Personal Cinematography

Blurred Karakai

I’ve been wanting to work on something outside of my typical line of work for quite a while now, and with the prospect of doing something really intensive like learning a programming language outside of my personal interest, I decided to work on a little video idea I had a while back.

It comes as a bit of a “slice of life” film, first inspired by the phenomenal performance of Ichiko Aoba in her song “Karakai”, a single with producer Sweet William. I was entranced by the tune when I first heard it, along with the rest of Ichiko’s library, and after picking up a new lens for my camera I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to capture the moment.

I still have a lot to learn about editing and effects, but the focus here was to exercise cinematography, framing, and—quite obviously—playing with focus. It took me quite a while to get around to editing to footage, most of which was shot over the span of a week of heavy rain and power outages here in Midvale, UT during the later weeks of May 2021.