Respect & Love to all. Thanks for watching. You can learn more about me below and follow the links to see the products and other creative outlets I produce.
Please purchase Dang Shades in Japan through this link!
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Our Soft Serve Ice Cream Specialty store.
Locale-JZK
https://locale.carrd.co/
Purchase or rent my movie series through Vimeo on Demand.
Car Danchi Movie series
Buy my photo book through Buena Book in Tokyo, Japan
Bluetiful Photo Book
https://tinyurl.com/Bueno-Books-Bluetiful
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Visit Sapporo:
Movie Production work for the beautiful town of Uchiko-cho in Ehime Prefecture, Shikoku.
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https://tinyurl.com/Uchiko
My author profile on Outdoor Japan.
Outdoor Japan
https://www.outdoorjapan.com/author/neil_hartmann/
1972年カリフォルニア州サンディエゴ生まれ。ニールに先駆けてアメリカから北海道へ移住した父親を訪ねて９１年から北海道で暮らし始める、北海道のラジオ局(FM北海道、現AIR-G’)のラジオ司会者としての活動を開始。北海道テレビのスノーボード番組「no matter board」のオリジナル司会。98年長野オリンピックハーフパイプMCや日産エクストレイルジャムのレギュラーMCなど。９０年代後半からスノーボード映像の撮影を独学で開始、自主製作のスノームービー『CAR DANCHI（車団地）』北海道在住のスノーボーダーのドキュメンタリー作品シリーズ。『CAR DANCHI』は、およそ１、２年に１タイトルのペースで発売を重ね、現在までに10作をリリース。最新作『CAR DANCHI 10』は2018年の秋に発売された。
Along with Client and professional work, Neil created his own series of Snowboard documentary films entitled “Car Danchi” The first episode was released in 2005 and a total of 10 titles were produced over 14 years. As the video industry evolved and new outlets for creativity and promotion like social media arose, Neil, shifted again to incorporate this new media. For the last several years, Neil has focused on creating photo and video content for many brands, cities, and towns that concentrate on tourism and travel. “Visit Sapporo” YouTube channel video content. Uchiko Town in Shikoku video and photo production, Rusutsu Resort TV commercials, Social media management for Chalet Ivy Hotel brand, Rusutsu Resort, Niseko Moiwa Resort, and Promotional video production for Tokyu Grand Hirafu Resort, NEC, Sapporo City Ainu promotion, and more.
Besides the video production, Neil and his wife Erina own and manage a Soft Ice Cream specialty shop called “Locale-JZK” In the summer season you can find Neil and Erina greeting customers at the location in Jozankei Onsen. In the winter the shop moves to the top of Sapporo Kokusai resort, Sapporo’s largest ski area. Customers can enjoy delicious Hokkaido soft ice cream at 1,100 meters elevation during the ski season.
Hey there folks good evening uh this is uh this is going to be a a debrief of the event the nko film festival which just finished I’m on my way home from it right now so I want to go over it while it’s fresh in my mind
So we could call this a commentary episode or a de an event debrief I don’t know whatever um let me have a sip of coffee here oh it has been a long day I have a lot of driving I had a job early this morning videotaping an open campus like event at a
University and then I drove out to nio to the park Hiatt hotel which hosted the uh NCO Film Festival the NCO Film Festival is uh kind of a local Film Festival you have to use footage captured in the shitty Bashi region which is this whole area around um NCO
Including rusutsu and hotaru and areas like this so whatever you film in this area you can put it together into a movie you can enter it into the competition they had 28 entries this year they called that down to 17 I threw one in there as well and I’m thankful
That it made the cut to be into the 17 I did not win a prize today I did not expect to win a prize today I just wanted to I was a judge in the past I have mced the event um once and I you know the people putting on the event are
Friends of mine they asked me to MC again this year and I was like no I just I really want over the next couple of years to like make a couple more good movies and throw them in there and see what people think so this year it was
Kind of really last minute I just I didn’t really plan it out I had no script or screenplay and that is going to be my first uh point you have to if you want to place top three or if we go by this year if you
Want to place top two you have to really have uh like ooh some animal trying to cross the road here you really have to um have like a proper script yeah and like cinematic with a script that’s kind of the key to win the top
Spot if you want to make second or third place you can go with some really high quality cinematography and really good skiing or snowboarding or a mix of both so like a kind of a classic uh ski or snowboard a little flick the length is only 5 minutes so
You only get up to 5 minutes max to tell your story but if you go with like really you know topnotch skiing snowboarding drone stuff like beautiful colors really nicely filmed you can win second or third uh and in third place there was like a a little short film it didn’t
Have what it wasn’t like story based but it had a great message it had a it had a theme and a message um and that took third place so it was a good balance you see what I’m saying you’ve got like cinematic scripted movie with no writing At All by
The way it’s this little story that’s kind of narrated and it takes us from this guy in his house and he does all you know the typical getting ready to go snowboarding and splitboarding and he climbs up a mountain and all this stuff while telling the story and then you
Know spoiler but the guy drops in and we don’t even see him ride and that’s the end of the movie so you know well done well thought out well filmed um nice all around I really liked it I was like yeah that’s probably the one I kind of guessed the first and
