Es VOL.9 more GARNET CROW life 第 9 回 “最喜欢的 PV BEST 10”拍摄秘闻(second half)

●○○From music freak Es Vol.9

Readers’ Choice: 【Top 10 Favorite PVs】

In [more GARNET CROW life], the feature celebrating GARNET CROW’s 10th anniversary, we announced last month the 【Top 10 Favorite PVs】 selected from the results of a survey submitted by our readers. This month, we spoke with Iwao Kojima, the art director who was responsible for producing those ten works at the time, and asked him to share behind-the-scenes stories from the shoots. Please enjoy these valuable stories at your leisure!

NO.6　晴れ時計
NO.7　忘れ咲き
NO.8　Timeless Sleep
NO.9　call my name
NO.10　君という光

Behind the Scenes of the Shoots

No. 6: “晴れ時計”

This unusual PV shows the members bringing their instruments out into a field and playing together. We rented part of Expo ’70 Commemorative Park in Osaka and filmed there. The weather was beautiful and we were fully prepared, but the wind was much stronger than expected, making the shoot extremely difficult as we had to keep stopping and restarting. In the end, AZUKI’s hairstyle kept getting blown out of shape, so we had her wear a hat. Since this was the first time she had worn one in a PV, the readers seem to have liked it (laughs)—you could call it a lucky break in an unfortunate situation, and perhaps it turned out well because it felt fresh. As for the scenes on the train, someone on the production side jokingly suggested, “It might be fun to have them ride something like this,” but once we actually tried it, it looked good on camera, so we inserted a little of it.

The members had also said for some time that they wanted to make footage with this kind of atmosphere, and the mood on set was so good that we suddenly decided, “Let’s take some stills too!” In the end, photographs linked to the PV were also used for the jacket.

No. 7: “忘れ咲き”

This PV is made entirely from photographs taken specially for the video. During the photo shoot, we followed a scenario that made it seem as though the characters’ timelines were connected: for example, Okamoto flies a paper airplane here, Nakamura looks up at the paper airplane soaring through the sky from a riverbank, and Furui picks up the paper airplane after it lands on the ground. It has the feeling of a “poetry anthology in images,” and I think it ultimately became a good PV with a character all its own.

No. 8: “Timeless Sleep”

When they first debuted, all the members were extremely busy, and it was difficult to gather everyone together for a shoot at the same time. I believe this was the first PV in which all four members were filmed together in one place.

The lyrics include, “Suddenly wanting to see the horizon, I casually jump aboard the first train,” so I wanted to insert that image into the PV and had Nakamura ride a train. At the same time, AZUKI traveled in a car in the same direction; at a certain station, they switched, with Nakamura continuing by car and AZUKI by train.

No. 9: “call my name”

At the time, releases came out roughly once every two months, so this shoot, which also served as the jacket photo session, took place under an extremely tight schedule. AZUKI had previously published [PHOTO & ANTHOLOGY 80,0], a collection of photographs she had taken herself. Since photography is one of her specialties, we inserted a casual moment in the PV of AZUKI apparently taking a photograph with a camera.

No. 10: “君という光”

This is a song I personally love very much, so I approached its production with especially strong feelings. While I was talking with AZUKI, she said that the key point was “jellyfish.” So we immediately filmed jellyfish. I myself had a very grand image in mind, something like a World Heritage site, so we dressed the members in formal clothes and filmed in a classical hall. But we could not quite get the right feeling, and we were unable to capture footage of the opening line of the chorus, “Kimi to Iu Hikari,” that satisfied us. With Nakamura’s cooperation, we ended up shooting it about three times on different days. We filmed almost nothing but the chorus, and in the end I even tried shooting with only Nakamura, myself, and the manager present, building the walls and lighting myself. That is how particular we were about making this PV. Incidentally, AZUKI looks very dignified when she plays the piano, and personally, this is my favorite footage of AZUKI playing piano.