Last month, I submitted my entry for Study Kyoto’s short movie contest for international students. Looking back to the whole process of making the movie, I realized that I learned so much along the way. This is my attempt at sharing the memorable experience that I had, and the things that I learned throughout the whole production phase that you can’t see in the short movie.
The whole project started from a broadcasted message sent by one of my seniors about the contest. This was in July, when we just started our summer holiday in Japan. At the time, I already had an idea to share the story of my first year abroad, but wasn’t really sure about how I should share it. I’m not confident with my writing skills, so writing a lengthy blog post was not an option. However, I always loved to take pictures and videos, so the contest seems like the perfect opportunity for me.
During this year’s spring break, I did a few cycling trips around Kyoto. One of the places that I visited was Torokko, which was only 30 minutes away from my dorm.
The place was one of the most beautiful place that I’ve seen in Kyoto. With the clear river, and tall trees surrounding me, It felt like I was in a whole different place. And the fact that it was very close to town inspired me to make a video about cycling in Kyoto. Through the video, I wanted to share the idea of how anyone can explore the less known parts of Kyoto by only using their bikes.
My first shooting attempt was on a sunny afternoon in Early August. I invited two of my friends, Andrew and Dhiqa to be part of the video. Both of them are my fellow Indonesian friends, who I thought were crazy enough to help me out in the whole project.
Things did not go as planned, however.
As we were going downhill approaching Torokko, Andrew entered a corner too fast and crashed. We had to call an ambulance since Andrew twisted his ankle, and there was no hospitals nearby. When the ambulance came, they had to call the police to report the accident.
It was my first, and hopefully last time of dealing with a Japanese police. But looking back at it, the whole experience reminded me that we cannot always expect everything to go according to what we planned, there is always a possibility that the worst may happen. Also, it made me feel grateful to have friends such as Dhiqa, who has the ability to speak Japanese fluently.
The whole project was halted for almost a month, since we had to focus on our event, Malam Indonesia (Indonesian cultural night), and I had to go back to Indonesia after the event ended. As time passed, I became more skeptical of being able to get the whole project done before the deadline.
I returned to Kyoto on the 20th of September, and the submission deadline was on the 30th of September. I had 10 days to finish the whole project. The first task was clear, which is to shoot the video.
Unfortunately, Andrew did not join this time, so it was only me and Dhiqa. We luckily discovered another place nearby called Kiyotaki, which a bit easier to reach. Although later we discovered that the tunnel that we had to pass is well known for being haunted, we were surprised by the beauty of the whole the area. Kiyotaki is actually the name of the river that flows right through the small village, which later on would found its way merging with Katsura river. We managed to collect enough footage after going there twice, and I even took a refreshing dip at the river.
The work then continued inside my dormitory room, where I had to turn the footage into a 3 minute story. This was the biggest challenge that I had with the project, I made several videos about my experiences, but most of them were poorly narrated and filled with shaky footages. I began to collect samples of how I wanted the short movie to look like by surfing through YouTube videos.
I have to admit that most of my inspirations came from Casey Neistat’s work. Although I’m not a real fan of his current vlogs anymore, I really look up to his early works. This is why I began the movie with a stop motion about why I choose cycling as the main story, and how it relates with Kyoto.
I started out by borrowing 2 tripods from my friend Juni and Rushav, at this point I was still unsure about how I’m going to shoot the stop motion. After getting a big sheet of white paper from my school’s co-op store, I laid it under my desk and began drawing some icons such as bikes, cars, and the map of Japan. I used Juni’s tripod and laid it on my desk to hold my camera, it was surprisingly effective although it seems that it could fall down anytime. 600 shots later, the stop motion was done.
The last piece of the puzzle was about editing the movie. I used Final Cut Pro X, the app that I gradually learned how to use since high school to edit my videos. Again, I did not know much about how to use the app besides cutting videos and adding some texts, so I had to rely on YouTube tutorials. In less than 3 days I gained so many things, However sleep was not one of them..
On the 26th of September, I finally submitted the short movie. And next Friday (27 Oct), the committee will announce the finalists for the competition. While the idea of being a finalist in the competition is very exciting, I feel that I have learned many valuable things along the way.
For years I have always obstructed my intentions to share my stories, which probably came from my fear of being judged by others. It turns out that, it felt great to be able to share my perspective, and talk about the things that I am passionate about. I was also very overwhelmed by the positivity that I received when people saw the movie.
Whether I win or not, the whole project had made me realize all the wonderful gifts that I have. I am grateful, and privileged to be surrounded with families and friends that always support, and encourage me to become a better person.
