"Lifes a DRAG"

The shoot went well. We got the drag kings getting ready (putting hair on face, binding boobs, etc) then we got the show and it was so much different than the divaish drag queen shows. This was more hip hopish and more sexual. We had fun talking with everyone and it's cool cause they are filmmakers too.

Oh and check this out (GER!):

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703260009
I'll copy here but there is also a sound clip on the website.

Savage blames sexual reassignment surgery for Columbine massacre

On the March 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage continued to discuss a March 20 report in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside San Francisco: "The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman." Later, Savage asserted that "the capital of [sexual reassignment surgery] is somewhere in Colorado, near Columbine," adding, "You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats." According to MapQuest.com, Trinidad, Colorado, known as "the sex-change capital of the world," is about 194 miles from Littleton, Colorado, where the Columbine High School massacre occurred.

As Media Matters for America has noted, on the March 20 broadcast of his show, Savage called the murder victim -- who according to the Chronicle report "had been in the process of becoming a woman" -- a "psychopath" and a "freak," and said, "[She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication."

As Media Matters has also documented (here, here, and here), Savage has a history of hateful attacks on gays and lesbians. He has repeatedly referred to "the homosexual mafia," claimed that "the homosexual dance of death" is the "seminal issue of our time," and compared gays to "drug addicts." As Media Matters has also noted, Savage was signed by Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for "representation in all areas" -- including television and film -- but was reportedly dropped after Media Matters documented his comments attacking singer and CAA client Melissa Etheridge for thanking her wife during her Academy Awards acceptance speech.

The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it the third-most-listened-to talk radio show in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.

From the March 23 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman.

I never understand these people. Guy is 55 years old, he had three children, he discovers there was a woman within, and he goes -- shots and hormones, three years of hormones, and live like a woman. And then you gotta dress like a woman for two years. And then they go to a psychopathic, sadistic doctor who does the thing for them. No more in Denmark -- I mean, the capital of it is somewhere in Colorado, of course, near Columbine. You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats. But that's the sex change capital of the world -- in America, rather -- is somewhere in Colorado; they cut off the willies and they put on the willies, depending on whether you're a Johnny or a Jane.

And apparently it costs more to put a willy on than it does to take a willy off. I've always said if a city's gonna pay for this kind of insane self-mutilation, the least they could do is put a willy on ice. I mean, if they're taking a perfectly good willy off a guy, why throw it in the garbage? Put it on ice, save it for the next time one of these psycho women in the city wants to be willied, I mean wants to be a John when she's a Jane. Because it costs like 40 grand to put one on and 20 grand to take one off. I would say you can do a mean price of 30 grand if they could start saving the willies from these psychos. But that's a separate story. I'm into cost saving at all costs.

Things

We are getting footage a drag king show at midnight on Thurs. Should be interesting, I'm not sure what to expect or how the dynamic will change from the drag queen show. We have been working so hard lately I feel like the doc is all I think about these days. We need to start following around individuals in daily activities so as to not just generalize everyone by only talking head interviews, we just need to get more and more personal and delve farther and farther into transgender issues till the very end.

I hate missing class but this wednesday it was unavoidable. The Reel Girls had to meet and this was the last chance b4 our deadline, it is so hard to find a time when everyones scheduals are so different. I'm sure it will be the only time I will miss class this whole semester though, but sorry :( I don't know why I always feel so guilty.

Well anyway, I'll update on Fri and tell you how the shoot went!

Our day of 13 Interviews

Yesterday Chris and I woke up at like 5:45 drove to Chapel Hill met Emilie there she got snacks, set up at 9 and shot from 10 am till 10 at night and got I think 13 interviews, then Chris and I went out to dinner with some of our interviewees till 11:30 and got home at 2 am! What a day! It was amazing. My brain is a little mushy after all of it I am exhausted and still have a massive amount of other work to do, oy. There were only 2 things that were less than ideal with our shoot 1.) The house was right in back of a noisy rode and 2.) The room was SO HOT we all felt like passing out. But this was nothing compared to how touching, insightful, and wonderful our interviewees were. It is so great to hear so many stories from so many voices. So far we have 15 interviews with transgendered people so far and they each have such unique experiances. I can't wait to show our footage but I don't know how we will make like 15 hrs into 15 min.

Hola

So ya know we only have about 14 interviews tomorrow!!! We are leaving for Chapel Hill at 7 or 8 am and then shooting all day and as much of night as they will allow us. We are not 100% that everyone will be there so I don't want to get too excited yet but some of the people include: Nancy: a Baptist Minister who is a lesbian, Jennifer: male to female person who has been in the Military, maybe a doctor who does top surgery now but is learning bottom,Terry: male to female who is 64, Kelly: male to female and bringing wife. We also have female to male interviewees. I'm nearvous because I really want to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. I've been doing some google searching, trying to look at new web sites to help me think of new questions. Wish us luck!!

So happy

Our shoot last night was amazingly fun and we met some areally cool people. We got to Ibiza at 10 and went up to the dressing room where all the Drag queens were getting ready for the show. We took pictures and got to know them a little and got footage of them getting dressed and they were NOT shy. We got them duct taping their bodies so it looked like they had boobs,joking around, making fun of eachother, gossiping about people who werent there, helping each other put on makeup, wigs, and costumes. We shot the drad show, Chris and I both had cameras, him on the tripod me handheld. I had a lot of fun and I hope I didn't zoom a lot in all the excitement. Terra while on the floor announced that we were makng a doc about transgendered people and that anyone should come talk to us if they are interested and they did. I think I gave my number to 3 people and got a few #s. One think I am happy about is that there is a group of Drag Kings who we didn't know about who invited us to their show and said that we could use them in our doc(they are filmmakers too at Cape Fear). After the show it was fun we went back up to the dressing room and talked some more. Got more numbers. I am so happy to get to know this community. :)

Weekend Update

Tomorrow we are going to get footage of Terra getting ready, getting in drag for her show at Ibiza then we are going to tape her show! I'm excited. Then on mon we are going to do vox pops on campus I'm not looking forward to that as much cause I am shy when it comes to approaching strangers but this is a good time to work on that I suppose. Oh and next weekend we have interviews lined up in the Chapel Hill area and I'm pumped for that because we have a specialist who is helping us find people to "cover our bases" so thats just awesome to have that kind of help and support. Oh and I figured out how to capture video tapes on to the computer well Aaron figured it out and showed me but anyway so we can capture the Girls Toys and Boys Toys this week and maybe we should start looking into other videos like that at the lib. :)

B-Roll

The article reminds me that our group has to think of creative uses of B-roll for our film cause so far we have none. At the interview shoots we haven't gotten any. This is because of the location of our shoots, we were at Erica's friends house not her house (and someone was moving so the apartment was bare!) there didn't seem to be anything we could use. We could have got some just hand shots but we didn't (we didn't read the article yet:) ). We are going to film a drag show for B-roll soon. We also have boys and girls toys videos that we want to use for B-roll. I think we should use our own homevideos also if we find a gender trait captured. We also want to get exterior shots of places talked about by our interviewees, and also other B-roll of things they mention. We need to go through our footage and take notes of what may be good B-roll and make sure eveything is covered because I know I'm going to be editing it and not having all the material needed is NOT an option.