Footprints
What are we really aspiring for in animation? For one, it’s all about passion. Two, we love to do it and three, we enjoy expressing our artistic gift. Truth is, we can’t think of any other reason other than passion. They thought it’s all about money. Yes, it is true but passion weighs more. I hope we don’t stop chasing it.
A lot of things happened and changes came in but we know that passion doesn’t stop flowing in our veins as artists. We were tested by hardship and many people showed up expressing their fascination about “what we love to do”. But life is not all about promise or reaching an exact location but a tireless journey. We journey to find our path along with people who share that dream. And as budding animators, we share such artistic vision to be heard, seen or understood by the rest of the world.
In Iloilo and the whole Western Visayas, many people witnessed how we struggled to show what we’ve got as artists. It is not easy to talk live on TV or radio or get printed in local newspapers about your goal to uplift Ilonggo artistry and animation in particular. Using Ilonggo culture and a famous festival as the central theme of your masterpiece is a challenging task to fulfill. But we put our heart in everything we did without clear perception of the outcome or reaction from other people. The hardest part, we need to show competitive project and hurdle financial limitations in order to pursue a dream, this dream was made come true when we did the first-ever Ilonggo animated film in the history of this region-“The BEQUEST: Origin of Dinagyang”. Real friends and generous people were supportive with our artistic pursuit. It was a successful endeavor not based on financial gain or prominence of fame but a fulfillment of passion and appreciation for using our innate gifts in inspiring people not to give up with their dreams.
Life is too short they say but as Kuris Animators there’s no short life with a fulfillment of lifelong passion. Even if we did a short film, the memory of those who knew what we are made of and what we love to do will remember us.
Now looking back last year and the training we did for animation at WVCST, we have no regrets at all. Filipino animation and Ilonggo artistry will continue to evolve in this age of technological innovations. Our hands and scribbling reveals how much we wanted to live the life of an artist. Our dream and passion is like “paperless animation”-- we only have our heart acting like the sun in our gloomy universe and the blood pumping in it is the ink that we use to draw the face of our soul in a white wide ground as if it is a paper with limitless end. We are happy because a part of our dream hidden behind the back of our minds ever since we we’re young was fulfilled. No material things can replace that special feeling of contentment. Thus, life the life of an amateur Kuris animator will still go on…
For sure, animation will be part of our artistic pursuits. There’s no late or perfect timing with everything in life but it’s all about fate and destiny.
Our footprints tell us so.
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