NHK World Special in February: Shinji Sogo - The Pioneer of the Shinkansen

[fpav_2125]

In February NHK World will broadcast a special program about the Shinkansen idea during the period of Shinji Sogo in JNR (he was the 4th president of JNR), details here and days of broadcast:

 

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/special/episode/201702050810.html (Image data)

 

Shinji Sogo

 

The Pioneer of the Shinkansen

 

Shinji Sogo was the 4th president of Japanese National Railways. With imagination and determination, he made sure that the Shinkansen bullet train service started in time for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The news brought attention from around the world and revived the railway industry. It also laid the groundwork for high-speed railways being planned and built in Europe, the US and Asia today. This program examines rare documents and firsthand accounts of how Sogo's leadership brought the ambitious Shinkansen project to fruition.

 

 

Hours of broadcast (London Time)

 

Saturday, February 4 23:10

 

Sunday, February 5 5:10/ 10:10/ 17:10

Edited January 27, 2017 by fpav_2125

[LeeC22]

Does anyone actually want to watch this? I recorded it but got bored halfway through watching it... but if someone wants it, I'll upload it but it won't be able to stay on my Google Drive for long, it's a 1 hour show, so takes up a fair bit of space.

[Suica]

I would actually be interested.

[Sascha]

I would like to watch it too. I did read the book about him.

Edited February 6, 2017 by Sascha

[Jcarlton]

me too.  Definitely.

[splifdfx]

As Sascha, having read "Old Man Thunder:Father of the Bullet Train", I'm interested in watching this show.

[fpav_2125]

For me as transport engineer, it will be interesting watch this show  :)

[IST]

I also would like to watch it.

[Socimi]

Just watched it on video on demand.

 

It was a truly beautiful documentary.

[medusa]

Ah, missed it. :(

[Darklighter]

Ah, missed it. :(

 

Just watched it on video on demand.

Video on demand => https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/vod/shinjisogo/20170205/ ;)

[cteno4]

That was sadly disappointing... I loved old man thunder, this did not do it nor the man respect. Sadly the new docudrama format has hit japan.

 

[rant on]

 

Over the last decade our documentaries have ditched most of the interesting detailed content and just found one or two dramatic points and they just hammer them with drama, dramatic reenactments, stirring music and repeat them a few times. Actual content of this doc could have been done well in 10 minutes. The thought is current culture has no attention span so ditch all the details and you have to have drama as its not interesting (reality tv and TV drama going so far over the top now with extremes) if it's just interesting content in stories. Thing is drama is a very small part of many stories like this. Drama is part of it and at critical points at times but it's not the bulk of the story so basing the story solely on the drama distorts the whole thing and leaves out most of what really happened.

 

Sad thing is the whole story itself is really interesting and people's actual attention span is still there (we have not evolved at all in a decade) it's jut not being fed, instead being overwhelmed with a firehouse of tiny bits so it's exhausted. We like drama, but we are also very curious animals so if information is fed properly we eat it up like popcorn.

 

Sorry for the rant, I've been in and around the industry for the last 25+ years and hits hard with content dear to me like this. I've done educational materials around big pbs docs and watched the amount of content in the just drop dramatically to the point it was most all of the educational content had to be given in the outside the program! At that point I stopped working on them, it was getting too painful. We were spending tens of thousands of dollars for the stupidest 10 second shot and price per hour kept skyrocketing (when at the same time more tools could make things cheaper, but when used the wrong way the prices multiplied) but content level per hour going down, just whacky.

 

At least in the exhibit videos we have such small budgets and short times to tell stories we had to focus on doing things simply, packing in content but keeping folks attention in a busy environment, and keeping it inexpensive and fast to produce. Sounds tough, but actually it made life easier as you focused on the content and it really spoke out to you what and how it needed to be told and just follow that (and KISS) and it came out so well. Sort of like the sculpture being uncovered in the stone, always amazes me! Having to graft the big drama/production on top of the content is always a retrofit that covers up the real story and is a constant shoehorning process that is not fun to do as you are always trying to fix things cuz you are going against the content flow instead of with it.

 

[rant off]

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Jcarlton]

I would  love to do a documentary on this subject, done right. It's obvious that they had good access for research, but they missed Sogo's trip to the US, the Bullet Train project in the 1930's before the war, never mind that Shinkansen roadbed and tunnels used the Dengan Rassa embankment and tunneling in some locations and a ton of other stuff. Also they forgot show, don't tell and the narrators voice is too declarative. They should have used the guy who does the magazine show.  

[Jcarlton]

Why do they do reenactments when they have people still alive to talk to is beyond me.  And adding drama that wasn't really about the World Bank thing.   

[cteno4]

Sadly that's the current documentary thang, very small amount of content, just pick a couple of points and over dramatize and repeat/rebuild them 5 times around commercial breaks.

 

Yes it's such a rich story that deserves to be told in its entiritary. Character voice over can use folks own words thru the correctly chose quotes to great effect very cheaply in running time and production. Those reenactments are brutally expensive and prone to having to be redone when they later realize they screwed something up and it's such a must have. I know of wine that ended up almost doubling the overall production budget at it got soooo out of control. It came out like crap.

 

It also sad as modern production tools allow lots of content to be added to docs at cheaper rates and more flexibility.

 

Jeff

[LeeC22]

Oh god... really sorry everyone, I forgot to follow the topic. :( I've been wrapped up in another project and suddenly thought "I forgot to hit the *Follow* option".

 

I will have this online later for anyone who wants to see it. My apologies again. :(

 

Edit: Here's the link to the programme. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7LFvItVrwd0YjczX01QWXNPNlE/view?usp=sharing

Edited February 9, 2017 by LeeC22

[Yavianice]

Now also available on Youtube.

[fpav_2125]

Thanks for sharing this special show  :)

[Ronny]

Thanks Lee

[IST]

Thank you Lee!

[splifdfx]

Thank you Lee ! :)

[bikkuri bahn]

I hope they do a program someday about the other important person in the development of the shinkansen, Hideo Shima.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideo_Shima

[Sascha]

Thanks a bunch Lee!!

[bobbodaclown]

Thank you Lee

[tossedman]

We watched it last night on the NHK World App on our Apple TV. A bit over done in parts but we learned something new so it was OK.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd