by Gina Cariño
Home >> Remembering the War: Interview with a Maker of Documentaries
GC: Peter, tell me about wartime childhood.
PP: I remember learning the word ‘shrapnel’ and digging it out of our trees after a bombing. We were under house arrest. Our Japanese guards would take us out on their bicycles. I had a ball. But I also saw them torture and kill and I gave water to Filipino and American POWs who were marched past our house. Everything’s still sharp like a movie in my memory.
GC: What was the secret war in the Pacific?
PP: This was the war of the resistance against the Japanese. It was an effort to gather information that would help the Allied Forces gain the upper hand when the time came for outright invasion.
GC: Can you explain the picture?
PP: There’s a submarine and a group of Filipino guerrillas on the left. The big face is my father, U.S. Navy Commander Charles ‘Chick’ Parsons. He is the link between the submarine and the guerrillas. Because of his knowledge of the Philippine islands, people, and dialects, Gen. Douglas MacArthur put him in charge of helping organize the resistance. Parsons used submarines to bring in arms, radios, medicines, food, and propaganda items.
GC: Is Secret War in the Pacific a tribute to your father?
PP: The submarines were the lifeline of the Philippine resistance and my father often made the trip himself, showing them where there was deep water wherein to hide. Thanks to these boats, there were over 200 radio stations relaying information to MacArthur and over 300,000 armed guerrillas ready to attack the Japanese at a given notice.
GC: MacArthur called your father the bravest man he had ever known.
PP: My father was considered a colorful character, partly because of his disguises (farmer, fisherman, priest), and partly because he literally walked under the noses of the very people who had put a very high price on his head, dead or alive, preferably dead.
GC: You also did a video titled Manila 1945: The Forgotten Atrocities. What’s it about?
PP: It’s about the cruelties inflicted upon the Filipino civilian population, especially during the battle for Manila. It was not a pretty picture and you can scarcely find a person in Manila who does not have a relative who experienced some of that treatment.
GC: Are you working on something now?
PP: The Unsurrendered is underway. It lets ex-guerrillas tell their stories. We have no narrator, no historians here. This is told only in their voices.
GC: What made you decide to make these documentaries?
PP: I was talked into doing the one on my father but the others were things I was compelled to do by an inner urge. I already had the research behind me, all I needed was a few more interviews. The sad thing is that every time I interview someone, he or she dies! People don’t want me to interview them these days. They are afraid of my killer camera. One thing for sure, there is no money to be had from making videos like these. The market is already six feet under!
GC: How do you make them?
PP: I have my own form of script for these things. First I have to know what story I’m going to tell and I write the narration bits. Then I search for the relevant pieces of the interviews I’ve done. And then I search for pictures or footage that will accompany the talking heads and the narration. Music comes in last. Of course the story is inspired and directed by what I’ve collected from the interviews and from U.S. and Manila archives, hundreds of hours of material no one in his right mind would be interested in.
GC: What prior preparation and experience are needed to make documentaries?
PP: None. I’ve compiled news and photos, I’ve seen movies and written stories. So I figured I had to tell a story, but use pictures or moving footage from archives. I developed a format wherein I put in the relevant time codes on the left, the quote from the interviewee in the middle, and the visual matter to the right. My computer editors do the rest. Sometimes we fight about whether something should be included or not. Loud fights. Like WWII all over again.
GC: Will you ever do something that’s not about war?
PP: I’d like to do a short film on cellphones. A driver runs into a pedestrian, both talking or texting at the time. No one saw anything because they’d been looking at their phones. The ambulance also bumps into several people, all with phones. In the funeral parlor from the closed casket comes a ring tone. A word bubble comes on screen with its tail to the casket. Inside the bubble it says NO LOAD or NO BATT. The end.
Peter Parsons will be pleased to answer any questions you might have for him. Ask right here below.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-05-22 09:00:00 +0200
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Hi. Gina, this was a pretty nice interview you did with me. And so far I am not dead, so you might not have the killer effect that I do. Let’s hope I survive long enough to answer some questions.
Hi Gina&Peter,
As usual good report Gina.. You have friends with interesting lives!!
Peter some questions about your job:
Have you got any funny anecdotes about your job?
Are documentaries very expensive to make? How long do documentary take to make?
What is your favorite documentary?
Regards,
Leticia.
