Just came back to Kamloops. I stepped out into my backyard and saw the same moon I saw days previous in Tokyo, but now further along in its cycle. If it’s a full moon in Kamloops, would it also be a full moon in Tokyo?
Same Moon
Monthly Archives: November 2007
Autumn Letter
This film presents autumn scenes filmed around Seoul in November 2007, particularly on the walking trails of Namsan Mountain in central Seoul. A lot of the footage comes from the day I spent hanging around with my friend Matt – he was shooting photos, and I was doing video. It seems like I’m less shy about shooting people if I’m with someone. This video also represents my first film with the HD camera (Canon HV-120) that I bought from my friend Billy just a day or two previous. I love being productive with new technology right after I get it.
The music is an old Korean song by Kim Min-Gi called “Kaeul Pyunji” (“Autumn Letter”) (in Korean: 김민기 – 가을 편지).
Sights and sounds of the Tsukiji Fish Market
5X5 edit: Tuna Life After Death:
Extended Raw Footage Edit:
I lived in Tokyo for about a year from ’99 to 2000, but somehow never visited the Tsukiji Fish Market, though I realize now it wasn’t far off the route I took to work every day. I even lived near Tokyo Bay.
Anyway, on my recent multi-day stopover in Tokyo, I finally did it. I got one of the first trains of the morning over to the market. I was advised to go straight to the back end as early as possible if I wanted to catch any of the auctions of giant tuna.
I thought about editing this footage into some kind of proper film, even an educational one, and I might yet, but for now I think raw footage tells the story.
Plus, the market has been extremely well-documented in recent years, so I didn’t think further explanation was needed.
If you want to read up more on the market, besides Wikipedia, here’s a few links:
- book: The Fish Market at the Center of the World
- Vanity Fair article by Nick Tosches
- I know I’ve seen a few good videos with Tsukiji scenes on Vimeo. Here is one.
Update: I saw the Cove the other day. If you’ve seen it, you might recognize the lengthy Tsukiji tuna auction time lapse scenes 2/3rds of the way through the movie. In the years, there’s obviously a lot more questions about how long this tuna trade can be sustained. It’s truly boggling to think of this amount of huge fish being caught every day.
Shinjuku Station One Minute
Shinjuku Station, in central Tokyo, is said to be the busiest train station in the world. In 2007, the station was used by an average of 3.64 million passengers per day. The station has more than 200 exits. On Wednesday November 21st, 2007, around 8 PM, I filmed one of these exits for exactly 1 minute.
A few observations about this minute: Nobody looks at me at all as I stand there filming. There’s a pause of about two seconds in the middle where no one walks through, but otherwise there’s certain seconds where six people walk through. I love how adept the people are – there’s only 1 or 2 out of about a 100 people who even slightly fumble with their tickets, while there’s a few people who almost enter and then hesitate and walk away.