Jellyfisheyes

In the aftermath of the typhoon we were greeted by an evanescent cerulean sky! It’s day 2 of special effects shooting! Let’s get to work!

What a magnificent view.

but…wait…who’s that over there walking across the set?

Huff, huff, huff… phew. It’s Miyata-san from the production department.

The iconic symbol of all special effects movies! A miniature steel tower!!

And explosives!!

There was a time in my life where I wanted to be a pyrotechnician.

Before we knew it, however, there were ominous signs on the horizon…
What’s that? Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying the calm after the storm?
Japan has suddenly become a tropical island…
Seriously…

Sunset Boulevard in Tateyama. We left to buy ice cream at Lawson and then it’s back to Tokyo.
As always, a lot went down before the day’s close but we can’t reveal what just yet.
You’ll have to wait just a little longer.
Oh and before we forget… today marked the end of live action action shooting.

It’s said that days with morning glow will see rain… well, actually, the weather report says we’re in for a typhoon.

Our cliffside lodging.

5 in the morning, the scheduled time for the special effects shoot to begin. Everyone was resting.

There’s no rain yet, but the wind… Let’s call it off for today…

And the minute we made that decision, it started pouring!!! Today’s shoot has been moved to tomorrow!

Here we are again. This is my first production diary in a couple of weeks. As you all know, we already announced wrap on September 8th, but in truth… there was still work left to do. The last of the footage. Today, I’ve asked Kiyotaka Taguchi to join me for two days, as we shoot special effects shots for part of the climax. In other words, the scenes we are shooting now are much like what you would find in Godzilla, Gamera, or Ultraman. Mr. Taguchi is a student of Shinji Higuchi. As special effects move every year more towards CG, he has the potential to be one of the few successors of Japan’s once booming traditional special efects community.

The lineup he brought together from this shoot was a group of all-stars who had all worked on Godzilla, Gamera and other traditional special effects sets. We hope you look forward to seeing the results.

Special effects director Kiyotaka Taguchi. He is most famous for the film Gehara and will be joining us for two days.

We’re on the tip of Tateyama, in Chiba prefecture. And we’ve been told that there are violent winds approaching from a typhoon. I decided to contact Feng Shui Master Yu and have the rain stopped.

Don’t rain!

RED Cameras.

The main production team felt almost like students as they observed the special effects team at work.

Our man-in-suit Arata-san.

A far cry from Nishimura-san’s gung-ho appraoch, the special effects shots are take at a relaxed pace of 2 to 5 a day. During the time in between, I worked on the design for some additional creatures.

Beef from Kagoshima, complete with certificate guaranteeing no radiation. This evening we’re having a barbecue! Once the Taguchi-unit were done eating the above, it looked there wasn’t enough left for us and so we went to a local restaurant.
*Sigh*
And while we were there, Tateyama also came under the influence of the storm. The cliffside lodging areas in town were a noisy mes of wind and water!!! Can we even shoot tomorrow???