ART LIVES TORIDE Where Art Is Born

I mainly shoot standard video using Moviecam and mirrorless cameras, as well as gimbals and drones to create videos in a minimalist production style. I make VP (video packages) to introduce companies, aerial photography of landscapes by the request of local governments, and many other genres. I often create videos for websites and exhibitions.

When I was in my twenties, I was playing music. Rather than playing in front of people, I was making music by collecting bird sounds and using synthesizers and samplers. There used to be a music store in Boxhill in front of the station. I used to hang out there and make CDs with the people I met and distribute them. I have a kind of sound fetish, so I studied voice recognition in the engineering department at university.

Video began as a sort of hobby of my own making. The president of a production company I had a connection with at the time taught me directly the techniques and ideas of video production. That experience is my current mentor and my roots. And before I knew it, many of my clients were directly asking me to do their video production.

Now I do everything myself, from planning to composition, shooting, and editing. It requires to consider what kind of image needst, how to shoot it, and what are the key points to edit. Every step of the process is steady and hard work, but it’s all very enjoyable.

Personally, I like nature, so I photograph landscapes wherever I go. I don’t just say, “It’s beautiful,” but I try to find the roots of why the terrain is the way it is, or why the shrines and temples are there. Recently, I have been thinking about the possibility of taking close-up photographs of the work of craftsmen work that is unique to the area.

I want to preserve things through images that may disappear or cease to exist in the future. I will preserve the sounds and movements of things that are here and now, local culture and folklore, so that people of future generations after 50 or 100 years will be able to know about them. I believe that recording is one of the important roles of video.

I place importance on “making it easy to understand,” both in terms of recording and creating images that communicate. However, it is always a matter of trial and error, I am always struggling with how to make the video easy to understand. Even for a simple telop, I try to reduce the number of characters, or I think about replacing the order of the images. Even when I think I have created a masterpiece, there are times when I look back on it the next day and think it is not right after all. I feel that I can only do my best at any given moment.

I like to try and experiment with everything by myself. Music, video, etc. I made the wooden deck in this house by myself. It would be quicker to buy something or leave it to someone else, but if you work hard at making something, you can absorb the know-how. If you take an interest in something completely unrelated and observe it, or your own hands, you can understand how it works. The knowledge and experience I gained in this way will be helpful later in my filmmaking, even if not directly.

I was born in Shiga Prefecture, but I have lived in Toride since I was in the third grade of elementary school. I love Ibaraki Prefecture. The nature here is great, isn’t it? The sky is wide, the sunsets are beautiful, and you can feel the four seasons. I will probably live here forever, so I would like to expand my involvement in the community.