Wang Ying: Bangkok, Thailand 12 April 2009

I spent 3 weeks in Bangkok but only started shooting towards the end of my trip. I did want to enjoy my time there after all and so my first shoot was with the lovely Wang Ying from China. When I first met her with Mikkel at Starbucks, I got the impression of a quiet and slightly shy but smiley, pleasant girl. Once in front of the lens, she morphed into such an incredible character I can’t even describe it with words. She is the kind of person who takes her work seriously and it was amazing.

This is how Mikkel watches ‘porn’ on his laptop.

Crashing Mikkel’s room was a good idea with air-conditioning and mini bar! We decided to go with a story-style shoot instead of something fashion based. I have to work on my scripting since I don’t do this often but the emotions that Wang Ying delivered made the photos. I don’t exactly have behind-the-scenes clips but I do have footage of me getting fits after seeing Mikkel shoot the video vertically. It’s a funny story now (to me anyway) because I’ve had so many friends shoot videos like that on my point-and-shoot camera. I always ask them this question, ‘Have you even seen footage on TV filmed like that (tilt head sideways with hand gestures)? Just watch this video and you’ll know what I mean!

I should watch more art-house films and learn to think of interesting if not weird story lines. I really miss SBS channel and all their late night foreign crazy stuff. And now for the melodrama/series of emotional portraits.

We wrapped up the shoot with a huge meal at Basilico (fantastic Italian on Soi 33), shopping at Lumpini Night Market (awesome local designers) and a lot of watering stops. It was a good day.

Me + Ying = <3 Come to KL soon!