Century Kings

3/11 (Sunday)
Today we filmed a scene of Shiro’s company “Excesstreme.”
V3, Kazami Shiro, is a charismatic and young president of a IT company. Excesstreme is a fictitious name, and these names and settings are sometimes thought up by the assistant directors. We also are assigned to “searches” on occasion. For instance we found out what an […]

3/6 (Tuesday) ~ 9 (Friday)
On the fourth day we were at the development site of Nikotama for a huge action shot!!
This is probably the most important action scene in “Kamen Rider THE NEXT.”
Bike action, car action, Rider action, elaborate explosions… it’s a barrage of action scenes. There are many things I could talk about, but […]

2/28 (Wednesday)
Today we filmed our first wire action scene at the pier.
In this scene Hongo is approached by Shiro and gets punched, thrown far into a pillar. Action scenes aren’t handled by the acting crew. Action is the lifeline of the film, so they’re handled by the pros. The most important thing in this scene […]

2/27 (Yuesday)
Today’s scene takes place in Kotomi’s apartment.
It’s a night scene but we filmed it with the “crushing” technique. Crushing is done by covering up daylight and changing the aperture of the video camera, allowing for shooting night scenes in midday. It was such a tiny, tiny place that I could smell a good […]

Found this ever-so-depressing page yesterday that chronicled the writer’s trip to the the Toho tokusatsu studios backlots. This page was made in November 2001, and noted that the pictures were taken over a decade before that (1988 or 1989). Translated below:
Over a decade ago, while Kamen Rider Black RX was on the air, I visited […]

2/26 (Monday)
Today we filmed a promotion video at a cafe in Shibuya.
If you work in this industry you can start seeing locations that were used in other movies. This cafe, for instance, was also used in the movie “Babel”.
In THE NEXT a key character named “Chiharu” is an idol. She is the younger sister of […]

2/25 (Sunday)
Today we film a scene in a girls high school.
Hongo has finished his term at the university research center and now works at Jonan University and High School and teaches biology. Even our hero, the protector of justice, is having trouble with his rebellious students… Although he was a genetics researcher, the students […]

2/24 (Saturday)
We’re filming a scene in a bar in Ginza on our second day of filming.
Hongo Takeshi, played by Kikawada Masaya-san, appears for the first time. Hayato is suffering from his rejection here as well.
The bar we used for filming is an actual bar in town. The counter is made of one large wooden slab, […]

[Note: Starting from the oldest to to the newest entries now, sorry for the confusion]
Hello!
I’m the fourth assistant director Kato for Kamen Rider THE NEXT. This production diary is intended to introduce our day to day filming experiences and discussions that are usually staff only. Nice to meet you.
First, I’ll introduce myself. It’s been […]

March 1st (Thursday) - 3rd (Saturday)
Filming weren’t done on these days, so the production was on break.
Well, not really, since there’s a mountain of things to do.
The acting and production department both went to clean a building at Nikotama River where filming will take place on 3/6. This western style building will be the stage […]