Jiro Dreams of Sushi Review

     I recently watched a documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. This is a Japanese, expository documentary starring the world's greatest sushi chef Jiro Ono. His restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro is located in a Tokyo subway station and has only ten seats. To eat there, you must make a reservation at least one month in advance and the minimum cost per meal is $300. Because you eat sushi as soon as it is prepared, the average meal is only about 20 minutes. Jiro himself has recieved many awards from Japan and is the only sushi chef to ever receive three Michelin stars, one of the highest if not the highest honor a restaurant can recieve. This documentary captures his perpetual need to keep pushing the boundaries of what he can do with sushi.
   85 year old Jiro Ono works along side his oldest son and several apprentices. The apprentices must work for years and years to master the craft of sushi. It took one apprentice ten years before Jiro allowed him to cook egg sushi and even then it took him hundreds of tries until he could get it right. The film also explains Jiro's background of living on his own since the age of nine and working in sushi resturaunts ever since then. Because his parents weren't around, Jiro pushes his sons to be the independent and great chefs like he is. Although his sons work just as hard as Jiro, one person explains that they will never live up to Jiro as he has become such a legend in sushi culture. In addition to working hard, Jiro and his son explain, that it is also the constant preparation and choosing only the right ingredients that makes a great sushi chef. They will meticulously plan out every detail including where each guest sits and will even make smaller pieces of sushi for women so they can finish at the same time as the men. The film shows how Jiro has come so close to perfection yet will never retire because he is always working to become a better chef.
   An interesting cinematic aspect seen in this film is the use of time lapses and slowmotion in the making of sushi. This shows how long they work, as well as the detail that goes into crafting each piece.  One dramatic aspect of the film is when they staged some dimly lit scenes with just Jiro and his son evoking a dramatic mood.This is showing how Jiro truly is the master of sushi and his sons will do their best to carry on the legacy. Another interesting literary aspect is the point of view. The filmaker made it feel as if the viewer was part of the conversation by having the camera be at eye level and filming conversations between people. This became interesting when it showed Jiro's fish and rice dealers.
    I would highly recommend this film to a foodie or someone who is interested in different cultures. Just seeing how long these chefs have been working for one goal is truly remarkable. If these topics don't interest you as much, you may find some parts to be slow however it will still be very captivating.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi    81 minutes     PG

Macro Photography

   For a Christmas gift my aunt gave me a book of Poplar Photography tips and advice. As I was browsing  through the book I came across many interesting ideas for projects and great suggestions I had never thought of before. One image that truly stood out to me was an image of an eye taken with cheap macro photo equipment. This image inspired me to look into getting or making macro equipment of my own. My first obstacle was that I didn't have a macro lens (a key part of taking macro photos). I went to look at prices of a macro lens online but found nothing in a reachable price range. During this search however, I came across another option called macro extension tubes. What these do is extend the lens off of the camera and give an extreme macro effect, allowing you to get centimeters away from your subject. The big plus with these are that they cost a fraction of the price of a decent macro lens. I purchased a set for only $12. When the package arrived I began shooting immediately.

   This first picture is my best attempt at taking a macro image of an eye. Although mine is not as detailed and generally remarkable as the one that inspired me to try this in the first place, it came out pretty well and I now know more about how to go about taking these types of images.

   Here are a few others I took:

  

Moonlit Photography

 
    On my typical bus ride to school I noticed the moon was still out. The reason, I noticed it almost immediately was because it was nearly full and very bright. I seemed to stare at it for the remainder of the bus ride and decided that I would photograph it that weekend.
    Saturday night I went out with a friend and took some photos of the moon and attempted to make a time lapse of clouds flying by the moon. I ended up taking almost 1,300 photos and spent hours uploading and moving these photos into a video. This was a test and really taught me a lot about making time lapses. As you could see in my Colors of Fall video I have made a lime lapse before; however, that was not done in the most professional way. For that clip I simply set my camera in the window and recorded video for about 15 minutes and sped it up. To make this moon time lapse, I used the more professional technique of using a remote and taking continuous pictures for a long period of time. I was probably taking photos for about 10 or 15 minutes and ended up taking almost 1,300 photos.
   During post processing I discovered how long it can take to put these films together and how it can go wrong. For me, I used iMovie which complicated things. Once I managed to get every image into the program, iMovie automatically puts a "Ken Burns" effect on every photo so I needed to fix that. Also iMovie does not let you make the pictures show up for less than .1 seconds. Because of this I needed to move the fastest version into a QuickTime file, then put it back into iMovie and speed it up even more. This sacrificed some picture quality and also made it slightly shaky. Now I know more about what to do next time I make a time lapse. Here is my video and one of my the most interesting time lapses I've seen.

My Video:


Another Great Time lapse (Not mine):