Somber but sound

I shed a tear today. It really hit me that Im leaving tomorrow. These familiar faces that were once unfamiliar will soon be unfamiliar again. The most thing I will miss is the air, a true refresher.

Studio Session

Spent my Last nite in Tokyo spent doing what i love the most.  Studio with DJ Cap...electro and awesome rhymes...success i coming for u.

Dinner with DJ Cap

Very interesting, we were accompanied by his australian friend, talking about music and stuff like that.

Oh yea I had swordfish sushi today.....uhhhhhh yay...dont know about that one. 

Smacked episode FUNNY!

FInal Self Evaluation/Critique

Topical history involves recording information about a specific subject, such as an interview with someone about the history of a workplace or occupation. I took this approach in developing my final project titled, Hip Hop in Japan. Through the interviews that I conducted, I was able to present the history behind the emergence of Hip Hop in Japan.

In choosing the subject matter for my project, I had initially planned on documenting the many faces of Disc Jockeys aka DJs, including on air DJ’s, club Dj’s, scratch DJ’s and mixtape DJ’s. One of the reasons that I wanted to document DJ’s was because I felt that their roles in music were taking for granted. In my opinion deejaying is an art form just as much as being a musician is. In all reality, DJ’s are the ones who play the music first, exposing an artist’s music to the masses. DJ’s have to entertain and interact with the crowd just as much as the artist does. Ultimately, I wanted to show all of the above in my work, while at the same time giving my audience a brief history about how the art form made is way to Japan. I would later have to change up how I would present this after I found my interviews, to be filled with information that I was not quite looking for.

To find the subjects for my documentary I logged onto YouTube and searched DJ ‘s in Tokyo. Several Dj’s popped up. I messaged about 6 DJ’s summarizing what my vision for the documentary was and how I would like to have them in it. The message looked something like this:

Hello, DJ(….) how's it going...Do you DJ in Tokyo? if so are you interested in being the subject of a documentary illustrating what it is like to be a DJ in Tokyo? if you are interested please let me know at your earliest convenience as i would like to meet with you as soon as possible.

Thank You for your time,

Danielle Johnson.

Out of the 6 DJ’s I message I would say that I got about two responses. Ready to work I decided to meet up with whoever responded first. Being that this was my first time ever doing a big project like this, I was hell bent on not letting it show to my interviewees. I set up dates and times for us to meet based off their schedules. I had no phone, so we stayed in contact with one another through email. Each time we were scheduled to meet, we met up at hachiko outside of Shibuya Station. Before interviewing each of my subjects I set up a day just to talk with them and further explain what it I was trying to do with my project. I asked them questions about themselves and couple of questions that I would ask when it was time to record. I took notes and when it was finally time to record I used those notes to conduct the on camera interview. In collecting my b-roll I used both the PD150 and the small Sony HD camera. PD150 was used mostly for the interviews and the Sony HD camera was used for club footage since it was small enough to carry around with me.

Once I finally had all my footage, it was time to edit and that was the most difficult part I must say. My interviews ended up going in a totally different direction than what I had anticipated. My subjects discussed hip hop more than anything, and with time running out I had no choice but to work with the interviews. My b-roll was also flooded with the Hip Hop in Japan. Now, I was no longer focusing on DJ’s, rather I would be focusing on the hip hop scene in Japan.

For a long time I was stumped on infiltrating the structure and due to my lack of experience everything it was a little overwhelming. I had to sit down several times and look at my footage over and over. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to combine information that could tell the story of hip hop’s emergence in Japan from its very beginnings to what is today. I wanted to put together a story that would appeal to hip hop fans outside of Japan, as if I were their inside man. From here I started putting together a timeline based off my interviewees sound bites. I chose DJ Cap to be placed first because his interview gave insight to the beginning of hip hop’s emergence starting in the late 80’ s. From there everything fell into place. Besides video I used other mediums such as pictures and music. I did a little narration and I added a map of New York and Tokyo to introduce my audience to the project. I also used subtitles to narrate the story. I added background music as a finishing touch to keep my audience interested and entertained.

I came across a few difficulties in finalizing my topical history piece. One came about in conducting my interview. I didn’t realize it, until till I was ready to edit in post-production. In one of my interviews the levels were extremely low. I thought everything was fine, when I was recording it, but the truth of the matter was, that I had set up the wireless mics all wrong. I was worried because I wasn’t sure, if I was going to be able to get my subject to willing do another interview, but luckily they had no problem doing so. I also found it hard sometimes to communicate exactly what I was trying to ask. Although my subjects could speak English, there was still somewhat of a language barrier. At times they really couldn’t understand my question and they would give me an answer that really had nothing to do with what I was asking in the first place. That was a little frustrating. The most frustration though came from editing. I found post-production to be very overwhelming. Although I had made a log sheet, I just didn’t know where to begin. I just felt like I had way to much footage, compared to the actual length that my final work needed to be. Another thing that I had trouble with was organizing all my footage. I went through several clips looking for just the right ones that could paint the picture that I was trying to portray. The hardest part of the organization for me was the end/conclusion, because I didn’t want it to end abruptly nor did I want it to be out of sync with the rest of the documentary.

