The Sonic Bridge: Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan on Nature, Sound, and Storytelling
Today, we're diving deep into the world of sound and its uncanny ability to bridge the chasm between humanity and nature with the incredibly talented Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan! We kick off our chat with a thought-provoking observation: nature is not just a backdrop, but an active participant in our emotional narratives.
As we unravel the layers of Don's latest project, 'Vox Humana', we explore how he ingeniously intertwines sound design with storytelling, turning scripts into sonic experiences that resonate on multiple levels. His approach to crafting a screenplay that almost resembles a symphony of sounds rather than traditional dialogue reveals a unique creative process that challenges conventional filmmaking. Throughout our conversation, we examine our complex relationship with the natural world, discovering how sound can capture both our reverence for and tension with nature.
Transcript
You are listening to the Vinito talkout Oscar podcast and this is our conversation with Don Josephus.
Speaker A:RAFAEL Eblan Writer, DIRECTOR of the short Vox Humana.
Speaker B:We look to nature for solace, for comfort, when nature needs comfort as well.
Speaker B:So, you know, a lot of our grief is tied into this love, hate relationship between humanity and nature.
Speaker B:And who's the most forgiving here?
Speaker B:It's nature.
Speaker A:Since primarily we are here to talk about Vox Humana, but your work as a whole as well.
Speaker A:I'd really like to start with the obvious, or at least for me, because in Vox Humana, you elevated sound design and pretty much in all your works, from a technical element to a sort of narrative backbone.
Speaker A:So, first and foremost, what I could barely wait to ask you is its inclusion throughout the screenwriting process itself.
Speaker A:When sound is so central, do you have specific methods to capture the sonic elements on the page?
Speaker A:And how detailed can these sound descriptions be in one screenplay?
Speaker B:Well, actually, the bulk of my screenwriting process is mostly sounds.
Speaker B:I mean, of course, it has to have the right ingredients of the characters, the action and location.
Speaker B:But the script almost looks like a shot list, but sound.
Speaker B:So it's like a sound list almost, you know, so it's a.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I love sound design and I love editing.
Speaker B:And, you know, I'm a musician as well, so I always try to think in terms of how I'm gonna build my beats and little moments, dramatic moments, just by signaling, using sound, basically.
Speaker B:So I start editing the film in the script or in my head first and then the script and using sounds as my way to maybe introduce a cut or introduce a close up or, you know, it starts with the sound and then we see the image.
Speaker B:So it gets a little bit technical and maybe confusing for people to read my scripts.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I hope it's not.
Speaker B:But, yeah, that's really been my process.
Speaker B:It's a big part of screenwriting for me is to put sound direction, which makes everything easy in post, in editing and sound design also.
Speaker B:And of course, my sound designer, he's a, you know, he's someone I made music with back then.
Speaker B:We were just, you know, in university.
Speaker B:We would play our instruments, record music and make beats and stuff like that.
Speaker B:So I give him a lot of freedom also afterwards.
Speaker B:So I have my directions, but he still, you know, goes crazy in the end and does his own.
Speaker A:I'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit, but are you trying to keep and follow the similar routine when it comes to writing your first feature?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, what's funny is because, you know, before I hopped on this call, I was literally just writing my feature.
Speaker B:And I was having a, you know, a dilemma.
Speaker B:It's like, are people gonna understand this?
Speaker B:Because this is all sound.
Speaker B:And sometimes I run out of my English words to describe the same sounds.
Speaker B:So it's like, am I being repetitive now?
Speaker B:It's the same cue over and over, and I start to overthink things.
Speaker B:But I can see how it could get unsustainable because, you know, it could drive me crazy if I'm just, you know, sort of just writing in sounds and, you know, potential producers or potential application reviewers, for example, if I'm funding.
Speaker B:Looking for funding using my script.
Speaker B:And then they read my scripts.
Speaker B:And it's mostly just he's just making sounds.
Speaker B:You know, it's all onomatopoeic words and, you know, like animal sounds and objects making sounds.
Speaker B:You know, that's what takes up a lot of the script.
Speaker B:It's risky to write like this.
Speaker B:I hope it's worth the risk.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker A:Listen, from the outside, it seems pretty much impossible to even describe so many different sounds.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a problem.
Speaker B:Even I'm confused.
Speaker B:It's, you know, how do you make a sound and put subtitles and make it mean something?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like how, you know, like a simple bird sound, for example.
