Edited very fast. I would prefer if it was used the real environment sound and not a piano sound.

Shocking. To 'like' it seems wrong. But it's powerful reportage.

Hey Dan,
this is a very emotional video about the tragic hapenings in Japan.
I also posted it on news.freytag-film.com/

-Daniel

Very respectfully covered Dan. Must be quite a sight to see out there :(

So sad, I will definitely be donating to the Red Cross as soon as I get paid tomorrow. You're very brave for being there and helping to show the world what Japan is going through right now. Stay safe.

P.s. Don't know if it's intention, but the natural sound effect seem to only be on the right-hand leg... I was listening on headphones.

This is a hauntingly beautiful piece. Please be safe while in Japan. My heart goes out to the people there. It is a terrible disaster.

Devastating..though i'm kinda irritated about the glideshots & dramatic piano music.
was that necessary? i mean it's not like we have to be sold on the footage, i think in this context a few static shots & tripod pans would have been sufficient enough...
Plus i wouldn't want to be standing around there handling a Glidecam while all that suffering is going on

Terrible disaster! Hope you are fine Dan. Come home safe my friend!

Like the aftermath of a war, but this unavoidable, unexpected and entirely devastating. Our thoughts are with Japan and it's people. Disturbing images, more so as there seems to be a peace and calm whilst the military shifts through and sadly carries away bodies as the sun shines under a blue sky. The glidetrack movements give it an eerie and for me an uncomfortable feel.
vimeo.com/channels/worldhd

I think the images are strong enough to not have to use a tracking shot every time.

Shocking

Interesting piece Dan but lose the music. This is still a rolling news story of which is sure to become Japans darkest hour.
For me, it is unacceptable to produce something like this so early on. Keep it for the one year anniversary.
As for the slider images, again... they will be invaluable in the future but not a good choice of filming style for now.

My heart is with the people of Japan

Man... Really powerful.

wow, powerful and devastating

Powerful, moving images. Praying for the people of Japan.

Really heartbreaking. Great, respectful depiction of the suffering the Japanese communities are faced with. Really emotional.

oh boy, oh boy what a devastating event.

... thanks to you for beeing there and capture this for the world

My heart goes out to the people in Japan.

And to all media people there: PLEASE BE SAFE! ... a great picture is not worth a life!

powerful images. but the music is not appropriate

Appalling use of music. Hopelessly overused glidetrack. You're videoing a catastrophe not an advert.

Thank you for the honest shots. Seeing it from the intimate level at which you shot creates a very human connection.
Very emotional.

Lose the melodrama music.

Horrible stuff. Thanks for sharing Dan.

Heartbreaking, Dan. I disagree with some of my former commenters. This is respectful coverage. Using a slider doesn't make it disrespectful.

Shooting in disaster zones is always a moral ambiguity that a news shooter has to resolve for himself - it's will always feel weird to turn up with a camera at places where there is clearly something else needed. But this work is important, it is essential - people around the world need to know what's going on, they need to see it with their own eyes. Otherwise there won't be help, because nobody will know about it. Stuff like this makes people open their pockets and actually donate something, or even go there and help the people.

Thank you, Dan.

Thanks for sharing, Dan. But please consider not using music next time. Your amazing imagery goes a long way in touching our hearts.

Music should point viewers In an emotional direction. The footage should do that job In this case.

My thoughts goes to the people in Japan.

Beautifully shot. I don't mind the slider but I personally think that the music takes you away from the situation. I feel like ambient sound would best accompany the shots since the shots do take you there. Given the world's interest in the situation in Japan, you have the ability to really capture that attention. Well done.

I thought the movement and music were both in good taste and worked well to communicate the story.

This is great work. I think there's fine line between using music to heighten the existing emotion of an image and creating manipulative melodrama. This never crosses that line for me.

If you genuinely feel it, I say do it.

Well done.

Disaster porn

well, I find a bit polemic to portrait such a horrible tragedy in such an stylized way, Don't know if it is politically incorrect or not, it is a delicate thing to bring so soon after the disaster maybe.
On the other hand, a good photographer/filmmaker has to be bold I think, and thanks to them we can watch this powerful images, so i think it is also an important task to do.
I do like the video, it is strong and disturbing to watch so beautiful and well executed filmmaking of this terrible and tragic event. I agree about the music though.

