Rae Chang

We can do it.

The past two weekends, I’ve helped Rae film and photograph her documentary on Qiu Jin, a Chinese revolutionary and poet from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The week before, we did some scenes of Rae dressed up as Qiu Jin. This past Labor Day Weekend, we filmed three more scenes at Rae’s place in Saratoga with the D30 and the VX2000:

Military Woman
Marlene Dietrich: Her tuxedo outfit from Morocco.
We Can Do It!: J. Howard Miller’s painting of Rosie the Riveter.

The footage that we got then wasn’t as good as the stuff we filmed a couple of days ago. I guess our powers are growing stronger with each passing moment, no?!? All that being said, I still feel a little wet behind the ears and ill equipped. Got to get a better tripod, I figure.

In the blaring heat of the spot light, Rae held in there quite fine, even when wearing all those heavy costumes and while under the makeup. She had the tough job; I just had to press record and pan and zoom the camera. Filming is difficult, Journal. But, the only way to get better is to keep on practicing! I’m finding that I have a lot to learn about backgrounds and lighting. It’s funny, but those are the two skills that I have always needed more practice with in my drawings. I could always draw the figure, but I could care less (or couldn’t do) the backgrounds as well.

In between video takes, we had some fun with the camera, getting me dressed up in the military costume (man, that belt was tight!) and shooting Rae as Odd Job from Goldfinger. The next day, we also made Rae into a little rebellious child by putting a new tattoo on her left ankle.

At any rate, it’s 21:49 right now. I feel exhausted after the past few days. Work was really, really tiring. Watching an ungodly classic duel between Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras tonight in the Quarterfinals of the U.S. Open just drained me. Sampras won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 in a four-set tiebreaker thriller. I wanted Agassi to win, but alas, it was not meant to be. Now, I’m rooting for Sampras to go all the way. It’s going to be tough, though, since he now faces the man who crushed him in last year’s final, Marat Safin. Sounds like a video game character!

We can do it!