Speaker B:Like, how is that supposed to mean hello?
Speaker B:Or how are you?
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:So it's like I have to really write the behavior, right?
Speaker B:Like the.
Speaker B:The manner of how they're making the sound and the posture.
Speaker B:Because that becomes part of the language.
Speaker A:Because otherwise it would pretty much become an entire subtitle consisting of closed caption.
Speaker A:And that's it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I don't want to have to rely on, you know, putting captions in the end of the day.
Speaker B:Because it's.
Speaker B:That's not really.
Speaker B:It's, you know, it could be cheating, but at the same time, it's, you know, it's part of cinema.
Speaker B:Also, subtitles are part of.
Speaker B:You know, it's a material just as much as a title card.
Speaker B:Or when you put the timing of the title card when it comes in the film.
Speaker B:Or, I don't know, a sound cue, for example, like, subtitles are just as part of the material is the actors.
Speaker B:Maybe that's controversial.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker A:And I believe the sound designer you're talking about is Henry.
Speaker A:Henry Hawks.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Henry Hawkes.
Speaker A:So with that in mind, how can a collaboration, a creative shorthand evolve accompanied by pretty much the soundscapes you're creating over and over.
Speaker B:I think it's a lot of.
Speaker B:It's trust because, like I said, we've worked together before in other ways.
Speaker B:And we've done all of my short films.
Speaker B:Not all, actually three of them.
Speaker B:I've collaborated with Henry, and we just get each other like that.
Speaker B:So whatever he does, I let him do it.
Speaker B:And he reads the script and he gets my directions.
Speaker B:We like a lot of the same music.
Speaker B:We like a lot of the same films.
Speaker B:So it's, you know, never really anything where I have to be very exact and be a helicopter director over him.
Speaker B:Because, you know, I know whatever he'll make, he'll be good.
Speaker B:And, you know, sometimes it could produce a very interesting experimental effect.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes he would completely cut out the sound, and then we're hearing nothing.
Speaker B:And then it's very controversial choices.
Speaker B:And I'm like, okay, let's keep it.
Speaker B:Because there might be a reason why he's doing this, you know, and, yeah.
Speaker A:On the narrative side of things, something that your films tend to mean to me.
Speaker A:And what I can really relate to as someone who loves to do these interviews and chats, because I love to ask questions, is that you don't shy away from lingering in the question.
Speaker A:Rather than, like, I don't know, strictly rushing toward or looking for the answer, trying to answer it.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:Is this ambiguity something you consciously cultivate?
Speaker A:And I don't want to get too personal, but is this something that can be said about not only film, but maybe even your life as a whole?
Speaker B:What's funny is because I'm writing currently a chapter in my feature about asking questions.
Speaker B:And one character is like, why do you keep asking these questions?
Speaker B:But, yeah, I mean, sometimes people ask questions because maybe they know the answer already and they just want someone else to hear it, you know, to.
Speaker B:To mirror back what they're already thinking about things.
Speaker B:So what you see in Voxomana and also in my other shorts, it's everyone's being asked questions.
Speaker B:You know, the main character is always being interrogated or interrogating.
Speaker B:And these are characters who, you know, maybe they know the answer of what they're asking, but they just want to hear someone else say it to them.
Speaker B:And, you know, asking questions is.
Speaker B:You know, I guess if we're getting in the personal level, it's something I do, and I feel like everyone does in their life.
Speaker B:You know, they.
Speaker B:They always try to find validation or.
Speaker B:Or.
Speaker B:Or explore reasons why things are the way they are.
Speaker B:In particular, in Vox 1, I wanted to challenge it because I.
Speaker B:I told to myself, like, oh, every film I have is this, you know, main character being interviewed or being asked things that they don't necessarily want to be asked about.
Speaker B:You know, so I'll make the main character ask questions this time and, you know, and whatever answers she's looking for will not be given to her, but she'll understand it.
Speaker B:You know, I love.
Speaker B:I love this stuff because, you know, living, especially as a filmmaker from the Philippines, you know, we try to find opportunities for making films outside of the Philippines or getting funding from outside of the Philippines and everywhere else.
Speaker B:And it's always questions, you know, and even then when applying to film festivals, there's all these questions about yourself, your identity, about what, you know, what is this film about?
Speaker B:You know, like, why are you making this film?
Speaker B:And always interrogating somebody.
Speaker B:And I find this interesting because, you know, we make films because we want to make films, you know, and maybe it's a reflection of that because most of my life nowadays is all just applications to things, trying to.