Thanks for sharing.

...

Do you have this posted on youtube so I can put it on my channel?

=[

I stopped watching after a minute, I felt angry that this film made me feel nothing about a horrific, devastating tragedy. This was largely down to the piano music, use of music in such a way is normally indicative of someone who doesn't trust or believe in their material. I'm a little bit disgusted to be honest, but hey, at least you got some publicity.

It's a complex situation. Dan is right there at his own risk capturing these amazing scenes. His editorial decisions might not have been the most appropriated, but it's hard for us here, in the comfort of our homes and offices to judge. I rather see this in a rougher and unbiased way, the music certainly tainted my experience, but I'm also grateful for the opportunity and I admire Dan's courage and skills.

Beautifully shot. And to take the time use a slider to get the feeling of sadness and pain that the Japanese people are going though, it really works. Now that world's interest is focused on Japan, you have really capture this historical event. Well done.

Video is well done... but, I think you could have left the music out and had a better and less melodramic-like video. The scenes describe themselves... music seems to add less than the situation already describes.

As for the slider... same thing... I don't think it added to the shots but for me it distracted... BUT ...then again ....I don't think the average public viewer would noticed the slider as much as I did.

I am not certain... but, this may be the first video of a disaster that used a slider for shooting effect/creating a style - take your pick. Interesting twist... not certain if it was necessary but definately different and makes for a different sort of video - for sure.

This time, HD quality of imagery and other elements couldn't impress me... it is a catastrophe ....

:(

The voice over and supers on the guardian site seemed to work much more effectively. The music could stay, but natural sound is needed. (The lack of human sounds being the biggie.)

Inappropriate music..I don't mean insensitive, just inappropriate for something so current.

news doc. with glidetrack WOW !
the new art of run and gun ENG.?
whats next, a crain in a frontline battle zone?
I'm taken by the images, the content rattles my soul...
daring, but well done...

Great work, Dan. Everything works. Wow. Thanks for being there and covering this.

Haunting and honest shot choices. Beautifully captured Dan. The slider shots work for me in the Guardian piece which I saw first. Watching this version the slider work didn't seem to have the same purpose and instead felt over-produced. The music in this bit unfortunately really turned me off. It's unnecessary and I would love to see it with Nat sound. The work you've done is incredible and I hope you stay safe, thank you for documenting this.

Very moving Dan. Not unlike Khalid's piece on Haiti shortly after the earthquake. I don't think either the use of a slider or the music are inappropriate. You are conveying the sheer magnitude of this disaster with moving photography. The music is evocative. It's not disrespectful by any stretch. Be safe over there.

The photography is quite astounding. The version on the guardian site is definitely stronger though. With the voices of the victims and eerie natural sound, the piece is far more effective, and in my eyes, the slider shots completely add to the drama of the story and draw the viewer in as the people talk.

BTW, is the Guardian version up in HD? Your photography is so dramatic I'd really like to see the original cut with this quality footage.

Also, I wonder if people bothered by the slider would have issues with the use of of Stedicam here? Great work Dan. Keep safe.

People moaning about sliders and music must've never seen raw Reuters footage being streamed to a news channel. It doesn't always even nearly convey a sense of emotion. And before anyone says it's not needed - there are loads of raw clips online with natural sound, feel free to google.
This is just after a massive tsunami, what are you going to hear? Birds? A chopper flying past, maybe some people speaking in Japanese as they walk by? We've already seen the news piece Dan did, with natural sound, but this is obviously a piece meant to be different, so how would natural sound make any of it 'more real'?

The footage is real - we know that because we're familiar with the images, and we've seen Dan's other version which was maybe slightly more informative with the reporter, but it's news, and there's a lot of that these days. But it's still real, just presented differently, perhaps in a way that might touch others more than the news overload does - people do get desensitised to it all.
So surely an observer with a passion for the story and an artistic hand is free to let his own emotions, or emotions he feels are appropriate, be interpreted into the piece through his choice of music and stylish shots? If someone was dying in front of the camera it's a different story, but these are only aftermath shots, stylised in a way that's different from everything else we're seeing on the TV, without the information overload and without the hype, just pure organic and raw images to show what was going on.

This isn't worthy of any of the harsh criticisms coming out here today in any way.

