Shooting our Campaign Video in Japan on a Bolex Camera
Our first campaign video was mainly filmed on a recent trip to Japan. The street scenes, flowers, and several plate shots were done while on this trip and were mainly shot with 16mm film on a vintage Bolex video camera. We love the look on the Bolex camera and find ourselves using it more than we thought we would for projects. We were lucky enough to find one for an amazing price on marketplace, so recommend looking on here if want to pick one up.
What to do with 6 Days in Japan
The Japan trip was inspirational in so many ways both for the brand and personally. Here are a few of our personal highlights if you like the look of our video and you are doing a trip soon:
Golden Gai Bars
While we are typically not the biggest bar people the bars in Japan were unbeatable! Golden Gai was an area with a few tiny streets packed full of mismatched "mini bars". I say mini bars because they literally only would fit around 6 people in each bar and have 1 bartender. They were such a fun unique experience and easy way to meet other people traveling or locals.
Yakiniku Restaurants for Celiacs
Of course its not a trip to Japan without the best Japanese food. One of us was celiac (not ideal) which did limit our choices but we found an amazing yakiniku restaurant in Shinjuku and this was a huge highlight of the trip.
Thrift Shopping in Shimokitazawa
At the end of our trip we stayed in an area called Shimokitazawa which we had read was a good area if you liked thrifting. We were not prepared for the extent of amazing thrifting. It had hundreds of thrift shops side by side with amazing finds.
Full Price Shopping in H arajuku and Shibuya
While we stuck to thrifting for the most part we loved shopping in these areas as there were a lot of inspirational brands and each store was perfectly merchandised with not just product but art and interesting layouts. Also in Shinjuku is a multi level store called Beams and we literally wished we could get everything in the store.
Mount Fuji and Onsens
To see Mt Fuji we went to Lake Kawaguchi. Here we did a long walk around the lake which is where a lot of the flower shots in our campaign video are from. The walk had beautiful flowers and an amazing view of Mt Fuji. When staying here we also experienced our first Onsen which we want to do more of if we make it back.
The People
Everyone was so nice that we met and also we had outfit envy of literally every person we saw. Everyone was extremely trendy and also had their own personal style which we loved.Travelling to Japan in the Off Season
These are just our top highlights but honestly there is just so much to do and see in Japan and we only had a very short trip. We went the first week of June and found this was a good life hack as got extremely cheap flights since it is "off-season" and can get extremely hot in summer. Luckily the weather wasn't too hot when we were there and was definitely worth the cheaper flights! However it looks amazing in spring and winter as well!
We also only had a week there so mainly did Tokyo and Mt Fuji but next time want to explore more of the country as have heard amazing things about other places in Japan as well.