There are couple of things that I would change or go about differently now that I look back on it. For one, I would have definitely changed the location of my interview with DJ Flourish. The background music was distracting, especially since there wasn’t any background music in my other interview. I also could have played some Japanese Hip Hop music as the background instead of the instrumentals. I think that it would have made it more authentic. There were times that in my conversations with my interviewees the cameras were not rolling. I know that in the future I should keep the cameras rolling until I run out of tape. There were a lot of things that I wish I could have put in there that were not recorded. Also organization, I wasn’t necessarily all over the place but I could have been a little bit more organized. For example, I was ignorant to the fact that when recording a-roll and b-roll they should be on separate tapes. If knew this at the time, logging and editing would have went a lot smoother. Also in the case of my interviews, I would have started way earlier, just for the simple fact that things wouldn’t seem so rushed. Other than these few things I wouldn’t change anything else I was pretty much pleased with the end result for it being my first topical history. I’ve learned a lot from this experience, and now I have more confidence that I am capable of producing more works such as Hip Hop in Japan.

The start of Hanami

Hanami is the Japanese word for flower viewing. Each year, when the sakura (cherry trees) bloom, Japanese people gather in parks to enjoy the beautiful flowers. Most of the time, parties are held under the cover of the trees. Depending on the area, the trees bloom from mid-January in Kyushu as late as mid-May in Hokkaido. As sakura flowers bloom and fall in a span of about one or two weeks, good flower viewing spots are really popular. Offices often send one of their employees really early in the morning to take a good spot; these people will spend their whole day waiting outside, sitting until the evening on their huge blue tarp to make sure nobody takes their place. From big corporation to kindergartens, everyone enjoys flower viewing parties and everyone tries to get the best spot.

Editing GRRRRR

Frustrating, I neva even attempted editing something of this duration. Editing caused me to miss out on henami, and a couple of other fun things going on during the cherry blossom festival.

"Excuse me sir please carry silent conversation around here".

These were the words a bold Japaneses woman who was eager to practice her english...no disrespect.

Its been nice outside lately so me and one of my friends decided that well do neighborhood walks every night till we leave. At night the streests are very quiet and peaceful, unless some unruly genjings have something to do with it. Although i consider my voice to be very low, my frined on the other hand is not, he talks loud ALL THE TIME. So were talking about how life is from our perspective country's and this lady walks over to us from nowhere. At first we thought she was going to ask for a cigarette or a lighter or something along those lines, but instead she said, Excuse me sir please carry silent conversation around here. We were taking a back by what she said and at the same time we had nothing but respect for her. We just couldnt believe she said that. We laughed about it and refered to it that whole night as we did our neighborhood walk. We even got lost after walking for 3hrs. We had no idea 3hrs had passed. We thought we were circling our neighborhood or at least in its proximity. Everything looked the same. Once we realized we were lost we asked a couple of ppl how to get back to ontakesan and they laughed at us, cus we told them we were going to walk. They kept saying something in Japanese and then Taxi...and sure nuff we ended up taking a taxi home. It came to a grand total off 1340yen.

Sunshine City: Harajuku:Earth Day and Shark Fin Ice Cream

Saw the MANEQUIN again in harajuku this time he was wearing pink spandex and filliping up in down the streets of Harajuku, drawing a crowd

Earth Day was a suprise had no clue it was earthday. We stumble upon some interesting Feats at Yoyoggi

Shark FIn CUz the words of Oj da juice

YEs shark fin ice cream...tasted::::interesting:::: There all kinds of ice cream there, matter of fact this place is know for it. some of it include snake, cavaiar, curry, chicken...all types and they all had pieces of the stuff in it...lol.

An cool lil place in sunshine city...cant even explain it, it was so cool, almost reminded me of a childrens musuem but with out the toys. It was tons of fun...IM so mad my camera died at this point.

FInish Editing: YES!

Da Da Da DUUUUUUHHHHHH

Documentary Completed.

The realest High: Metropolitatin Building in Shinkju

Pics

Me Time

Me Time is essential for personal growth and in a place  thousands and thousands of miles away for home it is very important. Today I exercised this after a very long exam. I took a  trip to roppingi and had dinner with no other than myself. It was beautiful moment, I had time to let good thoughts penetrate my mind and bad thoughts exit as I came to the realization that today marked the beginning of my last week in Tokyo. 

Exhibition in Harajuku

What is an artist? Let's define it shall we...

An artist a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill. Today after slaving for weeks two of my biggest projetcts were exhibited in Tokyo, right in the heart of Harajuku. My Docuementary, titled Hip H0p in Japan and my Second Life piece titled, Is there room for independant artists in the industry? were both displayed in Design Fiesta. An artist i must say I am

MY 21st.

Bday Luv From Friends and the DJ