For anyone that’s been to Japan, you’re probably aware that Japan has a gorgeous and expertly-run train system. I’ve visited a good deal of Asia and can say that most of the other countries do their best to emulate many elements of Japan’s wonderful public infrastructure, but none so much as the train system.

I got in touch with the filmmaker, Brenden Allen to find out a bit more about his project and his filmmaking.

FI: What inspired you to shoot this video in the first place?

BA: I’m a Photographer and I have fortunately spent a good portion of the last few years traveling both for personal projects and “work”. Mostly to Japan and Burma. What inspired me was a love of train travel and a bit of filler to many journeys I had to make while in Japan on a commission via the Japan/Australia Foundation recently.

FI: Which cities was this filmed in? I found the opening shot to be pretty Un-Japanese looking…

BA: To tell you the truth, some I’m not sure of now – lots of “in transit” where i had no idea where I was and plenty of rural/regional areas. This particular trip took me from Miyazaki in the south to Sendai and Fukushima further north and many in between. The opening shot was in a city called Takarazuka, not far from Osaka.

FI: What was your footage to finished ratio like? Roughly how much raw video did you have at the beginning?

BA: I have only just begun using video as a medium and this was my first gig so I shot a hell of a lot! For this little train video I had a pretty good footage to finished but the larger project I was there for will see me holed up in the editing suite for a while to come! Still currently sifting through the footage – the train video was really just a bit of an experiment and excuse to stop trawling through footage for a moment and make something fun for myself – I certainly didnt expect to be answering questions about it (but thank you for asking!).

FI: You got a few really excellent candid shots of people on the trains, especially the mother pacing with her baby. Any tips on how to get those sorts of shots?

BA: Often planning candid shots is part of the process for me. Im not really quick on the draw, given that I am still quite new to this medium, unlike photography where it’s an organic process for me. Often I’d see some light or a scene that I may think will play out and I prepare for it. 

BA: Only last month (Jan/Feb). I was in Japan for the same project (stills only) the year prior during Summer and passed Fuji the same way and it couldnt be seen. As you can see, I got lucky on this one! 

FI: Any tips on how to film on the trains or in Japan that you learned and would like to share?

BA: Just roll tape! The trains are roomy and comfortable (I shot this on the Shinkansen) and being able to stand between carriages and look for different angles is important rather than sitting in your seat and focussing out the window. Perhaps the biggest killer of footage was my reflection or that of the camera in the window under certain conditions. 

I can’t think of too many places where shooting is so easy and the results can be so good. People are tolerant of your motives (ever seen a Japanese person without a camera?) and quirky and beautiful scenes play out on a daily basis. Find a subject and shoot it!

FI: If you could shoot the video again, what would you do differently?

BA: There’s a million things I’d do differently and I learn more each day. Definitely more stabilized shots. Given that I was just having a bit of a play, not knowing i’d make a little video out of it, I would have shot a lot more because I really enjoyed the eventual edit but would have benefitted from more footage options.

FI: What are your plans for your next project? Any more videos?

BA: I love shooting video, really love it so I’d hope to get more options to shoot more as I progress. No plans right now as my current project (the reason I was in Japan) will be in editing for quite a while to come.Possibly there will be more shooting in Japan for the same project if required and funding continues. 

FI: And the inevitable gear question… What’d you shoot on? What’d you cut on? What kind of lenses and tripods did you use?

Stills at www.brendenallen.com (got a new site being built now but there is still a bit on here) and also a bit of a photo travel diary at http://brendenallen.tumblr.com/

A big thanks for Brenden for taking the time to chat with me. This is a fantastic travel video and I look forward to seeing more from him.

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1. The Brilliant, Beatific Betel Nuts of Kaohsiung

Like many of al Jazeera’s documentary efforts, this feels like part of something larger and more cinematic… and like many of the documentaries that air on the channel; it may very well be. Al Jazeera often airs truncated and abridged versions of feature documentaries, such as Michael Glawogger’s Working Man’s Death. Unfortunately Battling the Yakuza has a stifling BBC-style narration that doesn’t really lend itself to the brilliant images & harrowing interviews on display.

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This video was shockingly simple to shoot. There was a huge drag in post. More on that later.

