"Daishitsuren" a movie produced and distributed by Thoei Film Company, written by Chinami Shimizu and screenplay by Masaya Ozaki. A film directed by Kazuki Omori. Running 2 cameras on this film, I worked on as a Camera Operator for a LA base Director of Photographer, Makoto Watanabe. Daishitsuren is an interlaced omnibus story of various young couples in love and their touching relationship, staged in an Amusement Park setting, featured by a number of popular Japanese actors and actresses. The exterior shoots mainly took place in various Amusement Parks in Japan during the "coldest" winter months with the majority of filming taking place at night at the Kobe Rokkoh Island AOIA, Hatkejima Sea Paradise and Tokyo Korakuen. One month prior to the BIG EARTHQUAKE in Kobe, an extensive number of filming days were spent at the epicenter of the EARTHQUAKE and the Amusement Park has been closed since then. These locations were visually superb but among the three, two were sited next to the seaside which meant that the production had to battle against daily freezing temperatures of below 0 degrees during the night shoot. Camera heaters were constantly up and running and I imagine that the most consumed item in this production turned out to be "disposable thermal pads" for the crew.

Thoei Film Company

	Since a lot of the scenes were shot at night, I would like to talk about an efficient equipment "the Panaflasher" used in this production.

	Although this section may sound obvious for people in the same profession but for many others who many have never heard of this word nor equipment, this is a motion picture camera device supplied by Panavision. It is an accessory used to push up the exposure of the black in the film to a level of visibility when normally may appear to as a total black picture.

In general the level (Flashing) of black is adjusted during the final post production lab processing. The lab flashing adjustments of each scene becomes a rather difficult task in compared to the effect which can be easily achieved through the Panaflasher device. The Panaflasher uses the empty magazine port and the flashing percentage can be adjusted. It is a rather compact device which will not interfere with any lens change. The device contains a halogen lamp and through six 216 diffusion filters (in order to flat light) and a 80C filter, the flashing is applied to the negative film. Accurate flashing amounts are read and calculated in accordance with it's special exposure settings and internal exposure meter. It also provides the useful option of inserting a color filter if needed to colorize the dark area. The Panaflasher certainly helped the volume of meticulous lab work otherwise then would be required from the camera department.

	Panavision Platinum Panavision Gold 2 Superpana Vid Pana Arri 3 Pana 1000 Mag X 6 Pana 500 Mag X 4 Pana 250 Mag X 2 17.5mm Primo T1.9 21mm Primo T1.9 27mm Primo T1.9 35mm Primo T1.9 40mm Primo T1.9 50mm Primo T1.9 75mm Primo T1.9 100mm Primo T1.9 150mm Primo T1.9 17.5-75mm Primo Zoom T2.3 20-200mm Pana Zoom T3.1 25-250mm Pana Zoom T4 Precision Speed Control Arri Gear Head Sachtler Head Tripod X 2

DIRECTOR	Kazuki OMORI
DIR OF PHOTO	Makoto WATANABE
ART DIRECTOR	Hidetaka OZAWA
CAMERA OPERATOR
GAFFER	Takahiro KAZAMA
SOUND ENGINEER	Hirokazu HAYASHI
FOCUS PULLER	Kanehisa OKUDA
2ND AC	Takahiro IMAI
3RD AC	Masami YAMASHITA
BEST BOY	Yuji ISHIZUKA
ELECTRICIAN	Hideki SHIGEMATSU Mika HONMA Naoki IZUMI
FILM LABS	THOEI KAGAKU COMPANY
RAW STOCK	Fuji 8550 Fuji 8560 Fuji 8570

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