Or if faux-illicit thrills are more your style, check out Nanjing Road Special Collectors’ Pirated Edition, a work by video artists Ge Jin and Katy Chang. It captures the excitement of buying a pirated DVD from a peddler and rushing home to pop it in the player to see if it works. This a fully-functioning, legal DVD that mimics the look and feel of a genuine Shanghai experience!
Guest blogger Jane shares her director’s commentary and production notes for the short film Nanjing Road exclusively with Mer-chan. Get updates on her film here at nanjingroad.mer-chan.com
Katy sent me the proof DVD of Nanjing Road to review. Once I give it the go-ahead, it’ll be available for purchase. But I haven’t watched it yet due to the fact I don’t have a TV…or the nerve. The last time I blogged I was still raw over my experiences. The truth is: it hurt getting dumped in a dumpy hotel in a strange country (no offense to China). But I’m finally ready to admit some things were partially my fault. Like when I threw our cockatiel at him. It didn’t hurt either of them, in fact the bird flapped away in a perfect John Woosian effect. It did, however, ruffle a few feathers at home and caused tension, which we obviously brought to the set.
This is all to say I think I’m in a different stage of grieving over the relationship, and soon I won’t feel bad about getting dumped anymore because we were wrong for each other. I would not throw an animal at anyone unless provoked.
Guest blogger Jane shares her director’s commentary and production notes for the short film Nanjing Road exclusively with Mer-chan. Get updates on her film here at nanjingroad.mer-chan.com
This didn’t make the final cut in Nanjing Road. The editor said it was too random and it takes a few viewings to understand what’s happening. We only had a film permit for the taoist temple; the park police couldn’t issue one for the outdoor scenes because it was the height of tourist season. So we played it cool, hid in the bushes to let the tourists wander by, and shot our footage like film trolls under the temple bridge. But a tourist spied us and chatted. He asked to take a picture with Jingle. I took it but I think it came out blurry.
Guest blogger Jane shares her director’s commentary and production notes for the short film Nanjing Road exclusively with Mer-chan. Get updates on her film here at nanjingroad.mer-chan.com
Jingle and I shot a lot of tape. We were in Shanghai for two and a half months, and we often used a multiple camera set up. This is probably what kept us together. The cameras were always rolling. As soon as the film was in the can, I guess so was our relationship.
Most of the shots were useless since the completed film clocks in at not even 12 minutes. In the final film, I used the most tape from the camera that he controlled. It looked more intimate to pretend it was a single camera. Single camera setup — sounds like what happens to a camera who’s a great catch but can’t quite meet the right one. This is a rare outdoor night scene. I like the way Jane (that’s the character in the film; I’m not a third person self-namer. The girl in the film just happens to have the same name as me) gets reflected off the glass wall on the right. This ends up in the final film, but is seen through a computer screen as footage that Jane is editing.
Guest blogger Jane, who made the short film Nanjing Road, shares her director’s commentary and production notes exclusively with Mer-chan. Get updates on her film here at nanjing.mer-chan.com
Many people have asked, “Jane, what is this giangxi that you’re talking about? I have no idea what that is!” A ginaxi is a type of Chinese demon that sometime gets translated as a vampire. But giangxi are not like coolly lustful western vampires. Gianxi are the unsettled dead. They have their own set of conventions dictated by folklore and Hong Kongfilm studios.
Jingle, as the gianxi, had to go by the rules of our film. He can’t bend at the knees because of rigor mortis, the bane of the undead. I made him hop for 2 hours in 98° degree (30° C) weather. 100% humidity. Just to get this shot, which I later cut. Kind of makes up for him dumping me.
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