1985: A Philippine Odyssey...Getting there was more than half the fun...

You've got to believe me when I tell you that when I wrote it; "product placement" was the furthest thing from my mind. The fact of the matter was that because of some mix-up in Sydney a junior secretary had misunderstood and booked me a ticket from L.A. to Manila travelling Mabuhay Class on Philippine Airlines...it was the Zenith of luxury; private boarding lounge the whole bit...what a great start to a great adventure!

There is a cliched way of indicating with a few shots that a character in a film is going from A to B...the stock shot of the plane in flight; then maybe that underbelly shot of the landing, wheels chirping as they kiss the tarmac...BORING!
...my intent was to reference Floyd's flight to the Moon in 2001...because, a.) I loved that film!; b.) Our protaganist is dreaming a sci-fi cartoon which mixes to the live action at this point; c.) parts of the original seq. in 2001 were shot on an Oxberry animation stand...cel animated photographs of models, which have an unmistakable look and which represent a high point in cel animtion as an effects tool...and d.) the accompanying music would be the Waltz from Coppelia; (rather than the Blue Danube)...see Filipina Ballerinas below

As the story began to take shape and I recalled watching the events of the People Power revolution unfold...(oh yes! the revolution was televised!)...one of the Guerilla reporters read on air, a letter from the then president of Philippine Airlines tendering their resignation to the Marcos Gov't and placing their services and those of the company at the service of Cory Acquino's new administration. The reporter then added that PAL was the first such company to do so., it was a watershed moment.

Later, I also remembered that PAL underwent a revamp of it's livery after the revolution and, to my mind, it became a palpable symbol of the resurgence of optimism and change that had taken hold in the country after the Miracle of EDSA. I had my perfect "leaving Manila" sequence with the new PAL Jumbo in it's gorgeous new colour scheme...a perfect visual metaphor...and that's what movies are about...flying off; (CGI this time) not into the sunset but into the sunrise.



Mabuhay Class...It was mind-bogglingly luxurious...




almost contemporaneous, to My Unmade Movie...found this ad on YouTube, sited as circa 1987.
Philippine Airlines is also the oldest Airline in Asia (est. 1941)