I had wanted to shoot something about Betel Nut for a while; it’s something that one encounters all

over the place in more blue-collar areas of Taiwan, such as the town I’m in, Kaohsiung 高雄市. I was struggling for an “in,” though and that’s where Tom Conway comes in, who helped out immensely on this video. The idea was to frame it as a taste-testing with some relevant historical and contextual information. We began shooting and as always, the remarkable openness and

friendliness of the Taiwanese people that we encountered was a remarkable factor. Rose, our fixer/translator speaks fluent English/Taiwanese/Mandarin and warmed the folks interviewed in the video right up. We just showed up at the betel nut stand in the video on a Sunday afternoon totally unannounced and couldn’t have gotten a more welcoming response. The lovely lady in the video talked to use for over an hour about business, history & process, all as if she had been expecting a camera crew to drop in on her all day. The gentleman who chews the betel nut for us in the video was also happy to chat with us, and actually seemed pretty grateful to us, as we were supplying him with some betel and snacks, which was the whole reason why he was out and about in the first place.

I shot this on my beloved Canon T2i with hacked magic lantern firmware (don’t leave home without it,) canon 50mm 1.8mm & an 18-55mm stock lens which I promise to stop using when it stops being super-useful : P For audio I brought out 2 Sky lavs but I think I used  the Sennheiser MKE 400 for pretty much everything. We only used a bounce board for light. I don’t want to even get into how we pulled off the jib shot. Let’s just say that my wallet’s still sore!

Unfortunately there was a huge lag in post-production because we shot this right before summer break and have been working extended hours and been without our translator. If there are translation issues, that should be laid solely at my feet, I put this out now because I couldn’t wait any longer!

CREDITS:

Producer:
Tom Conway
Sean O’Connor

Photography & Editing:
Sean O’Connor

Fixer/Translator:
Rose Sullivan

The (incredibly kind) owner of the Betel Nut stand featured in the video is located here: http://goo.gl/maps/Lr75e

Cast:
Alison Campbell
Tami Lynn Layman
Adam Milczarek
Rose Sullivan
Jackie Tan

The music in this video is used under a Creative Commons license.

“Jazz Hooves” by Nick Pingry aka NoLongerAnon – http://soundcloud.com/nolongeranon

“Canon and Gigue in D Major for 3 violins” Performed by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Originally Composed by Johann Pachelbel.

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1. In search of the Taiwanese Oyster Omelette 蚵仔煎
2. Mists crawling over Yushan Mountain, Taiwan (玉山)

It’s a single 2:30 minute-ish shot, slown down to just over 5:00, depicting a lone ninja vanquishing countless foes in what seems to be a disused European factory. It’s unfortunate that this is just a gear demo: this is the most exciting ninja sequence I think that I’ve ever seen put to live-action film. I’d gladly watch ninety minutes of this (provided it had an audio track added in.)

The piece of gear is the Omcopter, an awesome little remote controlled helicopter rig which, from what I gather, has been specifically made for the Epic Red camera (but apparently will also work with DSLR’s and glasses of water. )

I’m reasonably sure that these small RC helicopter rigs are going to slowly find their way into becoming a regularly used piece of filmmaking equipment, occupying a nice sweet spot between steadicams and cranes. Looking at this thing, it does look beyond my electronics skill-set, but not beyond the skills of a slightly-more-than-amateur electronics gear hacker. Hopefully we see the proliferation of affordable versions of helicopter rigs in the very near future.

The OMCOPTER gives wings to the Red Epic from omstudios on Vimeo.

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Gabriel Kempers kept this Italian Travelogue as simple as possible; he edited in-camera with swish pans kept the ambient audio, and then plugged in some nice tunes for extra mood. What comes out of his creation is a brilliant little take on the random assault beautiful cities have upon the senses.

One Minute Vacation – Kevin2Kelly

A blink of environments, a clash of sounds; whispers of rivers, blowing of leaves & the yelling of revelers. Kevin Kelly’s compilation of one-second shots from his trip around Asia is epic in it’s contrasts, and wonderful in it’s brevity.