Second ones I I I picked those out I was like definitely top three for both of these I didn’t know which would take one of two but in second place was a movie called Smooth which is like Smooth pronounced the way people pronounce it here in Japan Smo and that was beautiful uh
Cinematography with really high quality skiing and snowboarding a lot of like yote kind of high elevation stuff you really have to hyke for and you can you can see that they put the work in to get there to get the shots and they went the extra mile to really put it together the
Music was really good too um I thought it was really good it sort of ended abruptly that was the only it didn’t like when you do these sort of more riding based movies it’s hard to like you know have like a conclusive Ender especially when you only got 5 minutes
You know so it’s a short little thing but it just sort of suddenly ended um that was my only critique but I it’s not a bad thing it’s a great movie it was really well done um third place I forgot the title um but it was a it was a short film and
It had kind of a message about climate change and you know like preserving winter for future generations and some beautiful Drone footage um some surfing snowboarding and skiing I believe it was a little mix um it wasn’t very long it was like one of those short and sweet
Just like hit you with the beauty hit you with the Soulful message bam done like okay and those movies like they do good too that I was kind of aiming for that myself uh with like a soul ful message and you know just sort of fast-pace editing um but obviously I had
No script uh and no real story and I didn’t have like super high quality writing footage either so um that you can you can stop watching the video now I’ll talk a little more but if you just want the key points that’s the those are the key points right
There all in all let’s talk about the event for a minute God damn that Park Hiatt is nice I really like that place is like I’d never be able to stay there oh I’m not never say never you know um I’m sure any day now I’m just going to
Like start getting those huge huge accounts you know people paying me like millions of dollars to make commercials or something and then I’ll be able to stay at the park high in the meantime uh I only go there for events the last time I went there was uh Tay’s 60th birthday
Party which was amazing in the same room but this time uh I talked to Aaron who was involved in the production of the event and they opened up this outside deck like there’s this big space outside so you have an indoor room they had three screens two
In the front one on the side chairs it was packed I couldn’t even get into the room like you had to that’s another thing if you want to see at the event next year you got to get there early and claim your seat and stay there for the
Whole time like you can’t get up and leave or someone’s going to take your chair it was packed it was packed with uh everyone was between like 18 and 25 I swear to God it was a super young crowd and then uh everyone in their late 40s
And 50s I people like I was like I probably know that guy but it was a lot of young um International pretty much like it felt like 90% or more International Australian New Zealand Britain Greece France uh there were people from all over and it was it was cool it was very
Cool kind of core ski resort crowd very nice very nice very nice um park hayatt has a really good Chinese restaurant and uh just good food in general it’s my image eaten there a couple times they had little booths set up outside they had like nikuman uh they had hot dogs they had
Pizza they had popcorn they had just you know General um event kind of food I had the nikuman hot pork buns had two of them actually actually they were very good cuz I knew they make good Chinese food there so I was like okay I’m going
With the Chinese uh nikan so that was very good and um what else um 500 yen beers everybody was was getting pretty loaded on the beers they play the music outside Extremely Loud um the actual sound quality coming out of the speakers was not that great it was a little they were
Maxing out the speakers a little bit but the fact that they could play music that loud outside at the park high and with you know there’s a lot of rich people staying in the rooms probably complaining about the noise but um yeah and cuz the event was basically
100% nonp Park clients it was like all people coming there just for the event um which was kind of interesting but like I said uh I I love that place and it’s a great place to do events I look forward to it next year I hope it
Gets bigger and bigger and I’m going to keep trying to uh put something together I just need to get to work on it a little bit earlier like once you see the path and you go and you see the movies you’re like ah okay now I know at least what to do to
Put myself definitely in the running it’s final comment will be that they had 28 films you know people put in um they called it called out 10 maybe that weren’t so great but the fact is you’re now with a phone with like an iPhone 15 you can make top quality
Cinematic film you can edit the whole damn thing on your phone you can submit it from your phone like you do not need expensive camera equipment anymore that is not uh the key you could have you could have some AI write your script for you for Christ’s sake like you can you
Can make you know stuff that will compete with top Pros uh so it’s not about the equipment anymore and I really felt that in the volume of the the films and even a few years ago when I mced it it was a lot more of like production companies that had come over