Speaker B:Trying to make things happen.
Speaker B:And even, you know, throughout my life, just asking myself questions about my past, about the things that I care about, the themes that I try to explore in my films, because I don't know the answers.
Speaker B:Maybe, you know, I have a feeling of what they are, but I want the world to speak back to me and tell me these answers and whatever.
Speaker A:And then there is the.
Speaker A:The obvious palpable tension between humanity and nature.
Speaker A:Has your perspective on this relationship shifted while working on Vox Humana, or does it shift throughout your works?
Speaker A:Whether that be towards a lighter or rather maybe the other way around, a stronger sentiment?
Speaker B:I'd say that I recognized it more while I was working in voxumana because, you know, we didn't really have much resources making the film, so we opted for no lights, just the camera and having a smaller team and, you know, where I live.
Speaker B:So a lot of, you know, like, when you see the mist in the film, that was completely random.
Speaker B:We didn't plan that.
Speaker B:When you see the sun blaring down, we didn't plan any of that.
Speaker B:So, you know, when we were looking at the locations to scout one thing, I talked to my idp and my producer was like, you know, how can we surrender ourselves to nature because we, you know, we're at its mercy.
Speaker B:We can't really, you know, move the sun like we would a light on set.
Speaker B:You know, we can't be doing that, and we can't be having a fog machine when there's a natural fog machine up in the mountains here.
Speaker B:And we don't know when it turns on or when it turns off.
Speaker B:So we, so we trusted really what the nature will give to us.
Speaker B:And you know, my relationship, I guess, with humanity versus nature is that, you know, having full surrender to it and offering ourselves and our art to it.
Speaker B:Because only then you'll get the results you want.
Speaker B:Or maybe only then will you be happy with the results you get.
Speaker B:The only results you get.
Speaker B:And yeah, a lot of it.
Speaker B:You know, as you notice in the film, it's all about sound.
Speaker B:So we realize how important listening is.
Speaker B:Listening to nature, listening to ourselves while making the film.
Speaker B:And I guess that's what softened the tension between humanity and nature is when you just actually listen and you know, you can coexist.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And on that note, if we are to sum it up to a point, how do you see sound as a common language bridging this gap between nature and humanity?
Speaker B:I think just because the concept of sound is tied into how we build relationships, when we say listen, you know, in the English language, it's.
Speaker B:It could just not be like listening or hearing something like when you make sounds like this, you know, but like for example, listening is also giving the time in the space to actually receive information from someone or receive someone's time and give your own time back.
Speaker B:So it's an act of care.
Speaker B:And when I say listening, of course there are people in the world who do not have the ability of listening, but do we think they don't listen to others as well to give their time and care to speak, no matter what language it is?
Speaker B:Could be sign language or any other type way of communication.
Speaker B:I think the act of listening is an act of caring no matter how you do it.
Speaker B:And when you listen to nature, it's not just being idle and receiving information from it, but it's also about giving time to think about it and what it's been through throughout hundreds of years of pain.
Speaker B:And you know, like, one thing that I, like I've been writing in this feature that I'm currently writing in this residency here, is I guess, the relationship between our own grief and the nature's grief and the pain that it's been through throughout years, how intertwined it is.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes humans could forget, you know, or maybe we're too self centered to think maybe that our grief is quite important and it's so catastrophic to us when, you know, the land shares the same, you know, it's been plundered for many years.
Speaker B:And it's been receiving so much pain until today.
Speaker B:But, you know, what do we do when we're sad?
Speaker B:We go take a walk and listen to the birds or, you know, we look to nature for solace or for comfort when nature needs comfort as well.
Speaker B:So, you know, a lot of our grief is tied into this love, hate relationship between humanity and nature and who's the most forgiving here?
Speaker B:It's nature, you know, and we're always given the chance to heal, but nature is not.
Speaker B:So one of the things I want to talk about in my films is this one way street of a relationship.
Speaker B:And maybe there could be a wake up call for people to start thinking the opposite way and give back somehow.
Speaker A:I don't know if you can tell, and this is not even a question, I hope to a point you can, but I'm just absolutely blown away by the fact that you can not only capture this, but make sound into a film.
Speaker A:And at the same time, thanks to the unsimulated effects provided by nature, it feels so natural.
Speaker A:Even though you edit, you design the sound, you color, et cetera.
Speaker A:Incredible.
