Calendar

Chapter 6 - 2/4

Red's PoV

We snuck, unseen through the classroom door. Luckily, the professor wasn't already there. A bunch of students were already inside, we're now two of them.

Then the professor enters.

"Is this Filmmaking?" The professor asks the room like he never ever had entered Films.

"I'm Mister Ghan Martinez, that is spelled G-H-A-N partnered with a normal Filipino surname, Martinez. Some of you already know me, I'm a lecturer of Filming. Studied Films but continued to study education from two different universities."

"And I'm glad that the students sitting in front of me chose Films as the battleground."

Students seem entertained by Mr. Ghan, I do too.

He grabbed an office folder from his desk. "Raise your left hand if you are here." Oh, professors also check attendance.

"Red Attapai, mhm, cool name, are you here, Red?"

I raised my hand and brought the professor's eyes to my palm.

Chai, that's me. Red Attapai, my surname is unique from the perspective of Filipinos. Since I am pure Thai. Well, not that pure. I'm one fourth Filipino, my grandmother from my mother's side is a Filipino.

That can explain why I am here. I'm an exchange student from Thailand, obviously, my course is Films.

I'm very surprised that I found someone I can talk to in my language. I can only speak in three languages, Thai, English and Filipino. I'm not that fluent in Filipino.

Makakaya ko pero 'di medyo magaling.

"North Kalin? Names today are quite unique. Are you here North?" North raises his hand too, the left one.

I picked this university, OF the Philippines, to be my school because there aren't many options. I asked my Ma if I could study in my grandmother's home country. She replied with a 'Basta sa UP ka,' I don't know what it means at that time. But I know now.

Maganda raw don, maganda raw sa U.P. Palakaibigan daw mga tao. Creative, Smart, Fit on my level, you can say that I'm smart, I always get no lower than eighty-eight percent.

Then I applied to the school located in the capital of the Philippines. My Filipino friends in Thailand said I can go to BGC with friends there whenever I'm bored.

Going back to North, is he Thai too?

"Okay, all enrolled students in my class are present naman...Let's start!"

At exactly nine fifteen, the class started.

"Film...is simply a motion of pictures, toing or foing of images, and what is important is in each frame, there is a story to tell."

"It's a work of visual art utilized to simulate situations that use moving pictures to express ideas, tales, emotions, feelings, artistry, or ambiance."

In my mind, films are just works for the eyes.

The class is too intrigued, even North is listening with an unbothered head. "I have a digital camera here...It captures one hundred twenty frames per second, it's normal when viewed today, almost all smartphones have that kind of system."

The professor placed his camera on a lanky tripod where the lenses face us.

Is the prof going to film us? "It's recording now, can you guys do some gestures?"

The camera spawns a red dot from its shell. Yeah, it's recording.

Beside me, North wacky poses and stared at the camera along with some students who joined doing poses.

I just smiled at the camera.

"I'm going to stop recording now. The video of you all doing some things is about ten seconds long. That's about one thousand and two hundred frames."

A wide project pad, a screen appeared at the back of the prof, blocking the white boards.

The prof turns on the projector then does its work on the project pad. It showed pictures of the same image of us.

"This is all the frames captured by the digital camera. All one thousand and two hundred images." He scrolled down from the top to bottom and showed all the frames of us posing.

"And what is interesting is in every ten frames, it's like the same image of what happened in that second...See, you barely notice differences of frames until you get to another batch of frames."

"And if you combine those one thousand two hundred pictures and make it move..." The screen started compiling the frames like film strips.

"You can make something like that." The projector showed us...us that kept posing at the camera a while ago.

"Today, we will learn how to plan a story. From what the camera captured a while ago...is already a story, a story of freshmen doing random poses, a story of future filmmakers that go through the adventure of my class."

"Raise your hand if you are a writer, or journalist, or likes to create stories, or write a daily diary." The prof raised his hand above his neck.

Students inside start looking at each other. I looked at North.

He gradually lifts his hands with awkwardness. Everyone gazed at him.