I recently swapped my Nikon stills camera to spend two days as cameraman and director of photography with a crew producing a music video for Los Angeles-based Glitch-hop musician, eDit, and the MadeInGlitch crew.  The experience proved intoxicating and has now propelled me to a new level of equipment-lust….

Just when I thought I had my camera-envy to a manageable level – happy with the equipment I have and not particularly lusting after anything new until I have the money – Alex Kubalsky came into my life and changed everything. Now not only do I have still-camera lust, but very expensive HD-cam envy going on as well.  And not just HD-cam envy but envy for the Nikon lens adaptor Alex has for his Sony EX1, which enabled me to mount all of my lovely old Nikon 35mm camera glass on his beautiful full-HD camera.  Not that life revolves around gear. Certainly not. For me the end-result is what counts but there is no getting away from the fact that good gear helps and that great gear has a distinct tendency to get one a little moist in the creative department.

So, how was in contact with such lovely objets-filmique, I hear you ask?  Back in November a buddy of mine, Mick Condon [Japan Inc. and Metropolis Magazine] asked me to shoot some stills of eDit, a glitch-hop DJ who was in Tokyo for a gig at Legato in Shibuya.  Mick’s longer-term objective was to have me, my eyes and my bag-full of Nikon lenses take part in the filming of a video he was planning to make for one of eDit’s tracks; ‘Lazerbabies’.

Fast-forward to the end of December and Mick had assembled his crew, prepared storyboards and was ready to shoot. He and I then headed out a few days before the shoot to finalise some of the location choices and we were all set.

Camera-wise things were being provided by Alex Kubalsky, who some of you may recall from an interview he gave for Ping magazine back at the end of 2007. Alex has the rather unique job – especially for a gaijin – of being the guy who designs transformers for Tomy. His creative powers however extend far beyond toy design into fim-making and animation and, having seen a few clips of some of the projects he is currently working on, I would happily bet my shirt on him ending up being as good a film-maker in the future as he is a toy-maker now.

Alex’s rig is a Sony EX1 camera, Letus Extreme lens adaptor, some great rails, a superb Ozzie-built tripod and fluid head, and a growing collection of  classic Nikon glass. Put together with my little bag of goodies this was then, for me, to be something of a weekend to remember.

We began shooting at Mick’s apartment, over towards Ikebukuro and had a lovely splash of morning light to give us the atmosphere for our first scenes. We got Mick’s handmade dolly and rails going for a tracking shot and did some lovely macro work, using Alex’s rig together with my old D’series 105mm Micro-Nikkor lens. Seems odd to be salivating over slo-mo shots of a dripping tap, and Mick by this stage was convinced his flat had never looked so good. Before we got too carried away, it seemed a good time to get outside so we headed to a nearby park.

Done with simulating explosions and machine-gun fire at the kiddies playground, we all packed up and shifted operations to Shibuya and The Pink Cow bar. Our dancer and female lead, Yuri, joined us for the first time and we filmed her dancing scenes and a couple of scenes with our male lead, Ohka-san. The shot-bag was fillin’ up.

Shibuya struck off the list, it was onwards to Shinjuku and, first, a little bit of guerilla film-making around the skyscraper district where my backwards tracking-shot up the escalator in the Mode Gakuen building , $10,000 of camera-gear in-hand [glad Alex was not in the room to see that] was my own personal highlight of the day, and which had needed to be actioned pretty quickly as we were starting to attract the attention of the security guards.

Another hour or so spent in Omoide Yokocho blurred into a dash to Yurakucho for the final scenes of the day at the International Forum…. and a bit more security-guard dodging.

Day One over. Few beers down the hatch. Back home and straight to bed.

Day Two of the shoot was another 7am start but this time, luckily for me, the location was my flat in Omori. Mick needed a good rooftop location for some fight scenes. My rooftop more than fit the bill as far as the view was concerned but I spent a rather fitful night without much sleep worrying about the fact it had no safety railings.  The variables of actors, equipment, the local Police, possible extradition, lawsuits, 50metre drops…. all made for some rather vivid dreams, I can tell you. I should probably say straight away that all the rooftop filming went off without a hitch, thanks in large part to our production-stills photographer, Paulette Waltz, being ‘mum’ and making sure that everybody stayed away from the edge. Phew. Time to breathe again.

After some filming at my local park, punctuated by local park officials giving us a hard time, it was back to our flat for some interiors which my kids took great interest in: “Daddy, why are there people in our house pretending to be other people?” Or, “Why is that man putting tomato ketchup on that other man’s face? Does it hurt?” Kids. Wonderful. We’ll give them the script next time.

My weekend of film-making fun came to an end in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku, with the finale played out against a backdrop of drunks being ejected from a nearby bar in Omoide Yokocho and angry Chinese restauranteurs screaming at me for filming in their bar despite the fact they had previously given me permission.

My shoulders hurt [it's heavy, is Alex's camera rig], my feet were sore, I hadnt done so much focus-pulling in years and I was beginning to feel that shooting stills just wasn’t, well, wasn’t moving enough for me anymore. But, it’s been nice to get back to just making the world look like a movie rather actually making or being in one.

Photo Gallery [all production stills by Paulette Waltz; screengrabs from the video shot and picture of eDit by Alfie Goodrich

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THE CAST

Appearing As Themselves:

• Sony EX1 HD Video Camera
• Letus Extreme Film-Plane Adaptor
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai
• Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AiS
• Nikkor 105mm Micro-Nikkor f/2.8 AF D
• Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 ED IF
• Sigma 14mm f/2.8

Special guest appearance by The Kenko Pro 2x teleconverter

Oh, I nearly forgot, the people……

• Mick Condon – Director and Chief Sunglass-Wearer
• Yu Iwasaki – Producer and co-starring as The Man With the Vibrating Head
• Alfie Goodrich – camerman, DOP, lens geek, Head of Crap Jokes
• Alex Kubalsky – assistant camerman, Head of ‘Worrying About the Camera’
• Ohka-san – male lead
• Yuri-chan – the fembot
• Tamura-san – male co-star
• Nakamura-san – Otaku No.1
• Apologies for not remembering the other two actor’s names, who played Otaku Nos. 2 & 3
• Paulette Waltz – Production Stills Photographer and Head of Keeping People On the Roof
• Matt B – for looking menacing in an alleyway
• Matt’s girlfriend – for her black handbag
• My wife and kids – for being very tolerant about our house being used as a film-set and Green Room for 10hrs.

Oh, and check back here in a month or so for a link to the finished video……