Bored at BCN – aNATURALWONDER

This is a stylish, relaxed little tone-poem for the strange purgatory that every traveller eventually inhabits, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. It’s beautiful in it’s simplicity. I wish I could say the same for the average airport…

Living out of a Backpack – Live on the Road

I love this opening animation of the hosts of this show, as well as the mission statements therein. I’m expecting much more from this channel as their stories progress, this is very promising…

 The Best Risotto in the World – Epicurely

I’ll admit: I almost shut it off when I heard the opening notes of the theme from “The Godfather.” Doing raw travel searches of videos on Vimeo has taught me a lot about establishing your styles and your concepts early on; mostly because I close down most of the videos I watch within a minute or so of starting them. But Epicurely’s video survived mostly because he gets to some glorious food and food production shots pretty early on, and at about one minute’s length, definitely doesn’t overstay his welcome.

Voyage on the M.V. Liemba – Malcolm Rutherford

Here’s something that doesn’t pop up on Vimeo very often. Or most travel guides, for that matter; a travelogue of a cargo ship travelling from Mpulungu, Zambia to Kigoma, Tanzania. The ship of the title is just under one-hundred years old, and fromthe look of the video, seems to be holding up well. Then again, I’d consider anything that is one-hundred and not underwater to be pretty spectacular. Spoiler alert: there are a lot of dried fish in this video.

Related posts:

1. The best unseen travel videos of the week-ish (5/31/2012)
2. The best unseen travel videos of the week-ish (April)

The Jiro in question

“Jiro Dreams of Sushi” is a new feature-length documentary directed by David Gelb. It is the story of Jiro Ono and his sushi bar, the first to be given the coveted three-star Michelin review.

The story does not go to great length to find drama between him and his sons, prodigious chefs in their own right, as well as his apprentices, current & former. In this, it mimics Jiro’s own style, watching from the back of the ten-person bar he serves from, meticulously observing his customers and how they eat his prized fish, but never imposing himself upon them, just quietly bending his service to accommodate their needs. We don’t see Jiro’s house, we don’t find out what his favorite baseball team is, we dont’ even know where, how or if he eats. So, invested with a little bit of Jiro’s tireless drive, we’re treated to 80 minutes of almost totally uninterrupted, unmitigated, unrelenting food porn. And it is awesome food porn.

The fish in question

There is shot after shot of delicately handled fish matter, carefully sliced, meticulously sauced, then exquisitely placed upon it’s brick of signature rice. The tuna and squid undulate into focus, as if out of some lurid, pre-code silent film. But director/DP David Gelb doesn’t just stop at the food; the film is gorgeously photographed throughout, front of house and back of house. The score is mostly sourced from Philip Glass helping to give things a pressing, epic tone.

This film is more kindling for the argument that most feature film documentaries would do better to lose 15 or 20 minutes of their overall length; there are some third act developments that feel like deleted scenes hastily slapped into the film, including a segment about overfishing which comes totally out of left field, then doesn’t stick around any longer than it’s 6 or 7 minutes, and a trip to Jiro’s hometown that does little to establish any more about Jiro’s private life.

Jiro is dreaming and from where we’re watching it doesn’t look so bad…

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I wasn’t sure what to think of this video initially; North Korean tourism sounds stifling, at best, and to arrive even at that opinion, you have to totally ignore NK’s multitudinous human rights violations.

But there really is something that must be said of this video’s snappy soundtrack by The Octopus Project (who are likely unawares that their music is being used to advertise for the DPRK,) breakneck editing speed, and some nice-looking footage (which unfortunately someone compressed down to low-res SD.)

Say something nice in their comments, maybe it will keep you out of a re-education camp.

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brake handles at work

I’m not a big fan of gear for gear’s sake; I prefer the old ninja adage “fear not the weapon but the man who wields it.” Whenever someone says nice things about what I shoot, they assume that I’m using top-of-the-line tools that cost me a fortune. Nothing could be further from the truth; I buy anything used that I can, and make as much out of PVC as possible.

focus gears

I’d certainly make an exception for the Midas Mount Snapfocus follow system, though. Details are still unfinalized (their patent is pending, after all) but it looks heavy enough to stabilize a DSLR (a DSLR’s light weight tends to cause the most shakiness) but light enough to probably not kill your luggage on your next trip. On top of it all, it uses bicycle brakes

looks weird, handles fine

to operate focus. How cool is that? You’d end up using muscle memory to pull focus. I’ll bet that’s pretty janky at first, but once you adapt to it, it’s probably second nature. Think about the first time you used a new video game controller or keyboard. I’m looking at you, N64 controller.