Speaker B:Yeah, because there's a certain balance we need to have, right?
Speaker B:Like if the script says there's an earthquake scene, you know, there's a million ways we can go about it.
Speaker B:We can show everything falling apart and things and the cuts and, you know, to com.
Speaker B:To communicate a cinematic way of things falling apart.
Speaker B:But I don't know, we opted in showing it how it feels.
Speaker B:You know, if you've been in an earthquake, you know how it feels.
Speaker B:It's not as dramatic as it seems.
Speaker B:You know, you sit there and you move with everything and it's just as idle and uneventful as, you know, it could be.
Speaker B:Happens in a snap and you're like, oh, wow, it happened, you know.
Speaker A:As for the roles you've occupied on your projects, as far as I know, you shot Remedy along with writing and directing, and in addition to that, edited and scored the Handhunter's Daughter.
Speaker A:And now with Vox Humana, you've somewhat stepped back to just writing and directing.
Speaker A:You know how Isabela Sandoval says she's an editor at first at heart, despite doing practically not everything on her films, but writes, directs and stars.
Speaker A:Do you have that same kind of primary creative identity?
Speaker A:A role that feels most like home to you?
Speaker B:Actually, I haven't really thought about it that much.
Speaker B:I just love working in films.
Speaker B:I used to edit a lot when I was in university and direct and do camera as well because I used to be A videographer.
Speaker B:So I used to do rap videos and things like that.
Speaker B:But I've, you know, I've always been obsessed with just crafting, doing things myself because I, you know, in film school, it's.
Speaker B:I was an international student and kind of.
Speaker B:I was quite shy and I didn't really know how to collaborate or find people to work with.
Speaker B:And one of the things I said to myself is like, oh, if I'm going to be shy and, you know, I'm not going to get these grants to, you know, to use the school's materials and equipment to make my films, I'll just do it myself.
Speaker B:So I think it kind of started from there and started doing editing and camera and stuff by myself and I kind of just got used to it.
Speaker B:But in general, I just love creating things before directing, I've always wanted to be a musician, so that kind of just tied into everything.
Speaker B:So that's how the scoring part happened as well.
Speaker A:And did the networking part of it become more than a must or.
Speaker B:I guess I feel like, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I luckily have a very supportive group of friends who's ready to work with me in whatever scale it could be.
Speaker B:Back then I didn't really have much because it was just me and my partner who's producing my films.
Speaker B:But I think eventually people started sort of believing in what we do and people start offering their services, even if it's for free and everything.
Speaker B:So it just came naturally.
Speaker B:So Vox Humana, you know, it's kind of like an assembly of people who are huge parts of my life as friends and new acquaintances and new co collaborators.
Speaker B:I didn't have to do much networking.
Speaker B:It's just natural happened now.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what you want to hear.
Speaker A:And last but not least, we've both alluded to your first feature.
Speaker A:So what has the path to it been like?
Speaker B:It's been quite chaotic because, you know, I was writing this feature even before I made Vox Humana.
Speaker B:You know, Vox Humana came to me because I was trying to make a short about the feature and it's, you know, the story has changed so much now.
Speaker B:And of course, voxumana was trying to make it its own thing.
Speaker B:And while, you know, still hitting the point that it's a proof of concept to help with, you know, pitching the feature, but now I've found myself changing the story a lot and now I've arrived to where I want the feature to be.
Speaker B:Closer to voxumana also because of the hearing about how the short worked.
Speaker B:Well, for some people, there's aspects that they like about it.
Speaker B:And Voxomana was just, you know, it just had everything that I was very obsessed about while, you know, researching and learning things.
Speaker B:In my path of making this feature, I was quite obsessed with, like, anime and Final Fantasy video games and Japanese cinema and Frankenstein and, you know, all of these media that I was very, very into.
Speaker B:And I said, okay, I'll, you know, for me to reintroduce my joy into making this feature film, I'll make it closer to voximmana, which was very, very joyful to make and very, you know, I was just nerding out, basically.
Speaker B:And I'm at a point of the script now where I've feel like I've unlocked something where I can balance the labor and the technique of writing a decent script while keeping the joy and the nerdiness and not losing myself in the process.
Speaker A:Incredible.
Speaker A:Well, Don, once again, thank you so much for your time and, yeah, I absolutely can't wait to see what's next for you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you for taking time to talk.
Speaker B:I needed it because I've just been going crazy.
Speaker B:Talk to somebody about it.
