Manie Magbanua wants to share his painting of light with his dogs

by Julius Roden


PAGILAS, Philippines – Award winning cinematographer Manie Magbanua just learned recently that dogs are color blind. The cheerful director of photography of Storyline – a documentary program on ABS CBN, had his heart broken after receiving this information. It was posted on his facebook wall. His friends commented sympathetically.

As we all know, cinematographers paint movies with light. Quite in fact, Hollywood filmmaker, writer and director of Kill Bill – Quentin Tarantino once said ‘your director of photography is  your bitch’.

Friends of Manie Magbanua understand that he loves his dogs so much that he got extremely affected upon realizing that they can’t see the beautiful world he sees.

On the other hand, who are we to say that dogs can’t see colors? Dogs’ chromatic acuity is significantly less than humans. Maybe the human eye is also exaggerated that it creates illusion called colors or whatsoever. The point is that everything is beautiful and each one of us creates a reality others would only perceive in one level. And that level is called words. Other than that, the rest is owned and seen only by the creator.

Dogs may not see colors but they can hear sounds not audible to human beings nor to other life forms here in this time space reality. As a matter of fact, Mariah Carey’s highest whistle register still sounds low to all dogs. Sounds funny but it’s so true.

Every life form here on earth has different perceptions of seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling and so on.

Snakes don’t rely on their sight. They prefer moving around sensing heat. Not to mention that their vision is like the predator in Arnold Schwarzeneger’s sci-fi movie.

Isn’t it beautiful? We have different stuff going on around us and we all live together in one place. We have choices and that’s what makes life wonderful, mysterious, exciting, painful, delightful and so much more.

Having worked with Manie Magbanua as my director of photography in All About Adam movie pilot, I thought he’s a very loving man to his family. I guess he wants his dogs to see his work and how exciting life seeing different colors and stuff. But who knows? Dogs also feel the same way. They might be having their own major fun party we don’t know of and we may never experience at all.

Manie Magbanua is a great artist. His marvelous work served him right in the entertainment industry. Should I include his international film which was written and directed by Paulo Villaluna and topbilled by Jacky Woo, Joem Bascon and Lovi Poe – Endless Farewell?

Your dogs may not see the colors you paint in your universe but one thing is for certain, they know and feel that you love them so much. And that feeling is very colorful not seen with their own eyes but sensed vibrationally.