The 6th Home Movie Day Japan Report
November 27, 2008 | filmpres | trackbackWe had the 6th HMD on Saturday 18th October, 2008. We thank you all for participating in HMD Japan.
Summary
We’ve been dealing with 8mm, 9.5mm and 16mm in past HMDs but this year all films shown were 8mm. The average audience was 25 (average capacity of venue was 50). Depending on the venue, the number of films shown varied from seven to 23, cost was from 3,000 yen to 30,000 yen (average 13,000 yen), and the number of volunteers was from two to eleven. All in all, it was rather small scale.
We are not aiming to make each venue bigger but will try to gain new venues one by one. We will continue building up the network of HMD organizers all over Japan, and make efforts to report about it both nationwide and worldwide.
Publicity
In the local town, HMD always gets a degree of media attention and quite substantial articles tend to appear in the newspaper. In a big city like Tokyo, on the other hand, autumn time is difficult, as so many cultural events are going on at the same time and such a small attempt like HMD is easily hidden in their shadow. Accordingly the size of audience was smaller than last year, however, their reaction was as emotional and touching as before.
As HMD is a free of charge event, three venues asked for donations which more or less covered their total event costs. Most organizers found a venue they could rent for free. They are amazingly good at finding places with a good atmosphere – restored historical buildings, local museums, and even soba (Japanese noodle) restaurants… ! And HMD really gets a lot of help from the owners of those venues.
On 25th Nov, Nikkei’s evening paper (sold nationwide) printed a great article introducing HMD from which we already got good reactions via emails and phonecalls.
FPS has got all the flyers and related materials submitted by each organizer (the same file is going to be sent to CHM), for future reference.
Networking
This year, the network of organizers was really developed through our mailing list and reps meeting held on 16th of August in Tokyo. They exchanged information and encouraged each other, which resulted in the first ever “Best HMD Japan screenings” to be held outside of Tokyo, in Misawa, Aomori on 23rd Nov 2008 - the northernmost ever town in HMD Japan.
“Best HMD Japan Project” just simply asks each organizer to pick up one film from the venue, ideally shorter than 10 minutes. It’s not a contest but FPS is going to telecine all the films, and make a compilation DVD as usual as a sample or reference for new organizers. We have a contract paper about this DVD production between FPS, film owner, and local organizer.
HMD related photo data submitted to FPS can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fps/sets/72157608350715588/
For HMD2009, we’ll have a reps meeting on August 15th 2009 in Tokyo (before HMD) and in late November of the same year in Nagoya – the venue will be at ELMO company’s headquarters. Best HMD screenings will be at Shumokukan – a preserved historical building in Nagoya.
Best HMD 2008 from Japan!
HIROSAKI
Organizer: Asako Takemori
Venue: Menbo Takeya
Mari’s Birthday (seven years old)
S8, Color, Snd., 3minutes, 1979
Mari Oyama
What is Mari-chan going to do when her dad starts shooting her on her birthday? This film just shows Mari-chan and her birthday cake and other dishes but it made the audience laugh and got a huge round of applause at the very end of HMD Hirosaki (the venue was a soba, Japanese noodle, store). Can you cope with her cuteness?
SENDAI
Organizer: Hidenori Sakamotoi
Venue:Sendai City Museum of History and Folklore
Kurashi no Memo
R8, Color, Sil., 9minutes, 1959
Tadano
KITASENJU
Organizer: Yuko Shiota
Venue: Theatre 1010
Cycling: challenge for 80km long ride
S8, BW, Snd (Open Reel), 6minutes, 1969
Eiichi Watanabe
Eiichi bought a brand new bicycle for his son, and this is the record of their first cycling day, from Kitasenju to Edo river in Kasukabe city in Saitama. The purpose is to play with a kite there. Shooting, editing, narration were done by Eiichi by himself. He had never shown this film to anybody else but his family before HMD, as he just wanted to leave the films for his children when they are grown up. He declared that without the HMD opportunity he would have thrown away his 8mm film collection.
KODAIRA
Organizer: Nozomi Nakagawa
Venue: Gas Museum
Iruma Air Base Festival
S8, Color, Snd, 10minutes, 1982
Shiro Koyama
On November 3rd every year, Iruma Air Base (in Saitama prefecture) holds an Aircraft show. This film shows the acrobatics of the Blue Impulse. Immediately after this show, the same Impulse crashed at Hamamatsu base, which resulted a disaster, so this show was canceled for a while. Shiro himself shot this film.
YANESEN
Organizer: Keiichi Shima
Venue: Nezu Church
My Uncle in the US, Kiichi-san’s visit to Japan
R8, BW, Sil., 5minutes, 1963?
Noriko Kumagai
This film starts showing the plane in which Uncle Kiichi is travelling arriving at Haneda Airport, Tokyo. In the train station in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, all the relatives welcome him, and you see his visit to his hometown, spending time with people there. It was shot by Kiyomi, Noriko’s father, and he meant to send this film to Joy (Kiichi’s son) in the US, but for some reason it was found at home in Japan, and brought to HMD Yanesen. Kiichi, who used to be a mechanical engineer, is now 86 years old and still lives in the US. After telecineing this film, we are sending the DVD to him.
JUJO
Organizer: Naohiko Yanagida
Venue: cinecafe soto
Growing Up Diary
R8, BW, Sil., 12minutes, 1966
Michiaki Shimizu
This is of historical value as it shows the local area of Jujo about 40 years ago. Michiaki shot this to show his kids growing up.
SHIMOKITAZAWA
Organizer: Akira Takato
Venue: Daizawa Cchiku Kaikan
Namegawa Island
S8, Color, Sil., 3minutes, 19??
Masaharu Katayama
NAGOYA
Organizer: Satoe Tamura
Venue: Former House of Sasuke Toyoda
At Furuma
S8, Color, Snd., 15minutes, 1981
Yoko Fukada
Yoko’s mother’s hometown in Furuma, in Nagano prefecture. It’s Obon ceremony time (Japanese thanksgiving), and all the relatives are gathering together. Her mother has eight brothers and sisters, so there are quite a lot of people and it’s noisy. The film was shot by Yoko’s uncle Minoru Asahara.
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