"I will wait for you."

Note: The following blog was originally posted on emphas.is for our project backers, and is being re-posted here. Posted on 11/24/12 at 10:13am

Week two in Manila is wrapped! Two more to go. I feel like we've been here for a month, at least!

More about all of our activities and progress "In Other News," below.

First, I want to share some of the experiences we had today in the North Cemetery.

It's Saturday. I'm tired. We haven't taken a day "off" since arriving. There is so much to do. I woke up declaring, "I'm taking the day off!" But by noon decided to join James in the North Cemetery anyway. That's why we are here, right?

We've started a photo project with three individuals in the cemetery, giving them each a disposable Kodak camera, encouraging them to document their lives, from their perspective: what is important to them, what makes them sad/angry/grateful, etc. We've also given each one a notebook to record what the photos are, and what they mean to them. We'll give them each a book of their work before we leave.

In addition, and depending on how the photos turn out, I'm hoping to turn this into a fundraising project for the photographers and their families once we return to the U.S. and launch the documentary. We have two cameras and journals ready to develop tomorrow, and engaged with a third local photographer today. I'm encouraging each to be as creative as they wish, and I can't wait to see the photos!

I also brought my old, amateur video camera and invited LL, his "Lola" Crisna (she is unrelated but his caretaker - his mother abandoned him) and Angelina (84-year-old mother of Steve Cabuso, one of our closest friends and subjects of the documentary) an opportunity to play with it, and show their surroundings. LL generously gave me a tour of his house (room), pointing out what was important to him, where he sleeps, etc.

James produces beautiful visuals. For me, the most fulfilling part of this project is engaging people through interviews, as well as photos and video that they take, to share their perspectives with us. Today was a good day.

While James gathered high-quality b-roll and photography around the cemetery, I hung out on the north wall with the women and LL. Crisna told me that she has been sick with vomiting and fever for four days. I asked her if I could get her medicine and she showed me the packaging of what she would take, if she could afford it. (Each generic pill is almost one USD, which is completely out of her budget.) I asked permission to buy her medicine and she thanked me. I took off for the pharmacy about two blocks outside of the cemetery. I found the medicine, and as I was paying, heard my name being called. "Jessica!"

I turned around saw Steve's wife, Jinkie, and her son Jett. I asked why they were there, and they said, "for you!"

Apparently Steve sent them after me when he found out I had gone wandering by myself outside the cemetery. Jinkie held my hand, and Jett's, as we crossed the very busy, chaotic street, and brought me back, "home," to the cemetery. Steve chastised me for leaving on my own, and told me he had sent Jinkie to find me.

The feeling of being cared for, and looked after so closely, was surprising and very, very comforting. These are true friends.

I spent the rest of the afternoon speaking with Angelina: about her long life, her devastating experiences during the Battle of Manila, her brother, who was beheaded by Japanese forces during that time, her 11 children (five of whom she has outlived), and why she moved to the cemetery. It was a deeply moving conversation for me. She also told me that her first child, born when she was 19 years old, was fathered by an American soldier who never knew she became pregnant. She said she "wants to talk to him!" I have his name and I'm going to try to look him up.

I'm really looking forward to interviewing her for this project. What she has lived through is mind-blowing...and she shares it all with a smile, repeating often, "I am strong!" And she is. You're going to like her.

We also visited with Jerry and Jenny. Their daughter, Kristin, agreed to be our third “inside” documentary photographer. Jerry brought out his new pet toucan, Ralph-Palph. Google, the parrot, was released from his cage and Kristin even brought out her pet, “Bird-Bird,” who kindly sat on my shoulder. I was, clearly, elated.

Jessica with Bird-Bird

In Other News:

In the past week, we've interviewed Father Melvin Castro, Executive Secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Family Life of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, following a "media forum" against the Reproductive Health Bill, which is a very high-profile issue in this heavily Catholic country, and an issue he is leading the fight against.

We also interviewed Nathalie Versceles, faculty member of the Department of Women and Development Studies at the University of the Philippines, and Board member of Likhaan, who is very much in support of the RH Bill (although she says recent amendments have caused it to "lose it's teeth"). And, last but not least, Carlos Celdran, whose dedication to Manila, her history, and human rights for all Filipinos, is providing passionate and insightful perspective into the larger issues surrounding the context of the North Cemetery community.

