When filmmaker Vincent Urban and his two friends embarked on a three week railway journey through the heart of Japan in 2015, they made a conscious decision to film it every step of the way.
In Japan — 2015 was the end result, a beautifully edited combination of timelapse and hyperlapse footage distilling the trio’s excursion aboard the Shinkansen bullet train into a snappy four minute montage.
The footage was captured using a medley of camera gear including Sony a7S with Canon 17–55mm f/2.0, Canon 5D Mark II with Canon 24–105mm f/4.0 and Magic Lantern, and a drone borrowed from a friend living in Tokyo.
Urban tells Bokeh that the hyperlapses were all shot by hand and then manually stabilised in post production, which turned out to be the most difficult part of the entire editing process.
“We really didn’t have any gear, no cages or rigs. Just one light tripod for the static time-lapses.”
The team also played around with old vintage lenses to shoot night scenes, a simple style choice that gives In Japan — 2015 an authentic retro feel.
Urban notes that visiting Asia’s top sightseeing country significantly helped because “people in Japan are friendly and cameras are a common sight”.
“Nobody complains if you’re walking around slowly for an hour making a hyperlapse”.
During the moments when they wanted to shoot Japan’s scenery, Urban and his friends arrived at opening hours to catch tourist hot spots at their most tranquil. He said, “we mostly got up at 4am to get to the places first and catch some good natural light, then went to bed again during the day.”
Urban works in commercial and music video editing and shoots travel videos as a passion project in his spare time.
To see more of Urban’s wanderlust-filled videos (many are already featured Vimeo Staff Picks) visit his profile page here.
[Article provided for Bokeh]
