Case Study

The goal of this project was to create video content to promote ski tourism in Japan. The clients were Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) and ANA Airlines. 

Team: I worked with two professional skiers and one photographer to help create the best product possible.  

Contribution: I was solely responsible for filming, editing and color correcting all of the video

Timeline: This project took one year to complete. One and half months of skiing on location in Japan and another ten and half months for logging, editing, and color.

The main goal of this project was to increase ski tourism to Japan by creating high quality video content. 

With the ski industry being such a relatively small market I knew from the beginning of this project I knew I wanted to do something different. If you’re at all familiar with the ski industry you will notice that videos like this get made fairly frequently and many of them look strikingly similar. Most of them focus solely on the ski aspect of going to places like Japan and more often than not they feature some of the best athletes in the business doing the most incredible tricks on the best terrain. While this format is entertaining, it’s totally unrelatable for most people. The average skier will never do any of the tricks or jumps featured in most of the videos and many of them don’t focus on the cultural aspect of skiing in a place like Japan, which for many people is the most important part.

Process: In order to reach the final version of this promotional video I employed a few main techniques and followed a set process. Before shooting began I wanted to have a clear idea of what I wanted the final product to look like, this would help to keep me on track and help with the editing process and post production. There are times when I’m working on projects like this where I will go to a place and just let the shots unfold naturally, more of the idea of letting the story unfold around me and doing my best to capture it accurately. With this project however, I was shooting with the final edit in mind. There was a specific editing flow and style I knew I wanted the final product to have so everything I shot I shot with that in mind. 

Most of my brainstorming and research for this project was done through competitor research. Prior to shooting I watched dozens of ski specific videos, travel videos and anything that I felt fit my artistic vision. I wanted to final product to have a hectic, yet rhythmic feel and show of the not only the incredible skiing of Japan but also the unique and dynamic culture. As I continued my research it became clear that there were very few videos done in this style. “Watchtower of Turkey” was the one video however that stood out and served as a rough outline of what I wanted my final product to be. The way the director utilizes color and similar camera movements to give the overall video a consistent and smooth flow was something I really wanted to emulate. 

The target audience for this project was someone who has skiing experience and is interested in either returning to Japan or traveling there for their first time.

With this project there wasn’t as much change in concept or style of edit like there usually is with my projects. With this project I did such extensive research and put so much thought into how I wanted the end result to look that, and while I did numerous edits, they all followed the same formula and looked very similar with only small changes being made each time.

The final product was uploaded and shared through my personal Vimeo account. It has amassed over 25k views and has been shared and posted on numerous websites around the world. The clients were so happy with the end results I have been invited back to create more content next January. 

I feel very accomplished overall with the end result. I set a goal to shoot and edit this particular style and I feel I accomplished it to the best of my ability. The was an incredibly informative project to be a part of. 

From learning how to work with clients from another country to improving my editing skills this whole process did nothing but help further my skillset as a film maker.

Moving forward I hope to take what I learned here and apply it on an even larger level. I set goal with this video to create something that had a high level of technicality and was very exciting from an editing stand point and I feel I achieved this, it is my goal to combine this highly skilled editing style with even better and more in depth story telling to create a product unlike any other.