I don’t know how to start this entry on my professional film blog and I am 100% sure my sister will murder me for this in the morning when she finds out but I write this to put into words what I must express to myself, my family, friends and sister.

My sister Sara Azimi is incredible.

In the Philippines, during the most terrible typhoons, she would don a wetsuit and join the rescue convoys pushing out into the flooded sections of Metro Manila as a rescue diver. Diving into waters chocked with dangerous debris and toxic waste to save others.

In Kabul, every time she steps out of our home to commute to work is a great act of courage. Kabul is a dangerous and it is especially difficult for women – Afghan or foreign, even a decade after the Taliban were driven from the city.

And less than a week ago 4 teenage gunmen, burst into the Serena hotel in Kabul and shot to death 9 people, many of them eating dinner at a restaurant that my sister and father had just left two hours prior to the attack. If they had stayed a little longer, there would have been 11 people slain in the attack and I would have lost both my sister and father.

But they narrowly escaped the attack and for that I will always thank God but father’s joint venture partner Vince was still in the hotel at the time, trapped by the attack.

Chaos and panic spread throughout the hotel as soon as the shooting started and Vince had no idea what was going on. Where the attack was coming from, how many attackers there were – he was full of questions and mortal terror.

But my sister was able to place a phone call to Vince and spent the next hour and 30 minutes talking him through the attack. She ordered Vince to barricade his hotel room, grab a pillow and blanket and take shelter in the bathtub of his bathroom.

As she spoke with Vince, she could hear the deafening bang of assault rifles in the background. The gunfire would draw closer to Vince’s room and at times it would draw farther away, I think it might have been the longest hour and 30 minutes for both Vince and my sister.

Sara provided Vince a window into what was happening around the hotel as she was receiving news about the assault, she urged him to remain calm and to tell her instead about his daughter working in Somalia.

My sister was calm and levelheaded and courageous, she stayed with him throughout the attack and never left him alone till she was sure he was safe and sound.

That next morning, Vince and his entire family wrote messages of thanks to my little sister for her heroism that terrible night. She wept at their heartfelt words.

My sister is a hero.

My father and sister visited the Serena a hotel two days after the attack, determined to find out if anyone they knew were among the dead. As they made their way through the hotel, my father and sister embraced many of the hotel staff they have known years and wept with them, sharing their grief over the horrible loss of life and all thankful to still be alive.

And I am writing these words to share her heroism proudly with the rest of the world. She is my sister and one of the three greatest people I will ever know in my life, the other two being my father and mother.

I love you Pooches, you’re my hero and the entire world is lucky to still have you among us.

– KG — with Sara Lailee.

After 2 years of relentless work, the hours are drawing to close on the post production for the pilot episode of ASIAN TIGERS. Here I am with post production wunderkind, my good friend Javi, hard at work editing a cut of the Asian Tigers pilot episode so sharp that it bleeds.

Javier Abola at work on the edit for the Asian Tigers pilot!

I am honored to have produced this video with Carlo Cu Unjieng. We wanted to give a personal voice to the many challenges that Yolanda survivors still face 5 months on after the disaster.

Post Typhoon Yolanda: Join the Fight

I would like to urge my friends here in the Philippines and elsewhere around the world to get involved and provide any small gesture of assistance they can for the survivors of super storm Yolanda.

—
RE acknowledgments, I must express my deep thanks to Carlo Cu Unjieng for first approaching me with the idea to produce this video and for getting me involved in the relief effort through the video. Without him, this video wouldn’t exist.

I would also like to thank the TindogTacloban network for connecting us to Lester and the rest of his courageous family and helping arrange this interview with them.

I would like to thank Junie Reyes his work as the cinematographer on this video and Marco D. Biemann for agreeing to let us feature his stunning aerial cinematography of Post Yolanda Leyte. I very much hope our video contributes in some way to the welfare of the storm’s survivors.

Be a hero, join the fight. <3

I am honored to have the opportunity to direct a documentary for WedPro that shall exhibit the important social relief work they are doing with communities in and around Tacloban affected by super storm Yolanda. Learn more about WedPro here:

http://wedprophils.org/

As usual, at the 11th hour my equipment supplier Raffy Yllana always comes through for me. I would also like to thank Sol and Mulawin Galang for helping me with some additional odds and ends. I will be out of Manila until early Monday AM but will be reachable via my phone and possibly E-Mail.

Am very honored to learn from Q-York that the music video I directed last year for Vincent Bueno has been nominated for the VIMA Music Awards in Malaysia! You can check out the MV here:

VINCENT BUENO feat. Q.-YORK – EXPLODE

I would like to thank Jerome B Smooth, Vincent Bueno, Knowa Lazarus [Q-York], Flava Matikz [Q-York] for giving me the opportunity to work with them on this music video and I would also like to thank my cinematographer Sol Galang for his hard work and beautiful lensing of MV. Thanks folks! <3

I would like to congratulate my super kind mentor, Matthew Rosen, his wife Lori, Dean, David, Jennifer, Kevin, Junie, Kerwin and the rest of the cast and crew on the start of the production for that small TV show audiences across Asia know as The Kitchen Musical.

