Tokyo Tower, Test Tone and Tapes

Busy day today.

This afternoon we went to Tokyo Tower, which is a miniature version on the Eiffel Tower...sort of. It's painted red and white, and looks a bit more industrial...I think it's a functioning cell phone tower actually.
We shot sunset behind the cityscape from up there, then filmed a variety of views of the skyline. The city stretched out to the horizon in every direction. The city is neverending. It's incredible.
So after making the $8 worth it, we headed over to Roppongi to film an event at Super Deluxe. Roppongi is known to be the commonplace for foreigners in Tokyo. There were like 10 non-Asian people at the show tonight, which was wild. The event, called Test Tone, was being run by an American, who we will try to interview before leaving.

There were 4 bands who performed. The first was a Brazilian man assisted by a few other musicians. His music was full of silent space, which he used for dramatic effect. He would hum/whisper into a mic, while his counterparts would pluck single notes on a guitar, or a giant bass-like acoustic instrument.
Next, a guy performed a set that built from noise to an intense trancy beat. He played this on a circuit board contraption which appeared to be of his own design. There was a joystick attached to it.

Next, the drummer from Optrum (laser drumset) performed with a DJ. They had a great set, full of laser beams, driving beats, and crazy visuals running behind them. Very engaging.
Last to perform was a German duo. They were scary dudes. They looked scary, played scary music, and when Lewis talked to them after the show, he said they were extremely scary. There music was about 20 minutes of the loudest most distorted dissonance that I have ever heard.

So that was interesting...in a "I get it...you guys hate the world" kind of way...

Just had a cup of ramen, and am gonna hit the hay soon. Going back to Akihabara tomorrow...we need to buy more miniDV tapes. We've already shot almost all of ours (70 hours of footage). At this rate, we're looking at around 100 tapes (100 hours) for the project. If the film ends up running around 90 minutes, we're only going to be using 1/66th of our footage. That means it will be the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop. If you don't take cream in you films, then I don't know what to tell you.

-Ian