We've also requested interviews with Representative Imelda Marcos (former First Lady of the Philippines) and Representative Emmanunel D. Pacquiao (Manny Pacquiao, aka, "Pacman") as Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson, respectively, of the Millennium Development Goals Committee for the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

No word, yet. But we're trying!

Next week we'll speak with an expert on sustainability in informal communities, another expert or two (we hope), and begin our final interview series with residents in the North Cemetery.

...

As we left today, I gave Angelina a kiss on the cheek I told her we would see her soon. She replied, "I will wait for you."

Thanks again to all of you for your support! We're working our tails off to make a beautiful, honest documentary over here.

- Jessica Chance

Posted on 11/24/12 at 10:13am

Getting Re-acquainted: Day 1 in the North Cemetery

Note: The following blog was originally posted on emphas.is for our project backers, and is being re-posted here. Posted on 11/16/12 at 4:00pm

Dear backers,

Thank you again so much for supporting this project! With the help of friends inside the cemetery and out, we are quickly making progress wrapping up the documentary.

We left Denver at 8 a.m. Sunday morning and arrived in Malate (Manila) just after midnight on Tuesday. We spent a couple of days adjusting to the new time zone in familiar surroundings, then moved to an empty hostel in Santa Cruz just around the corner from the cemetery, so we can spend most of our energy on our work inside and outside the cemetery (rather than getting there and back).

We're grateful to have found a location so close the cemetery. It's making a world of difference in our productivity and ability to sleep! (No Malate party crowd!). We don't have water most of the time so far, but that is another story and feels small compared to the access and privacy we have here.

With every visit, James and/or I always approach the cemetery slowly (i.e., we don't arrive initially with a priority to shoot, but rather catch up with friends and check in on how everyone is doing since the last time we visited). Also, the security at the gate is always changing...will they let us in? Demand a "tip" (bribe)? It's always uncertain. The first time we arrived in 2008 we actually had to get written permission from City Hall to even enter the public cemetery; it took a week!

Today was a breeze. Ray Alvarez, a kind and very honest guard who often escorted us around the cemetery in 2008, was on the front gate, and welcomed us back. (Hooray!) First anticipated hurdle: overcome!

Before we even got through the gate, we heard shouts of "James! James!" Lots of smiles and hellos. He has developed such a positive place for himself in the community. Warm welcomes were coming out of mausoleums and from children and their parents on the streets every few seconds.

We visited with our friends Jenny and Jerry Juan first, who are relatively well-off and incredibly influential within the cemetery community. We learned a few unsettling things there. One, that since my last visit—and as James visited last October—someone he considered a friend had started spreading "rumors" about James and Jenny, centered around an afternoon when he went to document her voting in the local Barangy elections (nevermind that there were other people in tow for the trip). We don't know exactly what the rumors were, but they caused Jenny great distress, and for her to distance herself from James the last time he was here, which he had mentioned to me. That was surprising and upsetting to hear, especially that anything involving her and her family's ongoing openness to us caused her problems. Apparently, the issue has been settled between the Juan's and their former friends, but not without some blows. Ouch all around. We ran into the gossiper today, and James treated him cooly. We hope that is the last we hear of that.

Jenny also shared some devastating news about her family and several great losses that they have endured since we last visited. We were very sad to hear, but grateful that she felt able to share her stories with us still, and hopeful that lending an ear, condolences and friendship eased her burden at least for a moment. Life can be so hard.

Jenny's sister, Olyvi, and her new boyfriend, Andrew visiting with the Juans today.

When we were leaving, a friend of Jerry's offered to escort James around some other low-income communities in the metro area to provide contrast to the cemetery community for the documentary, which we aim to follow up on...more on that soon.

Next, we visited Steve, his wife, children and 84-year-old mother, Angelina. They treated us to lunch and Cokes on the north wall. It was a joy to spend time with them. They are always incredibly gracious and kind. Steve said he saw the documentary trailer on YouTube, and said that it was "very good." Glad to hear, since he is featured in it! He is very cynical of corruption in government and lies from the media, so his seal of approval on how we represented him means the world to me. He also thanked me for sending him a YouTube video of his favorite song, "Let it Be," on Facebook a few months ago. I love Facebook for allowing us to stay connected to him and Jenny.

Reunion with the Cabuso family and friends on the North wall today.

We also visited with LL, a young boy who played videographer for us on our last visit, and I hope will be doing some photography for the documentary as we ease into the project throughout the next week. He is more sickly than most, and his guardian immediately asked us for help getting medication for him again, which we of course agreed to do. He showed us his Gangnam Style dance, which was hilarious. (If you aren't yet familiar with the Gangnam Style phenomenon, I highly recommend clicking the link).