Matthew and Co. will be directing and line producing the entirety of TKM Season 2: The Boston!

It has been an incredible, six month journey for Matthew and a lot of the other players involved but I know that my mentor is going to serve up 8+ hours of unbelievably entertaining TV for loyal fans of the original series and new fans that are just about to discover the show!

The Boston, ready for its close up on The Kitchen Musical!

Am cheering you all on every step of the way! Go Team The Boston: The Kitchen Musical – Season 1!

We are currently looking to hire 2 or 3 freelance writers for a feature length screenplay assignment.

Candidates must have:

1)   Creative writing experience or have studied creative writing in college/university

2)   Able to work under the creative supervision of the producers

3)   Able to work in an office environment

4)   Must be prepared to commit 6 weeks of fulltime work

This is a fully paid project, the pay is over and above industry rates here in the Philippines.

If you are interested in applying for this job posting, please send your resume, contact details and writing sample to b1ackspiralfilms@gmail.com

Update RE my open letter to the officers of Ogilvy & Mather’s Manila.

Since I sent my letter out Monday morning, aside from a dismissive comment on my timeline from the broadcast producer, I have not received one message, E-Mail, text or phone call from any of the Manila offices top officers assuring me that they would look into the past incident and ensure that it never happens again to their production suppliers.

However, I have received E-Mails and messages from Ogilvy & Mather’s most senior leadership in Asia.

Paul Heath, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific and Asia-Pacific CEO at Ogilvy PR have both taken the time to get in-touch with me and check into this matter personally.

I am very thankful that the most senior leadership in the region for O&M has the courage and interest to ensure that O&M meets its commitments to their suppliers and I have full confidence that Mr. Heath and & Mr. Kronick shall work closely with the Manila office to make sure that they do not receive a letter like this again from one their production suppliers.

Returning to the Manila office, I am impressed with the level of incompetence and professional cowardice I have experienced and continue to experience from the leadership.

If you are working in production and have been caught in my situation, please do not suffer in silence. They count on your fear to have their way with you.

Speak out and let them know that going unpaid for several months is not OK and you expect better.

Dear O&M,

I am writing to bring to your attention an ordeal I was put through recently by Ogilvy PR Manila.

Last March, I was contacted by Wish Saliente Torres, a broadcast producer with Redworks at Ogilvy & Mather Manila.

She invited me to bid as a director for the documentation of an upcoming event by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce.

This was for an account with Ogilvy Public Relations. The Group Account Director for this account was Rishi A. Miyata.

I bid for the job to direct the documentation of 27th CACCI Conference through a small business that had specialized in producing wedding videos and AVPs. The event ran two days, March 14th through 15th.

We were required to work alongside the Creative Director and 1) light and film interviews of several attendees to the conference and 2) provide extensive video coverage of the various panels held throughout the two day event.

We were awarded the bid and flew to Cebu on March 13th and joined Mrs. Torres, Ms. Miyata and several of their colleagues from Ogilvy PR.

Over the next two days, March 14th through 15th I proceeded to document the conference with my production team to the satisfaction of Mrs. Torres and Ms. Miyata.

My team and I flew back to Manila March 16th and received texts from Wishnie and Rishi congratulating us on our work and putting us on standby for further work with Ogilvy PR and the Cebu Chamber of Commerce.

At the time, I was looking forward to continuing to provide my services as a film director for Ogilvy & Mathers PR on future production requirements.

Some weeks passed by and I decided to check on the status of my payment. I contacted the production company I worked with and spoke with the owner of the company.

He explained to me that according to Ms. Miyata our payment would be arriving soon, they were just waiting on a check to be signed by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce.

Here in the Philippines it is common practice to defer payment to production suppliers up to 2 months after a shoot. Again, I felt assured that we would be taken care of in a timely manner and the let matter rest.

As we passed 2 months without payment I began to worry. Standard contracts with production suppliers usually stipulate a deadline of no more than two months, anything past that is already in breach of contract.

I contacted the owner of the production company, he again reported that Ms. Miyata had given reassurances that the Cebu Chamber of Commerce would make payment to us very soon.

He explained that he could not advance payment to me either because he carried all the costs of the production in Cebu and still had not been reimbursed by Ogilvy PR.

He was in debt a hundred thousand pesos or more and I would have to wait until Ogilvy made payment to his production company.

3 months passed without payment and I was confronted by a medical emergency involving my partner and I badly needed my talent fee.

