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 our shooting schedule will be a little less hectic than today.
Click the link to see the photos.
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 dressed in black kung fu uniforms. Led by Li Jing, the troops were drilled in wushu basics and taught female empowerment.
We got some great footage and some wonderful photographs, which you can see below. Thanks go out to Eric, JP, Edna and Erik, and Petrice for organizing and helping out with the shoot. Finally, big shout out to the members of the Chinese Women’s Army. You all did a fantastic job, and we couldn’t have pulled it off without you!
Click the link to see photos from the shoot.
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.
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.
We spent the weekend building our Chinese house set in our garage. With help from our neighbor, Jerry, we got all of the walls raised and set up by the afternoon! Right now, we’re sealing the joints and screws with joint compound before we tackle priming and painting the walls. Soon, our furniture will arrive, putting the finishing touches on a late 19th-century Chinese house!
See the photos of our set building.
Yesterday, we photographed and filmed Melissa, who is playing the role of a young Qiu Jin. Melissa was very patient as we fought through the cold, harsh and unforgiving wind at Vista Point and San Jose. More photos from our shoot to come soon. Thanks to JP, Sammy, and Melissa’s parents for their assistance in yesterday’s events.
We are looking for traditional Chinese furniture items to be used in several scenes set in Qiu Jin’s residence and school. These scenes will be filmed in the Bay Area. If you have traditional-looking furniture similar to the ones pictured below that you can lend to the production, let us know!
Today we had a friend come in to try out some costumes that we brought back from China. Edric is modeling two outfits, a Qing Dynasty Soldier uniform and a gentry class scholar outfit. Let us know what you think!
Apologies on the lack of updates. We’ve been busy traveling to and from various cities in China. The day after arriving in Shanghai, we took a van out to Shaoxing, where Qiu Jin’s childhood home and the school where she taught at are located. There, we interviewed several scholars and officials, including Qiu Jin’s grandnephew! We also went to monument at the site of her execution by Qing Dynasty.
After Shaoxing, we spent several days in Hangzhou, where there is another memorial dedicated to Qiu Jin. Before her death, she requested that she be buried next to the tomb of General Yue Fei near Westlake. We got some more great footage and photos of the monument.
Tomorrow, we’re headed to Beijing on the final leg of the tour. I’ll have some more time in the next few days to upload some images from the first two weeks of our trip!
We’re on route to Shaoxing, where Qiu Jin’s former residence and school reside. We arrived in Shanghai in the late morning. The taxi drivers are crazy! Ours was weavng in and out of traffic at high speed, sometimes making three lanes where there were only two! After settling into our hotel, we walked around the area near our hotel on Pujian Road. In the evening, we met up with my cousin King-Jung and Rae’s former co-worker, Sid, going to Raffles City for dinner.
Our driver is arriving any minute now to take us to a film equipment rental house so we can load up on lights, stands, and modifiers for our shooting this week.
Autumn Gem 