Then he moved to GMA-7 where he was a second unit director to Director Dondon Santos in “Indio”. He handled several other soaps as second unit director, like “Beautiful Strangers” and “Little Nanay”, but now, he’s finally given his big break as the main director in “Juan Happy Love Story”, with Hazel Abonita as program manager. It was Hazel who sent him to Cinemalaya Film Institute to further study film and TV directing and it paid off as he’s now instituting in “Juan Happy Love Story” all the new techniques he learned from film school.
The first thing you’d notice with “Juan Happy Love Story” is the narrative style that is very fast paced, unlike most soaps that take their sweet sweet time in telling the story. This one not only benefits from brisk editing but also from the fact that the story is told from different points of view, like a he said, she said type of narration, and it jumps quickly from one situation to the next so viewers surely won’t get bored. Wasn’t Direk L.A. intimidated by his stars?“Initially, yes,” he says. “But they’re all very cooperative, even the most senior member of our cast, Tita Gloria Romero. It’s good Heart understands the requirements of her role as Happy, which required her to go daring and do things she hasn’t done before for the camera. We’re all very happy and proud of our work in ‘Juan Happy Love Story’ and we’re hoping the viewers will be able to appreciate our efforts well.”
