YAWN
“Toys” was filmed during my five week vacation in Europe this summer. The result is a lo-fi pinwheel adventure that spans across France, Germany, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and a bit here in California. It tells the story of a pinwheel who gets blown far away from his family and has to find a way back home. I didn’t plan for this, but in many ways the video plays as an autobiographical documentary of my own European adventure.
This filmmaking process was very unique to me, unlike anything I’ve made before. Most of the time a shoot lasts one day and you’re fighting against the clock to complete everything on the shot list. For this video I had weeks to play around and film whatever looked good. Before the trip started, I loosely planned out the story and wrote down the types of shots that I needed. That way, as I traveled around, I could spontaneously decide to film a certain shot depending on what the location had to offer. I never let the filming get in the way of having fun on vacation and that way the video never felt like “work”.
Filming on the Digital Harinezumi 2 was such a joy and it provided me with a number of big advantages. The best thing was simply that it fit in my pocket, which made for total filming freedom. The tiny size of the Japanese toy camera also allowed me to film on an airplane, out of a car window, attached to a bike and on a rollercoaster. I had heard that Sofia Coppola was the only person who filmed a movie at Versailles… not any more, thanks to the covert powers of the Harinezumi! Everywhere I went people wanted to know what the little black thing I had in my hand was. And I know that many Europeans thought I was crazy running around with the zumi trying to make a pinwheel fly.
While I did a lot of the video on my own, I had help from some incredibly talented folks. Liz Garner fabricated the pinwheels, Josh Sasson did the compositing, Peter Van Dyke was my technical assistant, and my family was the best pro bono crew of all time. In addition to making the track, the guys from YAWN also did an amazing job crafting the trippy soundtrack in the beginning of the video. Thanks everyone! I hope you have as much fun watching this video as I had making it. - Eli