Schild Studios Looks Back on Its Humble Beginnings

As Schild Studios marks its fifth year, co-founders Benj Billones and Janine Basca reflect on the studio’s growth and its transition into a full-service production studio.

When the rest of the world was on pause during the pandemic, Benj Billones and Janine Bacsa-Plaza refused to stand by and found a way to keep their creative juices flowing. After deciding to work together, they brought their brainchild to life, establishing the country’s first all-in professional portrait studio: Schild Studios.

Schild Studios first began as a retail and distribution business for face shields before transitioning into a photography studio that gave way to both Billones’ and Bacsa-Plaza’s creative instincts. Billones has a background in public relations, marketing, photography, and styling, which led him to become the studio’s creative director. Meanwhile, Bacsa-Plaza is a professional hair and makeup stylist who owns a beauty school for professional makeup artists and hairstylists, as well as a beauty distribution business. Her expertise now serves her role as the studio’s operational director.

In an interview with Vogue Philippines, Billones shared that they needed to be flexible enough to offer whatever services their clients needed. With his styling and photography background, he started in the industry as a photographer, while Bacsa-Plaza had the space to bring the idea to life.

“I might as well maximize her skills and provide that service in the market. What we thought was a disadvantage at first, just being the two of us, doing [everything] by ourselves in that small 40-square-meter space, eventually became the platform or the system that works for us now,” he says.

They have built everything brick by brick over the years. Looking back, however, their idea to start a studio was simple: to address a gap in the market by providing portrait services for personal milestones that fall outside traditionally documented occasions such as weddings and graduations. Guided by this principle, they expanded their team into a group of full-time young creatives who share the same mission.

“We provide not just opportunities but also livelihoods to really support these young artists. Everyone on our team is a full-time employee, not a freelancer. They get the full benefit of being able to do what they want to do as creatives. It’s a major evolution because when we started, we understood the struggles of being creative entrepreneurs since we began that way ourselves,” Bacsa-Plaza shares.

Having operated in the business for years, both Billones and Bacsa-Plaza are also aware of how the portraiture landscape is evolving alongside advances in technology. In an age where accessibility is no longer an issue, they remain firm in their belief that what sets studios apart is the experience. Billones explains, “Because a photo can always get buried inside your hard drive or on your mobile phone, right? But having a special moment and celebrating who you are today is very important. It’s worth looking back on. And in line with where we are headed, there’s so much more growth for Schild, not just beyond the walls of the studio.”

With this vision in mind, Schild Studios is transitioning into a full-service production studio that offers photography, styling, creative direction, and storytelling under one roof. They continue to move forward, using their previous work with familiar names such as Maricel Soriano, Pia Wurtzbach, and James Reid as a benchmark for what comes next.