Last Tuesday, June 24, bloggers trooped to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at Bonifacio High Street for a workshop about Flash Creativity. The workshop was divided into three topics – creative writing, photography, and short film – and bloggers were allowed to choose what topic they could attend.
The subject matter experts are all respected and known in their fields:
Dean Francis Alfar
If anybody can teach you about writing it’s Dean Alfar. With nine Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature under his belt – including the Grand Prize for his novel Salamanca as well as the Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Awards for the graphic novels Siglo: Freedom and Siglo: Passion and the Philippines Free Press Literary Award – Dean’s writing can express something truer than the truth which is the story.
Mike Cabardo
Explaining to someone what having an eye means is to show them the works of Mike Cabardo. This director, producer and owner of Salt Lab Creative – a motion picture and video production company specializing in creative broadcast video, film, animation and graphic design – is the visionary behind the lens of ADJECTIVE music videos Sabihin Mo by Hemp Republic, Kitchie Nadal’s Run and TL Ako Sa’yo as well as Drip’s In-Between Live.
Jay Tablante
His images will amaze you, but his passion will inspire you. Jay Tablante started out as a photographer tagging along his high school magazine’s editor with a throwaway camera, but now thanks to his tireless perseverance and unique style and inventiveness that suffuses his work, Jay quickly found himself an accomplished photographer that he fervently describes as someone who will live and die by the camera for the rest of his days.
After thirty minutes of lecture and iced tea, the bloggers were let loose in the Boni High Street expanse to put what they have learned in practice. Those who attended the short film workshop made funny videos using mobile phones and point-and-shoot cameras, and with little to no editing, the videos were funny and creative. Budding photographers were to take ten pictures using any camera – mobile phone, point-and-shoot, and DSLR. While the two groups were busy milling around for their shots, those who attended creative writing were seated and hunched at their tables, some staring at nowhere, trying to compose words and put them into writing.
At the end of frantic flash creativity sessions, the fruits of the bloggers’ flash creativity were read or viewed, and three written works, three photos, and all the videos were awarded prizes.
The host took this opportunity to invite everyone to join its What’s Your Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Story? contest. What’s your coffee bean and tea leaf story? Log onto www.whatsyourcoffeebeanandteafstory.com for more information.