I contacted both Mrs. Torres and Ms. Miyata in a panic via text and urged them to try and advance payment if they could.

They were not able to do so and the experience left me deeply disappointed and saddened.

The months dragged on with continuous assurances from Ms. Miyata that payment was always just a week away and that we had to be a little more patient.

3 months turned into 4 months, 5 months and then 6 months.

By early October I was fed up with the litany of excuses I was receiving from Ms. Miyata and her finance team.

I sent her, Ms. Torres and Mr. Castaneda a text explaining to them that if payment was not made that week, I planned to go publicly about my ordeal.

I then made a post on my Facebook account explaining that due to a terrible working experience with Ogilvy PR I would no longer accept work from Ogilvy & Mathers Manila.

The next day Ms. Miyata called me and explained to me that payment still had not come forth from the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and that Ogilvy PR could not advance payment either.

She then offered to pay my director’s fee out of her personal bank account. While I appreciated the offer, I initially refused, uncomfortable with the arrangement.

I could not understand why Ogilvy & Mathers, an international advertising agency with billings in the hundreds of millions of dollars, could not advance payment of a few thousand dollars to my colleagues and I.

Ms. Miyata insisted on the offer and I relented. At the end of our phone conversation she promised to send the money to the Creative iSnaps account and offered to meet with me over lunch at some point when her work schedule was less busy.

I was able to finally collect my paycheck sometime in the middle of October, more than six months after the work with Ms. Torres and Ms. Miyata.

At the end of the ordeal, I was shocked and appalled at the fiscal irresponsibility of Ogilvy PR, no effort was made prior to awarding the bid to check and see if the client could make timely payment for the work and there were no safeguards in place to protect the production suppliers in the case of a deferment or a default.

Sadly, this is a common story here in the Philippines when it comes to production work for advertisers.

The owners and CEO’s of the major production companies live in a constant state of fear of losing the business of major advertising agencies and have learned to accept the very worst terms, in order to continue to receive bids from these agencies.

When things like this happen, there are serious consequences.

Production companies stacked under debt like this stop having the ability to pay their employees, in turn their employees – or freelance hires like myself, stop having the ability to pay for our lives.

Most of us working in production here in the Philippines, happily do so without health benefits or social security.

It is what allows your agency to save your clients money when it comes to their production needs.

But we rely on those modest paychecks and these days many of us have no idea when we might receive payment for our work.

It has made life in this career field very challenging. Large production companies, buckling under debt (not, I might add, lack of work) have sold off their assets and fired scores of employees, freelance specialists like myself have abandoned the casino table of production work and sought out jobs that give us regular paychecks twice a month.

If you have a moral conscience, I would urge that your New Year’s resolution include treating your production supplier’s better in the coming year.

When you receive a production requirement from a client, please put safeguards in place that would assure that the money is there to pay your production suppliers when the work is complete.

And when disaster strikes and the client defaults on their payment, please have a system in-place at the agency to settle the outstanding bill with your production supplier in a reasonable window of time – not 1 year or more after the labor was provided.

I began my career as an advertising director with Ogilvy & Mathers in 2012 and my initial work with your agency was an incredible success.

The special Valentine’s digital video I directed for Dove Philippines, Real Men Surprise Their Dates, became one of the breakout viral successes of the year for Ogilvy & Mathers.

I was fortunate and privileged enough to work with an excellent team and a brilliant creative director and I was very much looking forward to deepening my engagement with Ogilvy & Mathers and continuing to provide O&M award winning advertising work.

But this experience has left me deeply shaken, I feel aged by this last ordeal. I am now unwilling to risk several months of great stress and anxiety taking on yet another rush job with no assurances for timely payment by O&M.

We, your partners in production deserve better.

You can expect us to go to several days without sleep, to sacrifice our health and relationships and work us to the bone for your ad work.

We love this job and do all these things for you happily.

But please, pay us on time.

Yrs,
– Waise Azimi
www.waiseazimi.com

@ the start of the 2014 New Year, I am very thankful for the opportunities that  I have been presented with. While I was not able to win the Documentary/Factual category of the Super Pitch for ASIAN TIGERS, I received strong feedback and interest from the panel of judges.

Documentary/Factual panel of the Asia Super Pitch

Thanks to the Asia Super Pitch I now have the opportunity to start a conversation with a major cable network for the TV show and hope to have the show up and running with Unitel Entertainment by the end of the year.

Additionally, I am hoping to return to Kabul, Afghanistan in the early part of 2014 to research and write a screenplay I am hoping to submit to the Sundance Film Labs for 2015. Outside of these two major initiatives, I am looking forward to the unknown surprises and challenges 2014 has in store for me as a director and producer.

I would like to wish all my friends and colleagues working in production all over the world  a successful year ahead, full of work opportunities we can all be proud of.