October 4, 2008 we are invited to tour the Cutting Edge production Studio in Makati by Jinky Salvador, the Studio Marketing Officer. We are given the privilege to look on the behind the scene process on the production of their first major animated film project Dayo.

To those who are sill not familiar with the film. Dayo is an animated film produced by Cutting Edge and the only animated film to grace the upcoming Metro Manila Film Festival 2008. Dayo tells the story of a boy named Bubuy who decided to enter a strange land to rescue his abducted grandparents. On his quest to save them, he met the Mananang-girl (quoted from the writers), Anna who helped him reach the world of Elementalia. Along the way, the duo encounters colorful characters that serves as allies and nemesis like the MetroSexual Tikbalang Narsi, The Tiyanaks and the Shape-shifting Bruha. The adventure suddenly changed Bubuy from the timid and weak kid that he use to be and transformed to a strong and confident individual that can stand by himself and for the people that he loves.

The tour started when we met Mr. Jessie Lasaten who gives as a run through in editing. He shows several spoilerish scenes that I'm not allowed to reveal here. He also let us listen to the Dayo's soundtrack which he composed himself. The soundtrack is superb and indeed high quality for a local production. He also introduced to us the theme song of the movie titled Lipad. There will be two versions recorded with Roots of Nature band as the rock/radio version and the other recorded by the Tony Award winning broadway artist Lea Salongga. We are also given the chance to see cut scenes who are deleted in the final movie. Writers Artemio Abad and Eric Cabahug also shared that they've performed extensive research in Philippine Mythology just to be accurate and remain faithful to the existing literature. Though the target audience of the film is young viewers, the writers make sure that the film is also enjoyable to the adults that will accompany their kids to the cinema.

Next stop is Director Robert Quilao's studio. After the animations are rendered, the scenes are given to him to edit the composites. In his studio, he edits the lighting, colors and the overall scene associations. Being the Director of the film thoug they have finished editing most of the composites, he always edit the sequences whenever an idea pops out from the staff (specially from Mr. Jessie). Then we go straight to the animation studio where most of the hard work are done by animators and artists. We are welcomed by the Animation Director and Chief Character designer Tito Romero and showed us their studio filled with Dayo figurines and toys. This place is indeed a place of creativity. Everybody is busy doing their stuff. After the animations are done, the animations are passed to the coloring department where all the colorist apply the colors.

Then on we go to our last stop, the Sound Engineering and Design department headed by Whannie Dellosa. Though according to him this is the most boring part of the production, sound is considered one of the most important element of a movie. It enhances the emotions and gives more depth to every sequence and scene. His staff travels from different locations just to capture local and genuine sounds from jeepneys, filpino elementary students to waterfalls and edsa traffic jams. According to him, they are very dedicated to bring everyone a world class quality production that didn't look like "pinilit lang" or "dinaya".

After the whole afternoon's tour we got the chance to stay a little while in the Cutting Edge studio to chat with the whole production staff and the dynamic duo Moymoy Palaboy. We got the chance to know them better and they are not so corny like we all use to know. They are kind and very down to earth despite their sudden burst in stardom. They will be working with the Cutting Edge Production and will be doing one of the tracks of the Dayo Soundtrack which will be launched this coming November.

There you have it. I hope everyone will watch Dayo because we will assure everyone that Cutting Edge did their best to give us a world class production not only for kids but also for all ages.

Dayo premieres in December 25, 2008 nationwide. An official entry to the Metro Manila Film Festival.