On the 27th of December 2010, after filming at Kadokawa, we headed to East Tokyo to film at the Good Smile Company offices and cafe for the final episode of Culture Japan Season 1. You've already seen what the show was like and today we take a look at behind the scenes.
The first photo with Fukuoka-san (Ascii Media Works) on the far left of the photo, Izumi Kitta (voice actress) and Suzuko Mimori (voice actress).
After arriving at the Good Smile Cafe, I give the camera, lighting and set a quick going over - sent a separate team over to the cafe to set up while I was at Kadokawa. Everything is good so I nip over to the Good Smile offices with a separate camera crew.
We asked Good Smile to hide everything that would not be a good idea to show to cameras at this time - which was practically everything ^^;
As usual, we use the trusty Lumix GH2 for filming.
The 3D printer that you previously saw.
These wires are used for making scale figures. The wires would be cut to a certain length and used as the skeleton of a figure. Putty would be applied around the wires making it easy to sculpt. Once the model is ready, it has to be cut into parts for production. The wires are soft enough to saw through.
The chap on the left of the photo helped out with painting the Mirai Figma - cant wait for her to come out later this year!
Good smile have been doing a load of work with David Choe of late.
Ths big boss of Good Smile Company Aki Takanori tries to activate the secondary security systems but alas its too late. I love Aki-sans office - me wants a tatami room in our next house.
I think it was 2007 when I first met Aki-san but apparently he already knew about me for some reason before I went to his offices. Since then we've been working together on many different projects including events like the Tokyo Figure Show, Culture Japan and the production of their official website which runs on our platform Mirai Gaia. Our most recent project is Mirai figma ^^;
Haku and his girl together with Suzuko-san.
Haku brings his other girl along - find out who she is at his burogu.
The its time for Miho from vividblaze to give us a tune.
A quick round of the Good Smile Cafe - they got a ton of figures on display. Pay them a visit if you are in town. You can take as many photos as you want.
http://www.goodsmilecafe.jp/
All filming for the final episode is done and the clock is ticking. We need to edit the show for the broadcast which is due in a few days. We barely manage to edit a 30 min show in a week but this time round we need to edit an hour. In the van heading back to base, we start to encode the data in Final Cut Pro.
You can see screenshots of the final episode in the Culture Japan Season 1 Final post - was broadcast on the 2nd of January 2010. Folks across Asia will be able to watch the same episode this week Friday 28 and Saturday 29th on the Animax Network.
This post is just one of a series of Japanese office tours - you can see more visits of other companies listed below.