Arcade’s New Director Gab Gucci Helps Brands Capture the Awesome in People and the World
In 2021, Arcade Film Factory introduced their inaugural apprenticeship program which received over 200 reels and applications. After the founding directors combed through hundreds of applications, they only accepted four final apprentices or less than 3% of applications.
Gab Gucci is one of the lucky four directors to be accepted into the program. And lucky he is. In his first project under Arcade Film Factory, he was tasked to film GIGIL’s activation campaign for Netflix Squid Game, a title which turned out to be a global hit and an Emmy Award-winning one. And the campaign film he shot with GIGIL? It went viral globally and gathered over 85,000,000 organic views and 250,000 shares on Facebook alone.
Since joining Arcade, he has been taken under the wings of Marius Talampas, Mike Talampas, and Nick Santiago. In the process of apprenticeship, he has continuously added more directorial capabilities aside from the stunning sports, lifestyle, and travel reels he has amassed in his career. He shares with us his story on how he got to Arcade.
Q> What’s the story of how you ended up joining Arcade?
Gab> I started my directing career when I interned at Tripleshot Media, a media company producing content for TV, documentaries, and lifestyle shows. I immediately joined Tripleshot as a full-time employee after my internship, doing a lot of things from producing, writing, and ultimately directing various shows and episodes between 2017-2019. But sadly, the company shut down, and then I started working as a freelance director for brands like ESPN, TITAN and ABS-CBN Sports & Action, as well as Jordan Brand and Puso Pilipinas from 2019 onwards.
In 2021, I made a New Year’s resolution to myself to push my work and start the next chapter of my career by creating the opposite of what I’ve already been doing: transition from long-form storytelling to short-form storytelling. And one day in 2021, I heard from my friend Patrick Rodil that Direk Marius Talampas posted an IG story about an apprenticeship program under Arcade Film Factory. The rest is history!
Q> The work you did that caught Arcade’s attention?
Gab> When I submitted my reel for the apprenticeship program, I think what I offered to the table was the experience I had in storytelling and human interest stories.
Q> Your latest work with Arcade?
Gab> My first work with Arcade was a film we created with GIGIL for the mega-blockbuster title ‘Squid Game’ from Netflix. The agency had put a replica of the killer doll in a mall in Manila, and we created a film to announce it to the public. According to them, this film is now the most shared and most viewed video ever on the Netflix Philippines Facebook page, gathering over 85 million organic views and 250,000 shares on the platform alone.
Aside from the Squid Game film, I’ve also done work for the launch of the ‘Dama Ko, Lahi Ko’ initiative and a pizza project.
DAMA KO, LAHI KO ‘LAUNCH’
RUBY’S PIZZA ‘PEPPERONI’
Q> The work you want to see in your reels in the next five years?
Gab> Now my reel has been more on people, narrative, and sports, but in the next few years, I want to be able to shoot new genres outside of my comfort zone and explore food, beauty, as well as comedy.
READY FOR BATTLE
“Arcade started with a numerous established names in the production industry,” says Jeorge Agcaoili, president of Arcade Film Factory, “and even cultivated one of our homegrown talents, Marius Talampas, into one of the top directors in the country. Now we want to bring out the next generation of directors with Jason Max, Gab Gucci, Jaig DeGuzman and Andrei Julitan.”
The Arcade Film Factory has been around since 2019. It is a young, hungry, and awesome production company created by directors Jeorge Agcaoili, Richard Ang, Nick Santiago, Mike Talampas, and Marius Talampas, who are not as young but still hungry and awesome. As of 2022, their roster of directors have grown to nine, bringing in Andrei Julitan a.k.a. Super Bayani, Jaig De Guzman, Jason Max, and Gab Gucci. For inquiries and production needs, contact Codie Laraccas (codie@arcadefilmfactory.com) or Paula Collado (paula@arcadefilmfactory.com).
