1. Tai Chi Master

    This weekend in Southern California, we filmed some scenes of Qiu Jin learning and practicing martial arts with her relative. Rae’s cousin was great for the role of Qiu Jin’s Tai Chi Master relative! In addition, we filmed our first interview with a U.S. based scholar, Professor Hu Ying from UC Irvine. On our East [...]

  2. Off to SoCal and the East Coast

    Rae and I are heading down to Southern California for our next round of filming and interviews for The Qiu Jin Project. We had a a very productive past three weeks filming in Berkeley, Saratoga, San Jose, and our very own Santa Clara. Next up are Irvine, San Diego, Connecticut, and Rhode Island! Today, Tim [...]

  3. Domestic Scenes

    Our actors and actresses braved the scorching heat in our garage to complete filming for the month in the Bay Area. We are now headed down to Southern California and the East Coast, where will will complete the rest of our filming. Nearly a dozen domestic scenes were filmed this weekend. Notable scenes include Qiu [...]

  4. Hakone Day 2, Datong School, and Sun Yat-Sen

    Day two of filming last weekend took us again to Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. We filmed scenes of Qiu Jin discussing political ideas with a group of Chinese female students. The actresses’ kimonos were prepared expertly by Yuki, who is a master at tying the obi! Hakone Gardens was also used as a fill-in for [...]

  5. Hakone Gardens, Overfelt Gardens, and Secret Society

    We had a 16-hour film shoot spread across three locations: Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, Overfelt Gardens in San Jose, and our Qing Dynasty House Set in our garage! Filming and photography yielded a lot of good footage and photos. Thanks to everyone who came out and participated! Tomorrow, we do it all over again, although [...]

  6. Chinese Women’s Army

    At Vista Point, we filmed scenes of Li Jing as Qiu Jin practicing Tai Chi and reading by a tree, mirroring those we shot in April with Melissa as Young Qiu Jin. The following day, we were at Berkeley’s Tilden Park for the Chinese Women’s Army. We had 34 extras for the army scene, all [...]

  7. Li Jing at Vista Point

    We’re headed to Berkeley for the evening. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be filming the Chinese Women’s Army scene with Li Jing and thirty extras. Here’s a photo from today’s shoot at Vista Point, between Edgewood and Highway 92.

  8. Priming Walls

    This morning, we primed the walls in our Chinese house garage set. We’ll be painting the walls in the next few days. This weekend, we’ll be filming several dramatic recreation scenes with Li Jing and members of Qiu Jin’s Women’s Army. Enjoy this short 12-second time-lapse photography movie of us priming the walls.