Category Archives: Raw Footage

Wakayama Nachikatsuura Scenes

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the shorter 5-vignette version

the extended raw footage (3-minutes)

We took a one-night trip to the bottom of Wakayama prefecture this weekend. Wakayama is the prefecture south immediately to the south of Osaka. Most of the prefecture is pretty off the beaten track and was even more off the beaten track before Kansai Airport was built. The furthest south most Japanese tourists seem to get is the onsen/beach resort area of Shirahama, about halfway down the eastern Wakayama coast.
We rode along bending, beautiful coastal roads, with sight-lines only marred by a little more coastal concrete barriers than you’d like to see. We took a combination of local JR trains and hitchhiked. Lighthouses, crows, small fishing towns could be seen through rain-streaked windows. I don’t surf myself, but I’ve heard that Katsuura is one of the better surf spots in this part of Japan (as I’ve written elsewhere, I’m always impressed by this patience here in Japan to wait for small waves at crowded surf spots).
We eventually got down south to a small, budget ryokan. The next day we were met by the father of a teacher I work with in Osaka. He is a tour guide in the area. He took us to Nachi Falls, such a beautiful waterfall, where even the moss and the surrounding rocks seem like they could not be better placed. Kumano Nachi Taisha shrine is here – it is one of the first three Kumano shrines, from which 3000 other Kumano shrines in Japan are said to originate. Our guide explained to us that more than a 1000 years ago, Paekche Koreans arrived here. Apparently, in ancient times, there was a concentration of Koreans in the Nara area north of here. Frankly, I couldn’t fully understand the explanation I was hearing as it was in Japanese, and searching for extra details on the net certainly consumes some time.
On the way back to Osaka, we ended up stuck on the side of the highway as it was getting dark. It was drizzling and I began to worry that we wouldn’t get picked up, and it seemed like trains were hardly running. Fortunately, someone picked us up – a man pretty keen to practice his very limited English, and not open to the idea that I might somehow be able to converse in Japanese. Much appreciated ride, though. Saved us, in fact.

Update: I just watched the Cove, the documentary about an annual dolphin slaughter. Many of the places looked familiar. Looking at a map, I realize the Nachikatsuura area immediately surrounds the town of Taiji, where the documentary the Cove (about an annual dolphin slaughter) was made. It’s such a beautiful, spiritual place. I hope the nearby town will find a way to prosper and that the dolphins will be left alone.

Update: It’s early 2010, and I’ve just seen the Cove, the documentary film about the dolphin slaughter. I realized as I watched this film that it must surely have been made in the same area. I then looked at the map, and could see that the Taiji fishing village is basically it’s own administrative zone, bordered on all sides (except the coastal side) by the Nachikatsuura district.

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Transition: Houston to Seoul

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Looking back at some old tape. Found this tape where the footage begins in Okinawa, jumps to Seoul, then to Houston, and finally back to Seoul. Here I am in a car in Houston listening to Ann Peebles, and then through an edit on a freeway through the Incheon tidal plains of Korea.

Transition: Seoul to Houston

Here’s the transition a few months previous, when according to the tape, where I left Seoul at night and then arrive in Houston at night:

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Museum of Fine Arts Houston

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I was surprised that I could use my camera inside the museum. Didn’t really know how to film things or why I was filming things. Was I filming to remind myself later, like a notepad, in that way a still camera would function better – but with the movement of my hand, zooms, the blurry camera, there’s still a sense of movement here. Can we create something new in filming a painting? I think I was somehow hoping that something would suddenly happen within the painting, but I suppose the event is supposed to happen in my mind, not the camera’s mind.

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Chongno 3ga

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I haven’t filmed much yet in Seoul. The streets are busy. It’s cold. I don’t know where to stand. The city’s full of life and sound and smells. Sidewalks lined with food stands, music coming from street vendors selling CDs.

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First footage in Korea

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Years later, I looked back at this old tape from my Sony Digital 8 camera. I wanted to remember what my first film in Korea was. It’s always an exciting thing, the first thing you film in a new country.
This clip begins in Narita Airport, Japan, waiting for my flight to Seoul. Then, halfway through, I see a soldier standing on the subway in Seoul. I don’t know when this scene took place, but I know it was sometime after Christmas Eve. How many days did my camera sit in its bag before I briefly decided to pull it out and shoot this soldier?

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I can’t move this city

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Arrived back in Tokyo from Okinawa, at Haneda Airport. Rode the train into the city. Coming from Okinawa, I felt so energized, like a different person, I felt my energy would move Tokyo, but it is not so. Nearly every one here looks tired, exhausted, unexcited … oblivious to the changed person that I am, oblivious to the experiences that I’ve had. I can’t move this city.

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The Restless Sea

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Leaving Okinawa tomorrow. It felt intense standing on this cliff above the Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum. The sky was heavy and near to rain, the beach looking dark, the waves coming in steady one after another, without consciousness. The history of this place is so tragic. When America bombed this area in World War II, it was nicknamed the ‘typhoon of steel’. It is said to have been bombed so much that the landscape changed. I read that a third of the Okinawan people died.

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The usual route

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Dec. 11th :4:30PM – some park on Okinawa Honto – There’s all kinds of species of trees. A cloudy day that cleared up and is again becoming cloudy. There won’t be any sunset tonight – as if the sun doesn’t set. We never say there won’t be any tonight. I feel like I’m in the Okinawa pavilion that will be created for a future Disneyland. Anyway, the air is cold, and if there’s ocean around here, I wouldn’t want to swim in it. I’ve noticed this sign today – underneath 2 Kanji, it says, “usual route.” If there’s anything I can’t take about what seems to be the dominating Japanese system, it’s the confinement of time and the organization of movement through spaces. I forgot what the world of the tourist is like until I joined this tour today. Living in Miyako, I forgot so many things, and yesterday arriving in Naha, I was brought back to reality in a lot of ways.

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