Do you edit digitally? What application do you use? What camera? Where do you get your music from? Who distributes your films?
Hi
In first place this has been a great interview again. I have also relatives who have lived a war. (in my case the Spanish Civil War). They have told me a lot of incredible surviving stories. I’m more interested on the civil people and the effects (always terrible) on them. What more can you tell us about your own experience? Did you keep any kind of contact with your father during the war?
Regards from Valencia
Miguel Ángel
Hi Gina -
Another fascinating article. It is extremely stimulating to read all the interesting things that people are doing in their lives. It is certainly vital for our and future generations to look to the past to prevent current and future mistakes. I look forward to your interviews.
Best,
Si Si
Fascinating interview! I remember hearing someone say that people usually have fond memories of a war. Is that true?
I’d also like to explain to anyone interested that ‘the boondocks’ is an American informal term referring to places that are far from the nearest town. It comes from the Tagalog word ‘bundok,’ meaning ‘mountain.’
Hi Peter,
I think you don’t have to worry because people you have inteviwed lately have died. If they were adults in the WWII I think it is more a matter of their age than something related to your “killer” camera. Anyway, as I work for a mobile phone company, if you want to interview me for your new film, please don’t bring it. I will lend you mine. Just in case…
After reading this article (well done Gina!!) I learnt something more about your father in the Wikipedia and other pages like
http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/sigint/prs.htm
I learnt about SPYRON, that the Japanese offered a ”$50,000 Dead or Alive” reward for him, that there’s a ballroom named after your father in the US Embassy in Manila… And you have a brother called Jose, like me! (I have a brother called Jose, too)
You must be very proud of having had a father like that. Congratulations!!!
And now a couple of questions.
Where and when did you and Gina meet each other?
How did you end up living in San Sebastian?
Regards
JC
Hi, Leticia: is this where I am supposed to answer questions?
First my apologies for tardy answers. We are still recovering from a bad typhoon that went over us last weekend—it killed over 30 people, knocked out our power and our internet connections.I am in Baguio, Philippines.
Here I am again:funny ancedotes? yes, dozens of them. One interviewee callrd another a womanizing, arrogant man who needed to be educated in humility. The other person referred to the first as a a lying SOB murderer. Well we didn’t laugh during the interviews but later!
And there was the time my former partner (deceased, alas) Morgan squeezed his enormous frame into a Filipino dugout boat (a banca) and against all odds tipped it over. Actually, I guess these aren’t too darn funny.
It took about 8-10 years to make Secret War; it took about three months to make Manila 1945, The Forgotten Atrocities. The Unsurrendered is in the works now; I have three months in it already; possibly another two. I have no staff.
Documentaries usually involve intensive research, and therefore travel. And lots of time sifting through things. You an do it all by yourself these days if you are good with the computer technologies. A documentary can cost anywhere from $5,000 to 500,000 dollars—and more.
My favorite documentary is a movie I saw recently about the famous Parisian cemetary, I think it is Pere La Chaise?
Hello Donal,
Thanks for your questions. We edit digitally; we use a Macintosh system now; Final cut Pro; we have a huge external drive, something that sounds like “tetrabyte”. I hope that makes sense.We use all kinds of cameras. I have a Panasonic video cam that I got for about 1,000 dollars and it is sweet, not HD. We do not edit HD anyway. My former partner was Morgan Cavett whose specialty was original music. He got several of his pals to do some things for us. Then for the Manila 1945 video we used a Filipino musician and got a friend to sing the song over the credits. An old Filipino folk song, lumang simbahan. It was beautiful. In this new video we are going to RFM music from the internet, possibly Crank city, Haven’t decided yet. We have no distributors. This is my big lacking. I know nothing about it.
Hello Miguel Angel, thanks for asking things. My own experience of the war was limited to a seven-month time frame because my mother and us children were able escape to the States. I saw wonderful things and horrible things, as Dickens might have said it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. I loved it all. Except when I witnessed the torture and killing of an American. I was awed by the march of POWs by our house in Manila when Corregidor fell.
My father was an incredible correspondent. He wrote a letter nearly every day when he was beached. When he was off on his adventures he wrote as often as he could find some paper or a typewriter. Sometimes we would not hear from him for weeks at a time, then five letters might show up together. He also sent us souvenirs like Japanese helmets and swords.
