Still shot captured from one of the stage cameras of the wadaiko group Matsuriza and the Hallelujah Gospel Family in Tokyo, June 20, 2009
This past week I had the extraordinary honor of being the director of a documentary film exploring the collaboration of a traditional wadaiko group and black gospel at a live music event in Tokyo.
I’ve been working with a grassroots film studio in Tokyo for the past year. The first film I directed was called My Stunt Double (I made an earlier post about it in this blog), which is now in final post-production. The studio is called Studio Re:, and it is tasked with making great short films which bring a positive message to the Japanese.
The event seen in this photo was the result of some conversations between the Tokyo-based Hallelujah Gospel Family Group and the head of Studio Re:, Paul Nethercott.
Saturday, June 20, 2009, was the day we shot the big concert. We had four cameras and operators, and they were connected to me through a communications link and a four-way monitor. In addition, we had two fixed cameras shooting direct to hard drives as a backup.
The film is supported by a series of interviews which explore the roots of the two very different styles of music, and what led to this eventual and amazing fusion.
Not only has the music created a powerful and original piece, but the anthropological background explored in the interviews will make for a stimulating experience.
I hope to finish post-production by September, 2009. With the captured footage I need, now adding up to 220 gigabytes, I will need to assemble a multi-lingual dialogue with subtitles for both languages, and arrange the narrative to culminate in an intense visual and aural feast.
Stay tuned!