The CSB Experience 2: Inside The Black Box Studio with Dawn Zulueta

    I learned from ate Claire that there will be a live taping of a show from CinemaOne called Inside the Cinema hosted by Boy Abunda. This show is similar to a US show aired previously in 2nd Avenue (now in RJTV-29) called "Inside the Studio". Usually, there'd be a guest whom Boy Abunda will conduct an interview with, regarding his/her cinematic experiences, and what's really great that other than having a studio audience, they will have the opportunity to participate in the show by asking them questions.
   
    The show taped 2 episodes last Thursday inside the Black Box Studio, at the 6th floor of the School of Design and Arts Bldg. Popular actress Dawn Zulueta is a guest for the 1st episode taped and the 2nd is veteran actress Anita Linda. I didn't know then who would be Boy Abunda's guest that time but I thought I should check it out since as an MMA student, I felt I should take the opportunity to learn how a show is made.

    The Dawn episode was supposed to start at 2:30 pm so since I don't have class then until 4:20, I went to the 6th floor to watch it. It's my first time to be there since SDA is a really huge place to begin with. there's still a lot of areas inside that I haven't been in. Anyway, the actual taping started around 4 but I have to leave early because of I have my midterms for my last class back in Main.

    Mr. Boy was already there by 3, he was wearing plain blue shirt, chekcered shorts and a pair of slippers to go with it. He was given instructions from the director on how the should should commence. What I like about his proefssionalism that, he is never afraid to give suggestions on what should be done. As he read the script, he asked if he could make changes in the introduction, citing that it'll take too long of an intro to welcome his guests. Later he was introduced with the SDA dean and some prominent people from the SDA community as well as well-known cinema perosnalities like Aureaus Solito of "Endo" and "Maximo Oliveros" fame.

    I came back to the studio around past 5 (I finished early on my midterms so I could leave right away) and Dawn was already there, right in the middle of taping. I guess I'm in the nick of time as I was able to get a good seat to watch the show from where I was sitting at. Boy showed Dawn clips of her past movies like "Buhay ng Buhay Ko", "Una Kang Naging Akin", "Maggie De la Riva Story", and of course, among others "Patayin Mo Sa Sindak si Barbara". Questions from Boy ranged from her early experiences to her relationship with Richard Gomez, to her future aspirations in the industry to her current role as a wife to her husband and as a mother to her son.

    I found Ms. Dawn very entertaining, no clear traces of DIVA-eeshness can ever be found in her body, just her plain wholesome self. She was never afraid to answer straight forward questions and even gave advice to SDA students that we should go further to make our country the best in cinematic excellence among others.

    And yup, Boy asked members of the audience if they have any questions to ask and there were a lot of them. I wanna ask something too but don't know what to. Froma piece of apaper, I wrote several questions but in the end, I didn't use them. Then the time for me to ask Dawn Zulueta came and what I had in mind was this : " You are one of the brightest stars in your generation as well as one of the best actresses [around]...if given the choice, would you wanna be a star or an actress?" (More or less something like that). A provocative question it is, Dawn simply said "I'm already an actress so [gusto ko na lang maging star]".

    Boy took this into consideration and he asked that question to me. I answered "I want to be an actor than be a star because it doesn't matter to me if I don't have the most endorsement [deals], ...but what matters is that (more or less) the recognition that I receive as I want to hone my craft".

    Taping for the first episode wrapped up past six, Anita Linda was already there. i took the opportunity to ask Ms. Dawn and Boy Abunda for their autographs. They're really nice people in person and I can't believe that something like this really happened. Guess I'm very lucky that day (a complete turnaround from what happened exactly a week before).

     I really can't tell more unless you watch these episodes for yourselves. So I'll try to know when they will be airing them so stay tuned to CinemaOne: Ang Buhay Natin, Parang Sine.  :):):)