With over 200 exits and used by millions of people daily, Tokyo's
Shinjuku station is the world's busiest train station. It serves as the
rapidly beating heart of the city's commercial districts, and is the
main hub through which commuters pour in from across the Kanto plain and
beyond every day. This makes for quite a sense of bustle to the
passing observer.
'In Motion' (the film viewable above), which aims to capture a slight flavour of that sense of rush,
busy-ness and movement that characterises much of the capital, is the second in a planned trilogy of short films
about Japan. The first in this trilogy is 'Makes The World Go Round' (issued in 2010 and now with over 2,000 views on YouTube), with a final film due at some point in 2012 and based on footage taken at Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing.
Shot
with a Flip UltraHD pocket camera in late 2010, much of this film centres around a sequence captured by placing the camera on the floor of a station walkway. This had the effect of representing the rhythm of hundreds of shoes as people passed by the eye of the lens. The remainder of the film was assembled from other footage shot in the same station. 'In Motion' was largely produced in
iMovie HD, with opening credits put together with PowerPoint 2010 (in the absence of Flash).
The film also makes use of a Creative Commons-licenced song as its soundtrack. The track is called 'Machines and Muscles', an appropriate title for the main factors of motion in the
film, and is by a psychedelic drone band from Chicago called Cave. An
instrumental number originally featured on the flip side of the 7"
single 'Butthash', the song has a certain 'Baba O'Reilly' feel to it
which contributes well to the groove of the footage.
Feel free to check out the new commenting system on this blog by dropping by with a word or two about the film.