Not sure why it's why it's wrong to shoot a video like this using quality gear. I feel that if you want to pay proper respect to something, using the best tools at your disposal is the best course of action.

I'm not sure about whether the music should be there or not - pros and cons to it - maybe more of a mix between both would make it less of a dramatic piece and more news reportage...

But I totally disagree with the moaners about the camera movement - personally, when I saw the original footage on TV I was amazed that movement had been added, because it made the pictures all the more real, giving a 3D feel to news footage that suddenly brought me right into the scene, making me feel like I was right there.

After decades of panning and static news footage I was stunned at how effective a slider was for making it feel so much more real.

Perhaps the moaners are just feeling uncomfortable that the pictures they're seeing on the news actually make them feel like they're right there, and that they'd rather watch the news from afar in 2D, thank you very much.

Regardless of the soundtrack, Dan, your footage is shocking, devastating, heartbreaking and breathtakingly real. Thank you for shaking up the world of news reporting!

I'm fine with the sliding shots. I like the version with the voiceover better...more meaningful for me. Good work!

I disagree with many of the other commenters. The slider adds a better sense of space to the shots.

Documentaries are increasingly going to look gorgeous. It's a simple fact. We all have radically better filmmaking tools now. There's no reason news documentary should look significantly different from a feature film. The tools are the same.

Oliver Wilkins pushes a stylized documentary look even further with, Missing Ingredient:
vimeo.com/20768280
Stunning imagery. Lighting. Graded. Re-lighting in the grade(?)

A slider will move the camera through space, when there are few portable tools for doing so. A slider can easily be smaller, lighter and more portable than a tripod, more comparable in size to a monopod. It's a versatile, useful, portable documentary tool. Part of the value of lugging a heavy tripod is it doubles as a slider support ;-) (I'm winking but I'm serious.)

Danfung Denis used a glidecam instead of a glidetrack. The glidecam gave him steady shots while running and doubled as a tripod, ie. he could set it down. You pick your tools given the constraints.
vimeo.com/6995256
Like the dolly, the steadycam is a feature film tool, miniaturized and adopted for documentary. But it's the best documentary tool for the job, given the circumstances. I think sliders are the same.

I expect more people would use shoulder rigs for documentary if we could make one light and portable enough to fly into a war zone or disaster area.

HDSLRs themselves are good for documentary as they are small, light, portable 'stills' cameras that excel in low light and have the potential to make the world look more worthy of meaning. HDSLRs are probably more significant as documentary cameras than fiction cameras.

Have a look at Haiti Earthquake Aftermath Montage again.
vimeo.com/9608637
Does it seem less remarkable now? Notice the TV cameras on shoulders.

Similarly, I feel splitting hairs about whether the music is 'documentary' or not seems out of character in a world where FOX News exists.

Everyone's commenting so I will too. On the surface I don't see anything wrong with the music or slider shots. I suppose it's so new and raw (the event) that many are having difficulty processing that anything "creative" could be layered upon events as they unfold.

This is not necessarily a news piece however. It's an emotional piece that conveys what the filmmaker saw and perhaps felt as he was there in Japan.

I do think it would have worked better with a VO perhaps and no music.. and more locked off shots and less slider. There's so much going on in each image to take in that the movement is largely unnecessary.

But a bad piece this is not. It's just different, and people are talking, watching, and thinking about what they are seeing. And that is a good thing.

Sign of the times I guess. Who's gunna set up the timelapse of them reconstructing? At least that will merit some happier music, right?

Are we still talking about slider shots? Wow aren't we shallow? Much respect Dan for sharing this experience of a horrible tragedy. My prayers go out to friends Ayumi and Ai whose parents were finally contacted in Sendai-shi.

very nice video :( I guess I wont be able to visit Japan for a while......

I have to agree with the comments re the choice of soundtrack. Why didn't you just post the original. Isn't this all about context? It is after all footage that accompanies a report on a devastation. Within this context the voice over and subtitles gives it the meaning that was intended by the collaborative work of the two individuals credited for bringing this piece together. And even then those who are interested in the style of shoot will appreciate and critique it within this context.

Well, mainstream media approaches this topic with pathetic music, and vimeo community does the same. We are victims of a society intending to sell.
Our hearts shouldn't be with the Japanese only, but also with us - with those, who think self-promtion is an end in itself.