Music Festival day two

Another rainy day in Kutchan for day two of the music festival. The crowd turnout was pretty low, but those who did come were a good crowd sticking around right until the end. The highlights were AFRA the human beat box and of course the closer, Okinawa artists Ryukyudisco.

Music Festival day one

Rained all day, but the crowd hung in and was treated to a great performance from Shakatak one of London’s all time classic fusion bands! Was too busy grooving to get any shots of Shakatak.
Best discovery of the day? Check out the banner in the first picture. “Hokkaido BBQ College” What? Why didn’t someone tell me about that when I was just out of high school! I would have gone! Of Course it might not be too late to go back to school…

Final Cut 7

Apple announced the release of a new Final cut studio, my next purchase.

Editing madness

Have been at it non-stop this week, turn on the editing machine at 7am and don’t turn it off until midnight. The Car Danchi movie is really starting to come together. Down to editing the final details, like subtitles, audio balance, bonus sections, ending creidits etc., Should be able to wrap it up completely by the end of next week!

Lots has been going on, but just no chance to blog about it. Here are a couple of pictures from the last week.

Went to Betrade on Monday to meet with Mino and set up a little photo gallery there.  The guys at Betrade are big fans of the Car Danchi movies and they asked us to provide some photos for a small gallery space in the showroom.  Mino made the frames and I provided the photos.

Check out this cool Italian made pop up camper that attaches to the roof of your car.  Great idea for people who want to camp, but don’t want to set up a tent and sleep on the ground.  Maggiolina.

Congradulations to Mino on his upgrade to a new car.  A camper to be exact.  He scored a great deal at Betrade and picked up the camper you see behind the three guys.  So he will be living the Car Danchi life in style this next season!

Murai-san from Shy dental stopped by yesterday to bring me a new mouth guard.  The more I use the mouth guard the more I like it.  If you play anykind of sport I highly recommend you get one made, you will feel the difference!

This time I got a special one made with my One Films logo built in!  Now when I flash a little smile it will be shameless self promotion!

This one is going to be good!

Neverland teaser

Absinthe Films new teaser is up on their site and it is impressive stuff. I know the crew spent three weeks filming in Japan at Asahidake this winter, so look for some good Japow footage with Nicolas and others. Click the image to go to the Absinthe website and check out the teaser there. I still can’t seem to embed Vimeo clips into my WordPress blog … frustration …

R.I.P

Heavy day for mountain lovers yesterday. A total of 10 people died in one night on the Tokachi mountain range. A party of 19 on Tomuroushidake got caught in bad weather and lost 8 people. A separate solo climber also died, and then on a different mountain further north another climber died as well. A dark day here on the north island. All the victims were from outside the island and obviously not prepared for the cold temperatures and bad weather. Please be extra careful when you go mountain climbing, as it may be summer, but it is a cold summer this year in Hokkaido and the mountains can be very very cold at night. Rest in peace mountain lovers.

Japanese news story here.

Things are getting heavy

I am certainly beyond the half way mark with my editing, hard to say how much time left. I am starting to study some new techniques I want to use in the movie.

Hanazono Music Fes

I am going to be MCing at the Hanazono music festical on the 26th! Hope to see you all there.

Click the picture for a look at the official site.

Photo sharing in Japan

I am searching for a good photo sharing service in Japanese.  I have joined the organizing committee for an upcoming photo contest here in “Jozankei Onsen” and I want to have everyone share their photos online.  Went to Flickr and was suprised to find they don’t have a Japanese site version yet.  I discovered the two sites below, but wanted to see if anybody out there might have some input or advice.  Ease of use, and preferably an international site that has an English version as well, that is what I am looking for. Oh yeah has to be free to join as well.  Hit me with some comments if you know anything.

Read about Zorg.com Japanese site only.

Then found Zooomr.com Global as well as Japanese site.