Art struggles for survival with onslaught of digital printing

They once dominated downtown Manila's skylines, huge hand-painted billboards heralding what's showing on the local cinemas.

Watching movies had been the great escape from the woes of daily living in the metropolis and the 12-by-12-foot billboards announce where certain movies will be shown in which film houses in Manila.

The billboards, despite their lack of faithful reproduction of the actor's facial details, convey a sense of emotion that beckons pedestrians to watch a movie.

But the craft of hand-painted billboards is gasping its last, no thanks to rapid advances in computer imaging and printing technology that has ushered in digital large-format printed billboards.

Metro Manila's districts of Cubao and Recto, once the strolling grounds of high-heeled Manila elite, had made way to shopping malls along Edsa Highway. And now, the malls are shying away from hand-painted huge canvasses to promote movies and have made it a policy to exhibit only digitally printed billboards so they can maintain a "classy" image. There are also big name movie stars and concert performers who insist on their faces being digitally printed on tarpaulin, which make for sharp images and a slick look.

Benjie Sagmit who has been in the business of producing the big hand-painted canvass billboards laments the onslaught of the digital age on the industry.

"What will happen to the Filipino billboard painters, most of whom are self-taught? They are also artists," the 49-year old manager of Sagmit advertising said.

Sagmit's father, Eduardo, is one of the pioneers in outdoor movie advertising, and has been in the business since the '50s.

"We had 20 painters then. Every week, we would go to 80 theatres to change the marquees. This is aside from outdoor billboards on busy intersections.

"Today, we have eight painters and service 50 movie houses," said Sagmit.

Now Sagmit says his company can only produce at the most eight bill boards per day for their thinning client base.

Most of the old cinemas that use hand painted canvasses for advertising movies they are showing have been demolished to make way for malls and other establishments.

Inside Sagmit Advertising's compound in A. Rivera Street in Manila's Tondo district Ernesto "Mang Erning" Yumul, 57, draws long brush strokes on a canvass.

Yumul has been with Sagmit since the late '60s. He learned his craft at the old film outift LVN Studios, and had sent four children to school with his earnings from painting billboards.

"My eyes are not what they used to be. I prefer to paint billboards. My body feels free doing big, exaggerated strokes. Portraits require small, controlled strokes," he explained while painting the back of American actress Cameron Diaz's head, the size of which was just about as big as his, on the 22-by-40-foot ad of the movie Charlie's Angles, Full Throttle.

Through a correspondence course, Yumul was able to finish a degree in Fine Arts. He knows all about color theory, composition and the human anatomy. He said that one of his sons, Josefino, used to paint letters on billboards for extra money. He now has a degree in psychology and teaches the subject at a major university in Manila.

His children have all grown up, but Yumul does not want to stop working because he says, "I still love to paint."