Project X

It happened during my college days in a subject called Effective Communications. We were instructed to create our own little film. We were divided into groups and we would choose our own theme. But the rule was that no same theme would be use by two groups. My group was going for romance but the next group already assigned that to themselves. So I suggest,  why won't we do a horror movie. Just a short clip of people dying. They all agreed on the theme but not on the script. They suggest we do  doppelgangers.

The day came for us to shoot the movie. Remember we are not pros so every detail wasn't really thought of including the location. So we just met up in one of my groupmates house and conduct the filming there.

But having a beautiful house for a background doesn't really give the vibes for a horror movie. Luckily, near my classmates house is an old abandoned clinic. We asked one of the "tanods" (barangay policemen) to accompany us there. Along the way,  he told us that his father used to work as the caretaker of that building. But his father would never clean the insides of the building,  he would just do his daily routine outside the building like raking the leaves etc. After a few minutes of walking,  we arrived at the location. The building itself was a definition of horror. It's a one story building,  with ferns growing out from the walls. The tanod said that the clinic is much bigger down below. It seems that the clinic has a large basement that was used as a bomb shelter during the Japanese occupation. We asked if we could use the inside space of the building but the tanod said that the inside space is prohibited. We asked the tanod until he agreed. The inside of the building was just like an old wrecked office with dust and cobwebs every where. We immediately set up the place. And we started filming the scene. But every time I signal the actors for their queue, the camera that we brought would always turn off. We replaced the batteries but the camera would still not work.

I was eager that day to finish our project so I insisted on them that we continue filming even if were using our cellphones as camera. And that was my biggest mistake.  I should have told them to pack up and call it a day.

We managed to finished our project and submit it on time. The day came for our professor to announce our grades and to let our classmates watch the films. But our professor signaled me to stop as I was connecting my laptop to the projector. He said that we need to fix the sound bug first before showing our film to the class. I was shocked. Because I know there's no problem with our film. After the class,  our group asked for a meeting/ consultation with our professor about our project. We worked so hard and he will just dismiss it like that?.

I told him that our project is 100% ok. I open my laptop and played the film for him. Everything was fine at the beginning of the movie,  but at the part were we took the scenes at the old clinic,  the music was distorted. Distorted in a way that you can clearly hear another voice aside from the voices of the actors. At the start of the dialogue of the two main character, you can hear a mumble. It gets louder and louder to the point where you can no longer understand the main actors.

I was stunned and looked at my professor with the expression of "We didn't do this voices". At the end of the day,  our professor gave us a grade of 75 for our project. I was disappointed at the same time creeped out. We discuss about what happened to our film. The only conclusion that we had is that maybe we've disturbed some spirits in the old clinic. One thing's for sure,  the voice on the film, he's speaking in Japanese language.

Sorry for the lengthy story. If you are wondering about the film,  yes it  still exist. One of my groupmates copied it from me before I completely delete if from my laptop. Hope I can share more of my experiences!