A HAUNTING LOVE TRIANGLE AT THE HEART OF REGAL’S WHITE LADY

At the heart of Regal Entertainment’s scary new ghost story “White Lady” beats an unusual love triangle in which only two of the three characters are alive. Today’s most sought after young stars are brought together in a horrifying, gripping tale about a student named Robbie (JC de Vera), who is torn between his current love Pearl (Pauleen Luna) and school outcast Christina (Angelica Panganiban). Although Christina is presumed missing at first, her schoolmates at a Liberal Arts school in Laguna slowly realize that Christina is in fact already dead, and that she is the White Lady who is causing students who have wronged her to meet their untimely demise.

Bringing this riveting ghost story to life on the silver screen is first-time feature film director Jeff Tan, who earned the privilege to direct a full length movie after his stylish music videos for the likes of Gary Valenciano and Jay-R caught Regal Films producer Roselle Monteverde-Teo’s attention.

To ensure that the hectic shoot of “White Lady” would proceed smoothly and efficiently, Jeff Tan meticulously storyboarded the entire script of the film, which was written by ace TV scribes Don Michael Perez and Joel Rufino Nu ñez. But even the experienced folks at Regal Films were pleasantly surprised when they saw their enthusiastic young director’s storyboards… all 500 pages of them!

“Jeff storyboarded the entire movie,” says an impressed Roselle. “Normally, a director would only storyboard scenes with special effects, but this was the first time I had a director illustrate on paper how he wanted every single shot in the film to appear. Jeff’s visual approach to the movie, as seen in his storyboards, confirmed that he was the best director for ‘White Lady’.”

There was a danger, however, that the debuting movie director would be so obsessed with the technical aspect of the movie that the love story would get lost amidst the eye-popping special effects. “We were scared that direk Jeff would favor the spectacle over his actors’ performances,” confesses supervising producer Manny Valera, “but we needn’t have worried because Jeff was as meticulous with the actors as he was with the lighting and the visual effects.”

Award-winning actress Angelica Panganiban, who plays the vengeful ghost of the title, had to endure two hours of makeup every day to look like her face was decomposing. But she didn’t mind because it was clear that her director wanted Angelica’s character to be more than a ghost. “Direk Jeff always told me I had to be more than just an angry ghost who wanted revenge. He said Christina shouldn’t just be scary…she also had to gain the audience’s sympathy and move them emotionally. When I saw how much he cared about the movie’s emotional core, I trusted him completely and did my best to give him what he needed. I knew he would make the movie work.”

The other two points of the love triangle, namely Pauleen Luna and JC de Vera, also saw how much director Jeff Tan valued the credibility of their performances. “Direk Jeff made me and JC kiss more than twenty times!,” says pretty Pauleen. “The kiss is a huge turning point in the story, and direk said it had to look very passionate. Somehow, the first 19 takes weren’t good enough, so we kept doing it until he was happy.”

JC shrugs off the theory that it took more than a dozen takes to get the kiss right because of his rumored past relationship with Pauleen. “I’m just glad that direk Jeff was happy with our kiss. We hope the audience enjoys it too!”

Another sequence also proved how JC literally had to go the extra mile to please his director. In a key scene, JC had to run up 14 storeys in the carillon of UP Los Ba ños for a date with destiny. Because of the perfectionist Jeff, JC de Vera had to go up and down the stairs 8 times on an empty stomach. “I was tired and hungry but I owed it to direk and to the audience to get it right,” says JC, “because if there’s anything fake in my work, the audience won’t believe in the characters and the film won’t work. It was hard going up and down those stairs, but I didn’t mind doing it until direk was pleased.”

Surrounding the “White Lady” love triangle are pitch-perfect performances from Gian Carlos, Iwa Moto, Ketchup Eusebio, Jason Abalos, Franzen Fajardo, Glaiza de Castro, Katarina Perez, and Boots Anson-Roa. A Regal Entertainment Presentation, “White Lady” is executive produced by Lily Y. Monteverde. It will open nationwide on July 19 at a selected theater near you. To get a scary experience of the White Lady, log on to www.regalfilms.com/whitelady to view full trailer, photos, production notes, and other free downloads. You may also text LADY ON to 4627 for Smart and 2364 for Globe, Sun, TM and get exclusive trivia and logos. ###