I use to watch a lot of Youtube. Use to, as in I have been so busy lately that I am really far behind and had to unsub form a few channels just to keep the backlog down. I found Luis from one of the many skate channels I watch and noticed he was coming to Japan. Checked out his videos, really liked them, and hit him up on instagram to see if he needed any help filming here.

He responded and we hit it off well. We started planning some shoots and I met him at his first big event in Japan at Mortar Skate Shop.

This shoot had some issues. I am still getting use to the camera/gimbal combo and it’s limitations. I won’t get into the details, but I wish I had filmed it differently. It was a lesson learned and he was still happy with the overall result. It’s still a great little edit.

We continued working together, and eventually planned a music video shoot for his friend Jerell (coming soon). We have already shot it, but I have been too busy to edit it. I can’t wait to get that project out there.

The big project that we’ve been doing is a short film called “Tokyo Dreams”. I won’t give too much info on it now, but we have already filmed HOURS of footage and still have a bit to go. It’s one of the biggest projects I have done in years and the video is looking to be some of the best stuff I have ever shot. There’s a little preview in his most recent vlog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlfTNkuITjM

There is also an edit I did when we went to the Tokyo Motor Show. This is usually a dead time of the year for me and I never get to go, so it was a blast, even if it was only for a few hours. I’m a car nut, so it was a visual fun fest. The only issue I had was the crazy and drastic changes in lighting EVERYWHERE. Every booth and stage had a completely different lighting setup, making it hard to transition quickly. I used the Beholder DS2A gimbal with the D2S arms and I got just as many stares as the cars. It did a fantastic job getting shots over the crowd and nice, steady moves. I’d like to try a wider lens at the next car show I film. I need that Olympus 8mm f/1.8… I absolutely love some of the shots I got and they are totally going in my reel. 4k 60fps on a gimbal with the GH5 truly is a force to be reckoned with.

Then last, for now, is a short skit we did called “INTERVENTION”.

4K version:

VLOG with the short as the intro:

This is how you should do it. Get together with a bunch of friends and make something stupid for fun. We filmed this thing in about 3 hours, as I had to make last train and Jerell had to fly out in the morning. Because I was juggling camera, direction, lighting, and audio, it’s not perfect. But it was crazy fun to try to make something like this so quickly. Everybody did a great job, given the circumstances. Poor Jerell was tackled down like 6 times and was covered with orange juice by the end. We got lucky with the location working as well as it did, as the first one we tried had way too much traffic.

We filmed on the GH5 with a Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4 lens and my Möller 32/2x Anamorphic. (The same setup as this post.) For the chase stuff I was riding a bicycle and with the rig on my Beholder DS2A. This was also my first time trying the anamorphic mode 400MB/s ALL-I mode. It destroyed my 64 GB card capacity halfway into filming and I had to dump it onto my computer. But at least I know that spending big bucks on a superfast SD card was worth it. We only shot like 30 minutes of video, but the project was over 70 GB. Crazy stuff.

To all the new people coming from Luis’s channel, Hi! I am JSD. I make things. Right now I am focusing on video, but I have a lot more to share with the world. Look forward to it!