We also heard through the radio Tokyo Rose that he had been killed, only to recdive a telegram soon afterwards that the news of his death was premature!
Hi SiSi. I appreciated your comment about the importance of looking back into our histories. People who do not do that are very likely to miss the opportunity to know where they spring from, the heroes of the past, the demons too! they will undoubtedly repeat the mistakes made back then. Best wishes to you.
Dear Paola,
Your question to me about “fond memories of war” is rather incredible. Yes, of course, I have very fond memories of the war. Our four Japanese sentries were quite nice to us kids, and probably were nice to my parents as well—largely because of us charming kids (we learned Japanese very quickly). Can you imagine the excitement of a four year old boy sitting on the sea wall of Manila Bay looking out at searchlights probing the skies? or watching the exchange of canon fire for months on Bataan and then later between Bataan and Corregidor? and feeling the earth shake every time a direct hit was scored on a fuel or ammo dump? It was WOW time for us kids. The really bad stuff had not yet begun. I was not there for that. But my video Manila 1945 brings it back to life (or death) for us.
Hi, JC, it seems like you should be a researcher. You take naturally to it. I wrote the Wickepedia entry you mention. I think someone else has added (correctly, I should add) to it since then.
For further information you could go to the chickparsons.com website which we have just updated with about ten-fifteen new articles and links.
I met Gina through her daughter, Paola. We sat next to each other on a bus from Donostia to Bilbao. Got to talking and it turns out she is the niece of one of my best friends in the Philippines!
Hi, Gina and Peter,
For me it is a new experience to can talk with someone that is a relative of a leading character in the history.
My grand father, the father of my mother, dies in the Spanish War. My mother couln’t know him, and all my family has a big lack in his place. He was anonymus, but I want to thing that he had also a little place in our history. We must be proud of these people that gave their work or their lives for a better world. But, I prefer that the wars finish and we don’t have to talk about these subjects even more.
Congratulations.
Conchi Calvo
Congratulations, Gina for your interview. I think Peter must be very proud of his father, as I would be in his situation. My father fought in the Spanish Civil War in both armies. This was another kind of war (between brothers), and I’m very proud of my Dad (he died four years ago) because he never killed anybody.
In other order of things, I’d like to help Peter with the documentary about cellular phones. I think it would be brilliant.
Best wishes,
Carlos
Dear Conchi,
My heart goes out to you and your family.Civil wars are the worst, the bloodiest and oftrn the cruellest. I interviewed a man in Istan (near Marbella) who told me he wanted nothing to do with the war. [The following is his story] When the Blues came in he ran to the hills and was denounced by an angry neighbor. He was caught and sentenced to death. Then the Reds came and took the town and he ran away again, this time he was denounced again, and again sentenced to death, now by BOTH sides! At the end of the war he was awaiting execution by the Franco army, his third sentence of death. Later he was sent to Malaga jail. There after a few years he was given clemency, life imprisonment instead of death. Later He was asked by a new warden…”Why the hell are you in here in the first place?” The man replied, “I have never known.” Then later the warden says, “You know I am tired of seeing your ugly face in here, just go now. But give me a written report every month.” So the man leaves and returns every month with a detailed report of his comings and goings. A few years go by and a new warden asks him,”Why the hell do you keep pestering us with these stupid reports of what you are eating and drinking?” The man said, “Do you want me to stop them?” And that was finally the end of the Civil War for him!! Conchi, there were many anonymous people in that war and you do your father proud to remember him. Please never stop doing so.
Dear Carlos,
It is wonderful that your father could fight on both sides in the Civil War and never kill anybody! This story reminds me of that man in Istan that I spoke with. He kept running away from the war, from both sides, and kept getting dragged back and sentenced to death. I think that people should be proud of whatever side their father’s fought on in that war. It was a terrible war from any point of view. I notice that today the old combatants are marching together in the memorial parades. It breaks my heart to see this, but it is a joyous sight. When I visited Toledo in 1955 the Alcazar there was surrounded by Civil War survivors who would tell you stories for a few miserable pesetas. Nearly every one of them was without one or more limbs. It looked like Spain had nurtured a new race of human beings, all of them one-legged or one-armed! Terrifying sight as many as 15 years after the event.
Thanks for the offer of your help on the cell phone movie. How would you like the part of the man in the coffin? No Load No batt.