To film something and they’re the people with the cameras and the editing knowledge and you know professional Riders Etc so they were like oh there’s this film contest okay we’ll we’ll make a film and we’ll send it in and it had that a little bit more of a professional
Skier or snowboard industry kind of vibe to the films whereas this year it felt very homegrown it felt very you know if you say amateurish that that word sounds bad so I don’t want to say it like that but homegrown it felt like the people who are putting in the
Movies you know were not necessarily people with film making experience um some of them were obviously but there were movies in there that felt like it was just you know one of the crew who was like hey there’s this movie festival they’re putting out prize money we can do something like let’s
Make it happen you oh hey you got a camera you I got my phone let’s do it you know people were putting it together that is one thing the other thing uh I felt that has really changed and I’m going to blame this on uh social media again because I like scapegoating social
Media I remember my generation watching Ski and Snowboard movies especially with a crowd like for a movie premiere uh or like a film festival kind of like thing like that uh if it’s an uh or like the bamp uh Mountain film festival anything like that so it could
Be like mountain biking or any of these Action Sports skating when the movie starts you have a little intro and then maybe like the first action scene so if it’s like a skier with doing a huge air or a snowboarder with a massive powder spray or whatever that’s like kind of this
Thing where people would go yeah they like you fuck and if it was someone you knew you’d like be screaming their name like and there was like almost none of that like 1% like it was very small and I was like oh people aren’t into the like skiing
And snowboarding anymore and I started thinking about it and to be honest with you I think it’s oversaturation I think it’s just it’s Instagram Tik Tok YouTube Facebook whatever whatever uh you look at you know you look at that stuff all day and if you’re
In that kind of scene and you know you have that’s what your friends do and you all love skiing and snowboarding and you’re living working at a ski resort like your whole digital uh feed is going to be filled with that stuff and you’re going to see
So godamn much of it that you’re just like yeah whatever like you got to you know yeah you know what I’m saying so I really kind of felt that this year and that’s why it seems like last year’s film also had no snowboarding or skiing
In it and that one won this one had the the essence of the snowboarder Mountain person lifestyle like getting up getting dressed getting the gear on climbing up a mountain all that kind of stuff was in there but it didn’t actually show any of the riding and that one won the top
Prize so you see what I’m saying it’s like it’s less and there’s less and less need for the hardcore skiing and snowboarding footage honorable mention and it goes with what I’m just saying here in crew is like a local uh MCO based kind of film crew they make
Videos uh all Japanese writers they put in a film several of the judges made comments about it and said it was like their favorite film and it was like they thought it was really great cuz the writing was really good they they had really like quality pillow lines turns
Like well filmed good style riding highly you know edited executed like the quality of the action stuff was topnotch the quality of the filming also topnotch they did not have like a scripted story that was their loss like if they had woven in some kind of a narrative story to that
Quality of riding they would have taken first or second place for sure so topnotch riding alone not only is not winning with the judges but it’s not winning with the crowd either the crowd gave it a great Round of Applause and there were a few like oo and a like in
That video I have to admit that the one video that kind of garnered some reactions to the action shots that was the one along with the SMU the one that took second place but yeah the world has shifted the world has shifted and changed and the crowd is
Like man they’ve been there done that they they know they’ve seen that shit they do that stuff all the time they’re like you better either do like some unbelievable stuff uh or we’re not really going to you know scream for a powder turn you know so that’s it that’s my report all
In all very good I’m sure it’s going to continue um if anybody out there is looking for a great event to uh sponsor and get behind I highly recommend it there’s there’s there’s definitely room for improvement with the music and you know the sound system and DJing and they
May need an even bigger venue like you could not get into the room to see the movie so you could see him outside too but it was prohibitively cold outside it wasn’t snowing but standing around there in the cold for like 2 hours to watch
Movies on a screen outside was like N I kind of want to be inside where it’s warm and have that that theater Vibe you know it was cool though it was dope to see all those people there showing love for the community there’s a hell of a community there
Very impressed all right I think that’s enough I’ll let you go uh look forward to next year and uh now that I’ve given you all the tips and tricks all you got to do let’s write that script get work to filming
1 Comment
Great report on the film festival.