The thing’s up on Kickstarter, and the company, Midas Mounts, is way ahead of it’s goal. It also seems that it’s selling for about $100 less than they intend to charge for it after the kickstarter deal is over. Admittedly, the price is a bit rich for my blood. I need to invest in another lens (maybe two,) some lighting gear, and some more sound equipment before I go buying a nice rig like this. But if I had the cash floating around and was looking for a new rig, this is certainly one that I’d look very hard at.

manicure not included

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This thing excels on every level: the food shots define the phrase “food porn,” while the sociological perspective is fascinating, without distracting from purpose of the thing: food. The scope of this film is incredible: like BBC’s “Planet Earth” but for Chinese food. I’m really looking forward to watching the heck out of these.

The only downside is that this is fan-subbed and therefore some of the English gets kinda wonky. None the less, it beats nothing, and let’s face it, the beauty of the images is really the primary reason to watch this thing.

Found on: r/documentaries

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Prince Edward Island – Roadtrip

I am loving this blissed-out, dreamy rental car daytrip of Prince Edward Island; P.E.I. certainly isn’t one of the more well-traveled vacation hotspots, especially not for most of the tanned, bikini-clad habitants of Youtube & Vimeo.

Florence Underground

I’m very fond of anything with a narrative. If your video tells a story with some sort of throughline (other than, in the words of slacker-caesar ‘we went, we were there, we left’) I’ll probably be willing to put it up. I’m fanatical about stories, and very few of the travel videos that I watch have them. Jerome Alexandre’s video is light on story, but makes up for it in an ambience so thick you can almost smell this subway in Florence, Italy.

Cambodia Trip

I’m not gonna lie, the song kinda makes this video about Cambodia. Luckily, there are some startlingly good images to accompany the rad-tastic music.

Travel guide: streets versus blocks

Cultural differences and Japan’s wacky (to us) system of organizing streets & blocks is the name of the game in this charming animated video from Vimeo user Zomon.

Silver Mines

So this is borderline reckless and full-on craziness, but these cats went down to Bolivia, found themselves a silver mine, then talked their way into… well, you’ll see.

McDonalds Across Europe!

Ah, Europe: where the hip and modern lounge about the ornate and antique. These girls decide to bugger that concept, and went to as many McDonalds’ as they could find…

Vietnam. Same same but different

Sights, sounds & tastes abound in this overview of a trip to Vietnam. Beasts of burden, smiling villagers, handbag salesman and Hanoi bicycles all abound in some beautiful photography.

Learning some Kung fu in a Chinese farming village

An awesome video where an Irish polygot travelling through China by rail meets the son of a renowned Kung-Fu Master. Personal note: I love watching this guy’s videos in the hope that some day my Chinese will be anywhere near as good as his (spolier alert: it won’t be.)

Tengo El Fuego

Gorgeous skateboarding video (I’m a sucker for skateboarding videos, esp. travel-related skateboarding videos) in Barcelona & Seville, Spain.

Cairo on Vimeo

This is a perfect example of what happens when you have a good, interesting video, and then you add a piece of music that makes it into something else. The tense, jarring score in this video makes it more than just pretty vistas; it makes it into a teaser trailer for Egypt’s post-revolution future.

Dave Barr World Traveler

Excellent short documentary on a disabled Vietnam war vet who went on what may possibly the most bad-ass motorcycle road trip of all time; through the Gobi Desert and Siberia. As he puts it: “I never asked god ‘why me?’ I asked god ‘what now?”

Sicily

There’s a great, disjointed feeling to this video of balls-to-the-walls scooter drivers in Sicilian alleyways grinning and staring at the cameraman.

OK, I think that’s it folks. We had a bit of a backlog this weekish (this week-ish was more of a month-ish) and I’m looking forward to doing these on a more consistent basis.

What was your favorite clip this week-ish?

Let us know in the comments below! If you have a video for next week’s best unseen travel videos, leave it in the comments or send me an e-mail from the ‘about’ page up top.

Ciao for now!

Related posts:

1. The best unseen travel videos of the week-ish (April)