LL, Gangnam-style

Rody, who was featured in our first multimedia piece in 2008, which won the Every Human Has Rights Award, is still working in the United Spanish American War Veterans Memorial part of the cemetery, where he cleans and "pulls the grass" by hand. He suffered a stroke a couple of years ago, but was in good spirits. It was good to see him again.

We'll continue in the cemetery with follow-up interviews from 2011, and more video work to feature the economy and larger communtiy there. I'm also hoping to start a photo project with three particular kids if they are interested, which would be a complement to the overall documentary. More on that as the project progresses.

Finally, we 're lining up interviews with people outside the cemetery who can speak to larger human rights, governmental and cultural issues which surround and impact the cemetery community and others here, in addition to population growth and the history of Manila and the Philippines. This will be important to give the voices and experiences in the cemetery much-needed context for a wider audience.

To date, we're meeting with a famous activist here this weekend, and hope he'll agree to lend his voice and perspective to the project (many thanks to Veejay Villafranca for that connection...fingers crossed!). We're also extremely grateful to Ben Rasmussen and Abby Kirkbride who connected us with friends here who are introducing us to experts in women's studies, culture and history. We hope to be able to schedule those interviews this week or next.

All in all, all is well. Thank you again for your support. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, or leave your comments below. We appreciate your support so much!

With gratitude,

Jessica & James

Posted on 11/16/12 at 4:00pm

Introducing Taylor Shain and a Documentary Update

We'd like to take the time to introduce Taylor Shain, our new Production and Editing Intern. Taylor comes to us from North Carolina and we're excited to have him as part of the team. What follows is Taylor's story on how he wound up in Denver, working with us, and an update on our Emphas.is funding project: From Taylor:

I entered Elon University as an intended Physics Major in Fall 2008. I eventually switched to pursue an Exercise Sports Science degree. Soon after that, I started calling myself a Strategic Communications major (I was never really sure what that last one meant). Then, one day, I stumbled across a course catalog. I started flipping through the pages and I found Elon’s Cinema degree. Every class offered piqued my interest—I finally found a love (related to school). Flash-forward two years later: I stumbled upon a job posting for Chance Multimedia.

I love anything creative. I don’t really consider myself a filmmaker; rather, I’m a creative person who happens to make movies. I enjoy everything artistic: arts and crafts, cooking, writing and, of course, filmmaking. I am thrilled to be part of Chance Multimedia because I have an opportunity to develop my creative skills and gain more production experience.

I believe that cinema and multimedia have an enormous impact on the world. That is the second reason I am excited to work here. It seems like James and Jessica make all their business decisions with moral and ethical beliefs in mind. I greatly admire that dedication. This job may also give me the opportunity to work on “Living with the Dead,” which seems like a really great project, story and opportunity.

I hope to eventually create a feature film.  For now, I’ll work on videos that I love to create and see where life takes me.

Emphas.is Funding Update

We are also so very grateful to each of you who supported our campaign to finalize the documentary featuring the community in Manila's North Cemetery!  We're so pleased to have made our goal. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Emphas.is is collecting the final donations now, and we anticipate being able to finalize our travel and production plans to share with you in the coming weeks.

Looking forward, we're excited to be able to bring perspectives from the cemetery community to life for a larger audience through the forthcoming documentary, and grateful to be working with Taylor and the rest of the team on this, and many other stories, in the months to come.

-Jessica

Living with the Dead Documentary Fundraiser and FAQs

First, I cannot thank the backers of our emphas.is fundraising effort enough for your pledges of support. We are over the halfway point to reach our goal of $5,050, which will cover the hard costs of travel and accommodation to complete this 30-minute documentary. If we exceed our goal, we will apply extra funds against the cost of post-production and distribution of the finished piece. As we near the end of this campaign, I want to address some good questions and also some issues that have come up during this fundraising process:

Q: Chance Multimedia is a for-profit company, right? Why do you need funding for this project?

Yes, Chance Multimedia is a for-profit entity that earns money producing video and photo content for both nonprofit and commercial clients.

Alternately, the Living with the Dead story, which we (James and Jessica Chance) have been funding and working on independently since 2008, is completely unrelated to our for-profit business model. (James did receive support from POYi in 2011 to finish the photography for this story, but the video documentary portion of the project has been 100% self-funded until now.)

