How #RomanceClass “met” Shinta Mori, who is fictional, or is he
First of all: “Shinta Mori” is a character created by Jay E. Tria. The character is a Japanese actor who becomes the love interest of Filipino indie musician Jill, in a book called Songs Of Our Breakup, the first in what is now a five-book series. Shinta and Jill are the main couple in two books, but they’re recurring characters in the other books, and have since made appearances or have been referenced in #RomanceClass books by other authors.
Working with Bold MP, and making more use of our video channels this year to replace/supplement events we would have been doing, has led to…this. We found out that we would get the chance to work with actor Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa in time for #FeelsFest2020 in October. Tara Frejas asked if we could do a promo video of sorts, “Shinta Mori reading Thirst Tweets” or something like that. The script for the fictional “thirst tweets” came in mere days later, a hilarious mix of stuff we might tweet about Shinta, and things characters from #RomanceClass books might say to Shinta. If they wanted to make fun of him being hot and all.
“So here are the tweets, and then you react to them. As Shinta.” Is not the comprehensive and simple direction that it looks like, in retrospect. An actor could react to the scripted tweets any number of ways and it would be fine? We’d find it funny. We’d give a tip or two to guide them. Fill them in on character things from the books that they of course wouldn’t know when jumping into this. AND YET. In the making of this we…saw…Shinta become a person??? What??? Kurt’s responses are brilliant, hilarious, sweet. We’re not over it.
We’re also not over the fact that we asked an actor-director-writer-Juilliard-grad opera singer to say “Grabe yung abs ni Shinta Mori pwede akong maglaba” but yeah. He said it. Exactly how he was supposed to. That was when I realized that this was art. (Huhu thank you po.)
Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa will be part of the program of #RomanceClass #FeelsFest2020, reading as Shinta Mori. Save the date and be on kilig.pub./twitch on October 10, 2020 at 1 PM PHT. (Or earlier…we have a pre-event thing earlier!)
