Hey, this is the story of how I made my first video entitled, "Pulp Friction: Because It Isn't Always the Butler Who Did It (PAREF Springdale First Year Retreat)".

Now to start off, I want to first say that my editing skills are not professional. I know basic terms such as transitions, trims, cutting-room floor, and so on, but I do not that much of an experienced hand at editing videos and pictures. You can pretty much imagine the hard time I had in making the whole video. However, all the hard work was quickly done within one day, and I managed to premiere the finished product to my family. I suggest that while I'm talking about all of this, please be watching the film at the same time so that you can understand each frame, scene, and/or part I'm talking about.

The first thing we see in the video is the "Presentation screen", which as you can see has the text "The First Years of Springdale 2006-2007 presents..." I had this picture made using Paint as I did with all the other similar black backdrop shots including the black screen itself. Keep in mind that I am on a very low budget here and that the only piece of equipment that I used to make the film that were priced over a thousand when I bought it were the computer and the camera. So if the quality sucks, please forgive me, I'll fix that when I have the money.

Now we have the image of the door being knocked on and we have Jurgen (I like to call him that online instead of Jiggy) opening the door and letting Ralph in with his terrorism attire. This was actually the second bit of footage I took. The first one I did take that gave me the idea of making this film comes later on in the middle of the film. Anyway, I got the idea for shooting this one while I was shooting the first video, and Ralph came in with the same attire in a similar manner. I decided to have a sort of action scene at that point and I picked that moment to be it. From the side of the door, I told Ralph to start knocking when he heard me scream, "Action!", (which was trimmed out of the cut) and Jurgen would come and open the door. Jurgen would start doing whatever Mortal Kombat stuff he saw in the cinema, and I just recorded, shaked the camera, and provided struggling sounds to make it more action-packed. Now if you pay attention, and I know you won't miss this, the Pulp Fiction theme called Miserlou, which is commonly known today as Pump It, is played the moment the door opens, and eventually becomes the main backdrop music for the whole film.

We have another black title shot following: "A story of twenty-nine men... Living in the same house for three nights..." Now actually, we stayed in the Don Bosco retreat house for three days, but I preferred to call it nights because I just thought it sounded better.

The next scene features Kevin and Joshua in the midst of an arguement. They seem to be arguing about, "Whose is bigger?" but I don't reveal what exactly they're talking about until later in the clip when they pull up their room keys, producing an idiotic (but in a comedic sense) ending to that scene.

Black title shot: "Filled with horror." Now for those die-hard movie fans who've been living concious of movie trailers in the nineties might recognize that I've tried to style the trailer after those trailers of the past. I wanted this film to have a sort of spoof aimed at movie trailers, which usually talk about how they are filled with action, adventure, and so on.

The next part was shot early on the second morning, I believe. It's a sort of "Island of Dr. Moreau" meets "Gollum torture scene in Fellowship" meets "Princess Leia torture scene in Hope" kind of scene. Originally, I was just going to have Kevin and Jovi killing off Mikel in the scene, but before I started shooting, Enzo A. took out his electric toothbrush from his bag. I instantly asked to borrow it, and ended up making it seem as if I was torturing Mikel with the electric toothbrush.

Black title shot: "Suspense." I'm not really sure about what's suspenseful in the next part, but it was the only piece of extra footage I had, and I wanted to make sure I used all the footage. Originally, I was supposed to shoot on the second night when all the lights went off and suddenly they started flickering upstairs gory B-movie style, but we all got freaked out by it because we all thought something was going to jump out of nowhere like a killer or a chupacabra or something...

Here's the extra footage. Kevin shouts and you can hear in the background the gi-normous laugh of smiling Steve as we pull away and look at the street. At the end of this part, the music cuts, which I was able to do with a downloaded program called Blaze Media, and I did the same with the next track, which musical score fans will easily recognize.

Black title shot: "And..." This is where the Brokeback Mountain theme starts playing. Right now, I want to state that I thought the movie was weird, but the theme was okay. That was the only thing I thought was okay about it.

This next part was originally going to feature Kevin and Kenneth, the Ledger and Gyllenhaal of this film, but either they didn't want to do this scene or they didn't have the time to. Instead, I had Rodney take the camera and record as I did a Brokeback-kind-of-nod to Gabe, who willingly accepted to do this scene. If you don't watch the scene carefully, you won't easily notice the nod, but it's there.

Black: "Discovery." This is where it starts getting Brokeback. Now my original idea was to have the whole film as a spoof of Brokeback, but I didn't get enough footage for humor and the idea seemed kinda done, so I decided to have a Pulp Fiction/Brokeback Mountain idea instead.

We're finally here at the real Brokeback scene. This is the first footage I shot, and it happened while Kenneth was under his blanket and Kevin jumped next to him and also went under. Jurgen and I were in the room at this time also, and I decided to take it because I had my camera with me. It's at this time when your poker face really comes in handy because I tricked the two into doing weird stuff by telling them I was going to take a picture of them. Instead, I switched to video and clicked. The result: pure madness. Now the footage I shot was about a minute or so, so I cut the video in half and had two parts of the video. You'll see the other one later.

Black: "To let out a voice within." Honestly, I just needed something that didn't sound manly in this title, and this was the only one that hit me.

Here's now my only speaking part in the video. If you connect the "Suspense" footage to the end of this one, you'll notice that they're one and the same. I walk away from Steve and I have that sad face, which I thought was perfect for a moment until I put my hand in. It was at that point that I remembered that I was making a comedy and not a drama, so you can understand. I then spin around and shout out the famous line, "I wish I knew how to quit you!" to which he makes his own reply, "Ah, shut up, ***!" I want to state at this point that the three letter censor is not a curse, but instead my real name. Walking away disgruntled, I shake my head and tell Kevin to cut. By the way, that's Javi there in the background.

Black: "Well what did you expect?" At this moment, I'm thinking of that guy with a deep voice who normally gives this line when spoofing off something. I think I saw this line in the opening credits of a Monty Python movie.

Now you have the second half of the Brokeback footage. Kevin told me that Kenneth was pushing away at this part, so it looks kinda weird at this part, but the part I find really hilarious in this scene is when Kenneth looks away and goes, "Oh... This is scandal." Ralph came in with his terrorist attire at this point, and that's when I got the idea to shoot the opening action scene.

Black: "We were lonely..." Just like the Pirates of the Carribean, the inmates of Prison films, and Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Here we have the only picture featured before the ending credit reel. That's Tonio, Kevin, and Joshua all piled up there together.

Fade to Black. Music ends.

Black: "Just kidding."

Fade to Black again.

Black: "Starring..." At this point we start again the Miserlou theme, and what follows after this is a list of everyone at the retreat including pictures, and a special appearance at the end. I wanted to have this like the Pulp Fiction trailer where they're saying everyone who was in the film, which was why there was supposed to be a voice-over in the reel, but was removed due to deadlines and stuff (the deadline being later that night.)

Haha... Rockinest Pinoy Boy. That's me. And after Mr. Ampiloquio comes the special guest appearance of... I'm not telling you who, you'll have to see him for yourself, but just so you know, that's me in the helmet shot a day or so after we got back from the retreat. I felt like I needed to have one of those "NOOOOOOO!" screams before revealing the title.

PULP FRICTION: Because It Isn't Always the Butler Who Did It.

And there you have it, Making the Video for Pulp Friction also known as the First Year Retreat Video SY 2006-2007. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed!

Wow. That's an exhaustively detailed commentary.

Lol. Thanks for taking the time to read it then!