If our goal is funded in total, we will continue to invest hundreds of hours of unpaid time to see this project to completion.  The pledges we seek will only cover hard travel costs for two people (flight, basic accommodation and basic meals for one month) while we are on the ground in Manila.

We will receive no funds unless our goal is reached in its entirety.

Q: Wouldn’t that money be better used to help the people in the cemetery?

That is a complicated question. We see our role as storytellers and documentarians. With several years of history and relationships in the cemetery community, we feel we’re in a good position to illustrate the challenges residents face as well as the solutions they have created for themselves in the face of pressing global issues.

We do hope the story we are able to tell with the community members will perhaps inspire those in a philanthropic position to take responsible action, which we feel they would be more equipped to do than we are as independent documentarians.

Issue: I tried to donate, but the site didn’t work/ it didn’t go through/ I ran into problems and gave up.

Thank you so much for trying. We’ve heard this from multiple people. Gratefully, when we’ve heard reports of specific issues we’ve been able to work with the folks at emphas.is to resolve them. Please, if you try to pledge and have trouble, let us know, and we’ll work on fixing the problem. We thank everyone who has persevered for your patience.

Q: What are Incentives?

There are incentives (things we give back to you to thank you for your pledge) at every level of support. Incentives include photo outtakes and thank you postcards featuring images from the project, a DVD or digital download of the film, prints, your name in the credits, and more. We're even offering a two-day, customized multimedia workshop for an organization wishing to support the production of this story.

Plus, the most basic pledge ($10) and every increasing level will grant you access to “The Making of Zone,” where we’ll document the challenges and surprises that are sure to come as we create this documentary.

Please pledge, and be a part of this project! Many thanks to those of you that have already! If you have more questions for us, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Jessica Chance

A Greater Emphas.is

After years of documenting a community of people living in the North Cemetery in Manila—many of whom we now consider friends—James and I are ready to finalize production of a 30-minute documentary that will expand on the initial multimedia story, released in 2008, for which we were presented an Every Human Has Rights Media Award. This longer-form documentary will explore issues affecting Metro Manila, such as dense population and intense poverty, from the perspective of residents of the North Cemetery. We are thrilled to announce that emphas.is, a curated crowd funding site for visual journalism, has chosen to feature and promote this project for funding. For the first time in the four years we've been working on this film and photography project, we'd like to ask you to be a part of it by either helping us fund it or by simply spreading the word.

Our funding goal, which will cover only hard costs of travel and production, is $5,050.  We will not receive any funding or pledges unless we reach our goal. In addition, funding at the most basic level ($10) admits each backer into the “making-of-zone,” where we will share the ups and downs, challenges and insights we gain as we complete filming in the cemetery throughout post-production.  Higher levels of backing earn this, plus rewards such as original postcards and prints from the project, all the way up to a personal multimedia workshop from James and myself.

Living with the Dead: The Backdrop

Manila, Philippines is the most densely populated city in the world. Danica May Comacho was born here on October 31^st, 2011. The UN symbolically named her the “seven-billionth” human to join our current world population.

Filipinos from rural provinces often migrate to the city in search of a better life. In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning, stating that: “continued population growth in Metro Manila will have ‘damaging consequences for human health,’ particularly for the poor as it increases poverty, diseases and natural disasters.”  The WHO estimates that over 20% of Metro Manila's population is either under or near the poverty line, with 35% living in urban slums.

In the center of this complex and intense capital lies the sprawling North Cemetery, where many past presidents, actors and actresses are buried. In contrast to intense traffic and noise just outside the cemetery walls, the North Cemetery is quiet and peaceful. Here, a community of around 2,000 people live, work, raise children and sleep, participating in the unique economy that accompanies the up to 80 Catholic burials which take place here each day.

Residents here tell us they prefer the cemetery to the streets, and indeed, some residents prosper greatly in the cemetery economy, earning enough money to send their children to private school.

Anticipated Outcome and Goals

Our documentary will look at current issues facing our planet from the perspective of three families living inside the cemetery, such as population growth, poverty, human rights, access to family planning, affordable housing and education.

Our goal is to educate and engage a broad audience with these larger issues, through the eyes, lives and hopes of the children and families who call the North Cemetery home.

We deeply appreciate your consideration to help us fund this project! Many, many thanks to those of you that already have.

Support the project, here: Living with the Dead (via emphas.is)

Jessica Chance