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Tsunekichi Shibata
was one of Japan's first filmmakers. He worked for the photographer Shirō Asano and the Konishi Camera shop, the first in Japan to import a motion picture camera. Along with Kanzo Shirai, he made the earliest films in Japan, mostly of geisha, Ginza, and selections of scenes from popular plays. His first exhibition was at the Tokyo Kabuki-za in 1899. After that he focused mainly on Kabuki plays. In 1898, before starting his work with Shirai, he shot five documentary films of street scenes in Tokyo for the Lumière Company, numbers 981–985 in the Lumière catalogue. It appears negatives for these films still exist and one print of #985. If this is true, it would make the documentary work the oldest extant films by a Japanese filmmaker, though not the first films shot in Japan. Early works * ''Armed Robber: Shimizu Sakakichi'' (not surviving) * '' Momijigari'' starring Ichikawa Danjūrō IX was one of the most successful and famous Kabuki actors of the Meiji period (1868 ...
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Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ...
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Filmmaker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casting, pre-production, shooting, sound recording, post-production, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and an exhibition. Filmmaking occurs in a variety of economic, social, and political contexts around the world. It uses a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Although filmmaking originally involved the use of film, most film productions are now digital. Today, filmmaking refers to the process of crafting an audio-visual story commercially for distribution or broadcast. Production stages Film production consists of five major stages: * Development: Ideas for the film are created, rights to existing intellectual properties are purchased, etc., and the screenplay is written. ...
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Shirō Asano (cameraman)
Shirō Asano may refer to: * Shirō Asano (politician) (born 1948), Japanese university professor and former politician * Shirō Asano (cameraman), cameraman in the early years of Cinema of Japan See also * Shirō Sano is a Japanese actor. Career Born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Sano lived in Tokyo and Matsue, Shimane as a child, before returning to Tokyo to enter art school. He joined several theatrical troupes, including Jurō Kara's Jōkyō Gekijō. He had h ...
(born 1955), a Japanese actor {{hndis, Asano, Shiro ...
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Konishi Camera
was a Japanese manufacturer of, among other products, film, film cameras, camera accessories, photographic and photo-processing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and laser printers, founded in 1873. The company merged with Japanese peer Minolta in 2003, with the new company named Konica Minolta. History The company traces its history back to 1873 (pre-dating Kodak in the photography business) when pharmacist Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic materials at his shop in Konishiya Rokubē, the biggest pharmacy trader in Tokyo at that time. In 1878, Rokusaburō succeeded to his family and renamed Rokuemon VI (Rokudaime Rokuemon). He gave the original shop to his younger brother and launched a new shop, Konishi Honten (Konishi Main Shop) in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. In 1882, Konishi launched a project to produce photography related materials in Japan: those products were imported at that time. In 1902, Konishi began to sell the "Cherry Portable Camera" (チ ...
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Geisha
{{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha {{nihongo, Geisha, 芸者 ({{IPAc-en, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ʃ, ə; {{IPA-ja, ɡeːɕa, lang), also known as {{nihongo, , 芸子, geiko (in Kyoto and Kanazawa) or {{nihongo, , 芸妓, geigi, are a class of female Japanese performing artists and entertainers trained in traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as dance, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts. Their distinct appearance is characterised by long, trailing kimono, traditional hairstyles and {{transliteration, ja, oshiroi make-up. Geisha entertain at parties known as {{transliteration, ja, ozashiki, often for the entertainment of wealthy clientele, as well as performing on stage and at festivals. Modern geisha are not prostitutes. This misconception originated due to the conflation of Japanese courtesans ({{transliteration, ja, oiran), {{transliteration, ja, oiran reenactors, the extant {{transliteration, ja, tayū, and prostitutes, who ...
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Ginza
Ginza ( ; ja, 銀座 ) is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity. It is considered to be one of the most expensive, elegant, and luxurious city districts in the world. Ginza was a part of the old Kyobashi ward of Tokyo City, which, together with Nihonbashi and Kanda, formed the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo (Tokyo). History Ginza was built upon a former swamp that was filled in during the 16th century. The name Ginza comes after the establishment of a silver-coin mint established there in 1612, during the Edo period. After a devastating fire in 1872 burned down most of the area, the Meiji government designated the Ginza area as a "model of modernization." The governme ...
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Play (theatre)
A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from London's West End and Broadway in New York City – which are the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to regional theatre, to community theatre, as well as university or school productions. A stage play is a play performed and written to be performed on stage rather than broadcast or made into a movie. Stage plays are those performed on any stage before an audience. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference as to whether their plays were performed or read. The term "play" can refer to both the written texts of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance. Comedy Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous. Comedies are often filled ...
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Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 million residents ; the city proper has a population of 13.99 million people. Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, the prefecture forms part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. Originally a fishing village named Edo, the city became politically prominent in 1603, when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo was one of the most populous cities in the world with a population of over one million people. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, which was renamed "Tokyo" (). Tokyo was devastate ...
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Kabuki-za
in Ginza is the principal theater in Tokyo for the traditional ''kabuki'' drama form. History The Kabuki-za was originally opened by a Meiji era journalist, Fukuchi Gen'ichirō. Fukuchi wrote kabuki dramas in which Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and others starred; upon Danjūrō's death in 1903, Fukuchi retired from the management of the theater. The theater is now run by the Shochiku Corporation which took over in 1914. The original Kabuki-za was a wooden structure, built in 1889 on land which had been either the Tokyo residence of the Hosokawa clan of Kumamoto, or that of Matsudaira clan of Izu. The building was destroyed on October 30, 1921, by an electrical fire. The reconstruction, which commenced in 1922, was designed to "be fireproof, yet carry traditional Japanese architectural styles", while using Western building materials and lighting equipment. Reconstruction had not been completed when it again burned down during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Rebuilding was finall ...
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Kabuki
is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to have originated in the very early Edo period, when founder Izumo no Okuni formed a female dance troupe who performed dances and light sketches in Kyoto. The art form later developed into its present all-male theatrical form after women were banned from performing in kabuki theatre in 1629. Kabuki developed throughout the late 17th century and reached its zenith in the mid-18th century. In 2005, kabuki theatre was proclaimed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage possessing outstanding universal value. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Etymology The individual kanji that make up the word ''kabuki'' can be read as , , and . ...
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Momijigari (film)
is a Japanese film shot in 1899 by Shibata Tsunekichi. It is a record of the kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō V and Ichikawa Danjūrō IX performing a scene from the kabuki play '' Momijigari''. It is the oldest extant Japanese film and the first film to be designated an Important Cultural Property. Film content The film features the scene in which defeats Momiji, a kijo who has disguised herself as Princess Sarashina. Production and exhibition ''Momijigari'' was planned primarily as a record of the performance of the two famous actors. Shibata, who worked for the Konishi Photographic Store, shot it using a Gaumont camera. It was filmed in November 1899 in an open space behind the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, with Shibata using three reels of film. It was a windy day, however, and a gust blew away one of Danjūrō's fans, a mishap that remained in the film since retakes were not possible. Since the film was meant only as a record, it was not initially shown publicly. Danjūrō only saw ...
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