How I wrote a Star Cinema film

(The author is the screenwriter of Love Me Tomorrow, which is now showing in cinemas. — Ed.)

MANILA, Philippines - Walking into the meeting for my first mainstream film, I could feel the discomfort of pretty much everyone in the room — a room filled with scrutinizing Star Cinema execs and creatives, and me, a pale white guy with zero experience writing for a studio.

Was I nervous? Hell yeah. Before this meeting, I had written only two Cinemalaya films, Gino M. Santos’ The Animals and #Y, and their target market was worlds apart from Star Cinema’s. But since Star Cinema wanted to work with Gino, and Gino wanted to work with me, here I was being given this big project.

The caveat is that I would, for the first time, have to write a story that wasn’t mine. You see, that’s how it works. When Star Cinema hires a writer, they already have a concept in mind, a few character sketches, sometimes even a beginning, maybe a middle, and options for the end. All that’s left to do is write the story and the dialogue. But no, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Far from it. They gave me the freedom to tie all the things together and take the story where I wanted to. So I did my research, mapped out my characters, wrote, had a meeting, revised, had another meeting, revised, started shooting, still kept revising, and so on. 13 drafts later, Ex With Benefits was born.

That film made over 100 million on its almost month-long run in cinemas, and considering the budget they gave us, 100 million was great. Really great, actually. So, about a month and a half later, I got a call from Kriz Gazmen, one of the creative leads in Star Cinema, the same guy I reported to for Ex. He told me they were offering me a new movie, and the requisite ingredients were laid out: It would star Coleen Garcia (I got even more excited, because after three movies with her, I feel very comfortable writing for Coleen), and then Kris dropped a bomb: The film would also star Piolo Pascual and Miss Dawn Zulueta.

‘Love me Tomorrow’

The project was eventually titled Love Me Tomorrow, and it was based on a concept that my co-writer G3 San Diego had pitched about a year ago. I started writing the first draft of the sequence treatment, and then a meeting was called. We met at the house of Ma’am Charo Santos, who wanted to be very involved with the film, given that it was a big project starring Dawn and Piolo, and the milieu was something she was very interested in. You’d think I’d be nervous knowing that she’d be hands on, but for some reason I wasn’t. I guess in my head I was like “I’m awesome, I could totally do this, piece of cake.” I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Once the meeting started, she looked over at me, very calmly, very pleasantly, and said, “So Jeff, what do you know about life?” and I just couldn’t give an answer that satisfied her. Again, I felt the scrutiny, the discomfort, and again I understood. Why would they trust me, this millennial, to write a movie to appeal to the masses about a middle-aged widow? On paper, I totally didn’t seem right for the job. But for some reason, they still gave me their trust and let me proceed with writing the second draft (after subtly and gently tearing my first draft apart).

In the car ride post-meeting, Gino and I were silent. If you were there with us, you’d probably be able to feel the pressure we were feeling. I don’t know what he was thinking, but what was going through my head was “Shit, can I really do this?” But I sucked it up and got to work.

The Struggle

It was a struggle. I needed a lot of help. Gino gave me direction on how the story could go, I would bounce off ideas with my girlfriend, and my friends, parents, and titas would let me interview them. At draft 5, with dialogue, G3 and I were finally able to nail the structure and the sequence, and the crew proceeded with shooting.

At this point I was relaxed. Five drafts for this one compared to 13 drafts for Ex — not bad. But then the scripts kept coming back, not as a whole story, but in parts. Whatever they were shooting, I would revise the day before — and these revisions were different, some even causing plot changes or major rewrites. I’m no stranger to revisions, but I don’t know where I got the strength to suck it all up and finish. I promised myself that I would take a break before doing the next one.

On the last day of shooting, I visited the set. When the last scene wrapped up and Direk screamed those three magic words — in this case four because he actually said, “that’s a f*cking wrap!” — this feeling of victory came and I felt lighter than I did in a long time. The movie wrapped, and that meant writing for it was over, too. From the first meeting to this point, that was seven months. Seven months of non-stop work. And it was finally over.

Premiere Night

A few days ago was the premiere night. For the first time, I watched two hours and seven minutes of the film, and then it hit me: This is why I put myself through all that shit. This is why I don’t sleep to finish a draft. This is why I cancel dates, write on weekends, and miss out on family dinners. Because the feeling of seeing your script come to life on the big screen is an indescribable, irreplaceable feeling like no other.

I know I said that I would give myself a break, but last night, I got a call. A call that led me to drive two hours to Mother Ignacia, sit in an hour-long meeting at Star Cinema, and start the process all over again. And you know what, I’m excited. Because I know that in about seven months, I’ll be feeling that indescribable, irreplaceable feeling all over again, and it’ll all be worth it.

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Tweet the author @jeffstelton.