Director
Brillante “Dante” Mendoza only has one reason why he kept going back to Optima for his films: trust. From his film, “Serbis” that won numerous awards both here and abroad, to his latest film, (official title of film isn’t confirmed yet) that is set to represent the Philippines for the third straight year at the Cannes Film Festival, Optima Digital has been doing post-production work for the living national treasure of Philippine alternative cinema.
“Direk Dante has so much trust and confidence in us”, says Optima's senior colorist, Marilen Magsaysay. “There are times where he will just let the artist do whatever he/she thinks is best for the film, and then he comes back and applauds at the finished output.”
“Serbis” became the first Filipino Film ever in competition at the New York Film Festival, while “Kinatay” and “Lola” won awards at the Sitges International Film Festival, 2009 Gawad Tanglaw, 2010 33rd Gawad Urian ng Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, 2010 8th Rome Asian Film Festival (Italy), 2010 31st Durban International Film Festival, 2010 11th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, to mention a few. Brillante Mendoza also won best director at Cannes 2009 for “Kinatay”.
With Optima, Mendoza and his Director of Photography, Odie Flores, has seen their work improve from the shoot itself. “He tells us what kind of look does he want, and after showing him the color-graded scenes he shouts, ‘Ang ganda ng kulay!’ (‘I like the color!’)” says Magsaysay.
This will not be possible without Optima’s color grading software, the Da Vinci Resolve on Linux and the Da Vinci Resolve on Mac. The said software, along with Optima’s color grading team, led by Magsaysay, made it easier for Mendoza to put together different scenes from different cameras, achieving the look, emotion, and at the same time projecting the message that he wants the film viewers to see, making his films worthy of international recognition and reinventing Philippine alternative cinema in the process.