comedy central
 

i dont know if any of you watch these shows but if you are up late on sun night you should check out "insomniac w/ dave attell" which im almost positive is shot with the XL1 (ive seen several on the show before so this leads me to believe ) and a very excellent show "travel sick" which is definitly shot with PD150's ive seen both camera men in some shots so this is a definite and the show has a great look to it i dont know if they get this look in post or what anyone have any ideas????

Returning from server crash... we're back.
 

Okay, after being down for close to 24 hours, we're now back online with a few bumps and bruises. You may have noticed that we've lost about a week's worth of posts... I believe approximately 600 or so. The current count is 14,750 which is down from I think about 15,350. It really hurts but I'm grateful that it wasn't any worse than this. We've also lost track of about 40-something new members; if you're one of these folks, unfortunately you'll have to re-register.

This sort of thing is never predictable and always happens at the wrong time, but I'm working at this moment on finding a more reliable hosting solution with a back-up of the message board database every 24 hours. I've got to leave for MacWorld on Monday and will definitely find a new home for us before then.

In the meantime please accept my sincere apologies for this 40mph crash into a brick wall; the airbags have deployed and we've got a few seatbelt cuts and a broken tooth or two but we'll survive.

If you posted something last week, it's gone forever so if you can remember what we were talking about in this particular forum then by all means say it again!

Still shaking,

So, back to what I was saying before ... :-)

shooting in Japan
 

I'll be shooting in Japan next year for part of a documentary. We'll be there less than a week. We're taking our equipment with us.

Anyone have any tips or warnings about problems we may run into? (I've already started looking into voltage converters)

Thanks in advance.

We've got quite a few members here who are currently working in Japan... you should get plenty of responses...

What kind of doc are you guys making? Where will you be shooting at? The voltage shouldn't be a problem, what equipment will you use? How many people will be in your crew? There shouldn't be a problem if it's a small crew, 3-4 people, in any case, have business cards and some press type passes, with any official looking passes, people, especially police will let you go about with no hassles.

I was working on a doc on the world cup and I made myself a pass, mainly to identify myself, and in all situations, the police never bothered me, in fact they would always let me pass through the police lines to film stuff.

Definetely have someone who can speak japanese, you will run into situations where it will help a lot, but once you tell people you are making a doc from another country, people will go out of their way to help you, let us know more about your production, we can give you more specific advise when we know what kind of stuff you'll be filming.

It's a documentary on a local jazz musician who's playing a series of concerts in Japan. So we'll be following him around town between concerts and some concert/crowd coverage. We won't have extensive coverage of the actual concerts.

Thanks for the tip on "offical looking press passes". That's a great idea! :)

Sounds cool, is he playing at the Blue Note club? What camera are you using? If you guys ride the Shinkansen (bullet) train with him, I'm pretty sure the seats can be turned around so that they face each other, his seats and the ones in front, then you can get a lot of footage of him on train such as interviews,

Interviews in japanese restaurants would be okay with the owners, just ask them before hand and they will be happy to have you film in there.

The good thing about here is with a small crew, you won't have be hassled by the police for filming permits. Not too long ago the city of Osaka was pushing film makers to make more films featuring Osaka, you should try writing to them and see how they can help you. I heard they gave some guy from the states a $200,000 budget to make a series of shorts promoting Osaka as a film makers city, or something like that.

What cities will you guys be filming at? Let us know, I'm down here in Osaka, John Locke and Adrian Douglas are up in Tokyo, between all of us we might know some people where you will be at, always helps to know people where you are going, at the very least, you can find out where the good restaurants are.

I'll look for some info on the Osaka Film Committee, or whatever their name is, but you should check the other cities and see if there is something on them.

Just found the link for the Osaka Film Council, have a look, seems pretty official though, if they can't help much or seem too rigid, then I suggest film it guerilla style. That's one thing I forgot to tell you, if it's not easy to do something, then usually there will be lots of red tape and excuses why you can't do something, just ignore it and film as you like, it's worked for me.

http://www.osaka-fc.jp/index-e.html

Rik has covered it all pretty well. Most of the Japanese are facinated when foreigners take an interest in Japan and will do what ever they can to help.

Having someone who speaks Japanese and is familar with the "Japanese way" is a definate if you want thing to go as smoothly as possible.

If you need any help pre-planning, let either Rik, John Locke or myself know and we'd all be glad to help where we can.

business cards
 

Business cards were mentioned above but I want to do it again. You really need them in Japan. Everyone in the crew.

I think you will find that the guy who sweeps the floors at Nissan will hand you a business card as well as the guy who cleans the toilets at Sony.

I don't care if the card says: 'President, Underground Messkit Repair Division (Submersible)' you stock will go up by half a point just having the card.

Have fun!

yeah, I forgot about business cards, it seems everyone and their mother here has one, bring a bunch of them, I'm sure you'll go home with a big stack from everyone having given you one. I've got a big stack of cards and I can't remember the people who gave them to me.

When you get the card, as soon as the person who gave it to you isn't looking, write down a note on the back so you will know who gave you the card. Some people might hand over the card very formally, so just follow thier lead, but it might go like this, they hold the card with both hands at the edges and hand it over and you take it with both hands at the edges, then make sure to read it carefully in front of them, make a small remark such as, " nice design,"
Be sure not to put it into your back pocket.

If you guys are going to several cities, if might be worth it to get a Japan Rail Pass, get a one week pass and you can ride anywhere on the JR train, this includes the Shinkansen (bullet) trains. It faster to take the train between Tokyo and Osaka.

I'm just curious, what are you all guys doing over there in Japan? What kind of video work exactly do u do there? Do u have work permits are u married etc? I mean, is Japan some sort of Mecca 4 shooters, or r u keeping a secret from the rest of us unatached?

I've been here 11 years, my wife is japanese. I shoot weddings for a wedding hall, that's mainly a part time sort of gig, but I also shoot fashion shows, music videos, club events. I'm currently putting together two videos on the underground scene here, one is a Gothic video(been filming the gothic/industrial/hardcore scene in Osaka for the last year and a half) and the other on the Kyoto S/M-fetish/bondage scene. Here is a link to the next event I'll be filming at, a friend who has a fetish boutique in Kyoto is doing a fashion show at this event and I'm going up to Tokyo this friday, the 19th, to film it, www.torturegarden-japan.com

I'm also working on a short 15 min video/movie with a friend, I worked on a doc on the world cup recently, a friend of a friend was making it and I helped out by doing camera work at the Kobe/Osaka games, we went up to Yokohama for the finals, had a great time.

So far I've been shooting video solo, I work for myself, but I'll shoot anything that comes my way in form of jobs, but for the last two years I seem to be getting a lot of fetish/gothic/bondage work. I'd really like to make a living shooting music videos and fashion work, but in the end, as long as I shoot video and I'm able to pay the bills then I'm happy.

The good thing about shooting video here is foreign video shooters stand out, and so we get noticed more, a good and bad thing but overall its good. In the end, it mainly depends on who you know here, most good things happen because someone introduced you to someone and you got your foot in the door, the longer you stay here the more inside you can get.

I just got my XL-1 back from the canon service center 3 hours ago, it only took 4 working days to put in a new drum assembly, put it in last wednesday and picked it up on tuesday.
Just in time before I head up to Tokyo.

What kind of video work do you do?

Oh, nothing exciting like u Rick ;-)

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