With music videos like Up Dharma Down’s Maybe and Kitchie Nadal’s Fire, it would be easy for ISK Productions to lose sight of its indie roots. But with a name like Isaw sa Kanto Productions, who could ever forget?

Maui Mauricio, one of ISK’s original members, insists that the name doesn’t really have any profound meaning to it. One afternoon in UP Diliman, he just happened to glance at the isaw he was eating as he thought of a good name for a production house. “No one really complained about it, and [Isaw sa Kanto] was just a proxy name at the start. The second project came, then the third, and before we knew it, it was shortened to ISK Productions,” he shrugs.

ISK Productions, which the members fondly refer to as “Isaw”, started with a group of Communication majors who had a passion for telling stories using film as their medium. As they started in the beginning of their third year at the Ateneo, they had little production training to begin with. Starting from scratch was demoralizing at times, but being blockmates and good friends pulled them through, as the fun of shooting and making stories together always won out. “Of course, we would be sleepless, we would be tired all the time, but it was worth it because we were having fun,” Maui smiles.

The turning point for ISK Productions came in the person of Marilou Diaz-Abaya. As Zig Marasigan says, “It isn’t so much that she taught us what we know, but she put us in the position to learn what we know. And in production, you don’t really learn in a classroom. You learn from shooting.” Maui adds, “Her class transformed every one of us, as she ingrained in our heads that film is not a hobby or a job, it’s a vocation. If you want to be in film, you have to give a lot of yourself, if not all.”

Today, ISK Productions is composed of a core of four members: Zig Marasigan and Nicolo Reyes, alternating as directors; Pong Ignacio, resident director of photography, and Maui Mauricio, resident editor. The rest of the team includes Princh Estorninos, Andrea Cid, Jeanina Penas, Kirby Garlitos, Giselle Tomimbang, Anna Go, Philbert Dy, Nico Guidote, Nikki Lim, Carlos Guadarama, Ping Medina, and J-Ann Gauzon.

Working with friends has its advantages and disadvantages. While Maui finds it challenging to work at the same time preserve and build friendships with everyone, Zig shares, “We’re pretty democratic. If we have an idea, we deliberate on it because we like the idea of everyone being on full support with the project. And we all agree that you have to be professional. So no one complains at the shoots. Everyone knows na fight lang. And at the end of the day, everyone has a beer and a smoke and high five. The thing is, you can’t get like that kung wala kayong pinagdaanan (without having gone through things with them). That’s the perk [of working with friends]: you can trust the people beside you.”

Now that they’re out of college though, the members of ISK Productions are all pursuing their own fields of specialization. “We don’t cut our day jobs for Isaw,” Zig stresses, “so we usually meet when there’s a project, and the director calls [meetings and shoots] after working hours.”

So far, the arrangement is working. But Maui cautions, “We all have to fulfill our own respective destinies first before we can hold Isaw together as a group.” Zig and Nic both want to pursue further studies in film schools abroad. Pong would like to get into doing films and commercials as an apprentice. Maui has dreams of eventually teaching editing classes. This may seem like the future is uncertain for ISK Productions. After all, there are still so many what-ifs that they all have to contend with in their personal lives, what more as a group.

“Everybody wants to work together eventually,” Maui says, “the thing is, those kinds of talks are about us as individuals, as friends who want to keep working together. We don’t realize it most of the time, but we go beyond [Isaw as a group] and talk about [our individual dreams].” Zig affirms, “Years from now, I bet we’ll all still be together, shooting [films]. Because we’re really just a bunch of friends who really like to shoot, and it just so happens that we have clients [right now]. To say that Isaw is going to break up is like saying that we all won’t be friends anymore.”

And that is the essence of Isaw Sa Kanto Productions: a bunch of friends who love telling stories through film. Five or ten years from now, they will still be together with a beer, a smoke and a high five at the end of the day, celebrating a job well done.