Culture: Exhibit D: Drag Queens!

(For evidence, see the footage Konrad has for his capstone, which I help majorly in shooting. Also, my face was on his poster board, which stated I helped him greatly. Also, I'm an honest young man just trying to graduate.)

Straight Up Drag is a documentary I’m co-producing with Konrad about the culture behind the art of drag queens. To help develop a trailer and sizzle reel for the documentary, Konrad, Matt Richards, and I went out to a drag show just down the road in Boonesboro (weird, right?) and filmed, with unprecedented access, the entirety of the show. This means from dolling up to stripping down, we filmed what the entrance of the stars to the finale of their performances.

Just by filming this event I learned quite a bit about the processes behind the transformation into queenhood. For one, breasts don’t just poof out of no where. There’s a shading process between the man-pecks that’s a vital part of making the breasts look realistic enough. Also, the shading must match well with your skin tone. You can’t just slap magenta on and think you’re boobzilla. Creating the drag visage is very much about knowing what color works best with your skin and where to shade in the most important areas of the body.

I hope that next year we’ll really start pursuing this idea more and have a working product to shop around to festivals.