In the fall of 2009 Fiz-iks was visited by Matt Crawford who is currently making a documentary film about light painting. He filmed with us for an exhausting ten days. With his trip planned at the last minute, we had to scramble to get a plan together for shooting. Being it was for a movie, we wanted to do something special. Nobody is interested in seeing people take pictures but rather the story behind those pictures and the people involved. We knew we could drag him out to the usual spots for the usual pictures as that would not be good footage. From the beginning it was about providing him good footage.
There was an old abandoned school about an hour into the mountains that we knew about. It was a strange location for a school as there were no houses within walking distance. It was almost as if an old school had fallen from the sky and landed in the middle of the forest. We tracked down a contact and dialed it up. We explained that we were interested in shooting there and he agreed to meet up and talk about it.
The next day we headed up to the school for a meeting. The chairman of the volunteer group took us on a tour of the small school and shared its history. He showed us old photos of the school that included him as a young boy. He explained that immediately after World War ll there was absolutely nothing left in Okayama City. Even if you had money there was no food to buy. His family and a small group of others moved to mountains to escape the mess that was left in the city. They grew their own food and built their own houses. Lacking a school, this small group went to work and started to build this school. After years of building and 10 years of operation the government recognized it as an official school and provided funding which allowed them to finally finish construction. The school operated until 1999 with a final student population of four children with 3 of those being siblings. After the history lesson we showed a few light painting pictures he handed us the keys on the spot. This is another facet to magic this art has. The amazing thing was Luminary was there and got all of this amazing meeting and the following shoot on film.
The following shots below are a few shots we got from the school. Most of the “good” shots have been saved for the movie.
Today’s lesson
Kids in the hall
School’s out.
For more pictures and information on this shoot stay tuned for Luminary due out in 2010.
