China Stories

Dogs have their day...

21st May 2008, Maria

Despite popular belief not every dog in China ends up on a plate. Nowadays many Chinese people keep dogs as pets, but there are very strict rules who can and can't own one.

Today we filmed at a residential area in the city centre of Beijing where it's against the law to have dogs over a certain size - if you are caught owning a big dog it can be put down (I was assured it wasn't just a rule against huskies - see photo). There were information boards hanging on railings around the housing estate telling dog owners about this law and other rules and regulations, for example you can be fined 50 yuan (about £4) if your dog fouls in a public place. It does kind of make sense when you think about it - 15 million people live in Beijing and that's a lot of potential pooch pooh.

Beijing is divided up by concentric motorway ring roads which aren't actually round but rectangular. JP lives outside Ring Road Five where you are allowed to own dogs of any size. He's got two; a golden retriever called Mellow and a beagle called Harry (Beagles are English and so is Prince Harry says JP).

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Nerves.

21st May 2008, Gerald

Not sure if I have explained or not but Maria and I are sharing directing duties while we are over here. We are each taking responsibility for the shooting of 2 programmes (which is actually 4 short films each as we are telling two stories in each programme).

Up until now while over here I have mostly shot GV's with the crew but Maria has shot one film (the one with the doctor in it, about traditional Chinese medicine) and is preparing for her next one. So today it was my turn.

And boy was I nervous. I've been doing this a few years now but, no matter how many things I direct, I always get nervous before a shoot. Luckily the night before I was so tired that my nerves didn't keep me awake but come the morning I was pretty stressed. Not that I think it showed too much (Maria might be a better person to judge that though!), I just tend to go really quiet when I am nervous.

Anyway, I didn't have too much time to think about it as when we arrived on location the people we were filming had already begun their day's work, so it was out the van and "action" (or "KaiPai" as they say here).

After the first set-up I really got into the flow and the more we shot and the more I communicated with JP and Dave, the more they understood what I was looking for and were able to second guess what I was about to say. That's the great thing about working with the same people over a stretch of time, you really get to know what each other are thinking (sometimes a bad thing mind!). It was great having Maria there too as it meant we were able to talk through ideas and stuff as we went along and were able to make sure that our programmes shared a certain look and feel.

By the end of the day I was pretty whacked but was really chuffed with how it all went. JP's stuff looks amazing. I think you will be impressed.

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