Taking a cue from Direk Toto

Director Toto Natividad rarely holds one-on-one sessions with aspiring directors. So when he agreed to personally mentor half-Filipina, half-Norwegian Anne Marie Frisenberg, it becomes something of an event.

It must be for a special, or, at the very least, a compelling reason.

Anne, a beautiful combination of her Filipina mom and her Norwegian dad, is so bent on entering showbiz she’s willing to take risks. One of them is hanging precariously by the side of a speeding car as her baptism of fire on the movie set.

The movie, an indie project her mom is producing with Aliya Martel, is entitled Schizophrenic. It’s also her debut directorial job with direk Toto guiding her every step of the way.

Direk Toto had to go through steps he could easily skip a seasoned director. He had to make a list of shots when his trained eye could have skipped the process.

But he paced himself for Anne. She has to learn every step in the filmmaking process. And she had to do it slowly but surely.

Earlier, he told her the chances for success in showbiz increases if she enters through backdoor.

"So I convinced her to try her hand in directing first," says the acclaimed action director.

Her pretty Eurasian features can easily serve as the 20-year-old Anne’s passport to appearing before the cameras. But, as direk Toto says, there are already too many fishes in the ocean. A newcomer — even someone as arresting as her — will have a hard time breaking the scene.

So Anne doesn’t mind biding her time. If that means working behind the cameras first, so be it.

Besides, Schizophrenic is being shot in two locations closest to her heart: her mom’s native Ilocos, and Norway.

Her older brother, who lives in the Land of the Midnight Sun, and their Norway-based Dad, will finally get to see how Ilocos looks like when the movie is shown in Norway (it will also do the rounds in Sweden and Denmark).

And with the film industry in Norway still in its infancy (output is two films a year), Anne thinks it will be great to cash in on it.

But first the brass tacks. The first shooting day of Schizophrenic found Anne sitting on pins and needles. She found herself in Tanay and Baras, Rizal. With her were the film’s stars, Mon Confiado, Aliya and Roldan Aquino. She has yet to meet lead star Rica Peralejo then.

But with direk Toto by her side, Anne had nothing to fear. She had gone location hunting with him a few days before that. Now, she’s learning the ropes of composing the shots and choosing the right camera angles.

Post-production work will be tough. So she is bracing herself for long hours in front of the editing machine.

Anne doesn’t mind this one bit. No challenge is too big for someone as bent as she is in making her one big dream come true.