” which won the Jury Prize at the 28th Moscow International Film Festival, Pepe Diokno’s “Engkwentro” which won the top prize in the Orizzonti (New Horizons) section of the 66th Venice International Film Festival, and Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay”, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

The poetic time mode, for example, was employed in “Biyaheng Lupa,” which is Bing's debut film as director, and which won the Grand Jury Prize in the Digital Lokal section of the 11th Cinemanila International Film Festival as well as being nominated for Best Screenplay for this year's Gawad Urian.

The workshop would tackle "Writing the found story narrative," "Writing the found scene," "Basic grammar," "Advanced grammar," "Creative Writing," "Framing and focality," "Instantiating the scenes and perceptual channels as well as compounding the scenes from meaningful real-life accounts with continuity hooks," "Structuring the scenes," and "Principle of transitivity" – phrasing the scenes, horizontal and lateral mapping of real-life experiences; "Abstracting and abducting the voices" – narrative and dramatic; the functions of speech as well as dialogue inflections.

The second leg of the tour has been set for April 19 to 23 here in Cebu. As of this writing, Nocon said that they are looking at 10 to 15 students at the maximum with a workshop fee of P5,000 per head. Venue will be announced later on.