There is one dark secret that I have not told you yet. It is that half an year ago during January 2015 I had an awesome experience with Japanese television, when I was able to help "Sekai no hate made ITTEQ" crew on shooting special in Estonia (yep, my country). I did not want to write about it before it aired and I was kinda hoping to receive photos before making a post, but I guess I will end up waiting them forever.
Who does not know, then "Sekai no hate made ITTEQ" is travel variety on Nippon TV (NTV) that airs every Sunday. There are around 10 famous people as Becky, Imouto, Kawai-san, Morisanchu (currently - Miyazaki Masayo, Kurosawa Kazuko, Kawamura Emiko, Yashiro Yu) and Tegoshi Yuya (From my favorite band - NEWS). I was able to be part of Morisanchu filming. But do not think I was just spending time with the crew without doing anything - it was a lot of work - callings, communicating, searching, few hours of sleep and full week with the crew (lucky I did not have lessons then) and even before and after that week I had to communicate with participants inside Estonia. At first I thought it might be difficult to get in contact with people, especially because there were things that I knew nothing about, but it ended up being much easier. I must say that I enjoyed every minute I spent on it. So let's go to the details by days, but there are still things that I keep for myself :P One more thing before I start: The temperature stayed between -4 to -9 Celsius every day, so it was not so cold, but cold enough if you have to stay outside most of the day.
Day 1.
This day was really short for me, because Director Nagata-san and European coordinator Paola-san were the first ones to arrive and they spent the day with other local assistant in the other part of Estonia. I only met them for a dinner to talk. I must say that we did talk a lot and also about why I love Japan etc. I understood that I am even able to understand some Japanese when somebody is talking - surprising :D
Day 2.
We met already in the morning and director assistant Funaki-san, cameraman Chiba-san and his assistant Hirose-san had arrived. When I met them everybody already knew my love for Johnny's. Embarrassing! Gomen Tegoshi for not being my ichiban, but I know a lot of personal things about you now. But also Sorry Tegoshi-fans, because I cannot tell you these things. I am a person who respects idols having personal lives, so I will bury these secrets with me. All I can say that from everything I heard, he is really really really really nice guy. Maybe next time I have possibility to work with him.
First days were location hunting - meaning that we went, checked the places and made first shootings. We went for winter windsurfing, fire-brigade and to one sushi place.
As every day was hectic and there are things you never see coming. As having a wrong location.. This happened to fire brigade as there are more than one place offering sauna in old fire-truck. What a luck that my country is small and a lot of people are really kind and are willing to go with the flow.
We finished the day at one sushi place called Sushiplaza. It is the best sushi place in Tallinn, but they serve really western and really interesting sushi. Of course we had to try the ones that seemed the most weirdest.
Day 3.
It was actually my birthday and a day when I had exam. Still I went to meet them at 9:30 and we had another day of location hunt and some shooting.
First we spent time in the Old Town which meant of course shooting. This morning I was actually revising my exam questions a bit too, because I had to remember just 90 questions and answers. If you wonder what exam I had then it was psychology.. Why interior architect learns psychology? it is important to understand the client, the work relationship etc. Anyways, I had to leave for some hours to make my exam and everybody wished me luck. It feels great to hear "Ganbatte kudasai!" in real life. Of course I ended up getting perfect score. Sorry for being out of ItteQ-topic for a moment, but I just wanted to share my thoughts that I discovered during the exam. My exam-question was about motivation, goal-keeping and achievements. As it was oral exam then professor had the chance to ask extra questions in addition and then she asked about me - if I am motivated and do I feel that I accomplished something already in my life? And then during that 5 seconds I had before answering I thought "Today is my birthday. I am 22 now. I am helping to film ItteQ. I have blog that has troubles, but there still are people who read it. I have seen the world. I am going to Japan in spring. I am studying the one thing that my heart wants. I have friends and family that I love. I know who I am and what I want and I am willing to grow everyday" and I answered "Yes, I do believe that I have accomplished some of my life goals already". I think that understanding this knowledge was the best birthday present for me this year. So my readers too. please from time to time think about what great things have you succeeded in :)
But back to the topic. After exam I joined the crew again and we went to other places in Tallinn to shoot the beauty of the city. Then we went to Snowpark to check if the slope is good enough for filming. It ended up being higher than we expected, but other slopes were not high enough. But our logistics were a bit off, as usually with filming you cannot predict if some place takes more time than first expected. For the final thing for the day was sumo club where Baruto basically started out. At the moment it is a sumo club which students are European champions and one even World Bronze. I think that there will be a lot of talk in the future about them too. As you see, then Estonians are really good at sumo. Sadly we did not meet Kaido Höövelson (real name of Baruto) this time, but I have met him already before.
During the drive crew got to know that I have birthday. Everybody were surprised that that I am so young and despite having a birthday I had an exam without being nervous and spent the whole day with the crew. Well, in the end birthday is just a day when you add up one number on your age, but the life goes on as day before.
Day 4.
This was the day when actresses Miyazaki-san, Kurosawa-san, Yashiro-san and assistant Sugihara-san arrived. Of course me being a fan of Massu was the first thing they got to know about me and then I learned that Kurasawa is a friend of him... KYAAAA!! For some reason this seemed to be most important or the funniest fact about me to share. They all the time managed to talk about it right as soon as I arrived. My little heart hopes that this small talk reached him too.
But Morisanchu is truly amazing. They are all so nice and friendly and even though their English is not so good, it was really enjoyable to be with them. I had to drive all day in their car and they gave me Japanese snacks.
We started with shootings at winter windsurf and spent a lot of time there. This was one thing that never aired in the episode. This was the day when I had to bring lunch from a close food place and I think I never forget the waitress face when I entered only and placed a order for 12. In Estonian language 2 and 12 start the same, so at first he typed in only 2 and I had to correct: No, I said 12, not 2. Well, the 2 workers had at least something to do for a while.
After half day there we rode out of town to shoot fire-brigade sauna. It was so funny that I hurt my stomach. In addition there are the only scenes where you can actually see me O.o Thank gyoza that I had good camouflage in really light-color winter jacket (The only blonde on the photo). I also had my 15-minute fame in Estonia as there were 2 TV-channels, newspaper and local radio who wanted interviews. Already few hours later when we were back in the city, eating dinner at one Korean restaurant, I got calls and messages "How the hell did you end up doing these kind of projects?!" from my friends. Well, what to say - I am a girl with many projects and sometimes I forgot to make public announcement about them.
Day 5.
It was the last day for me, because on their last day they did not need me as the shooting took place on the other side of my country and they had another local assistant there.
This day also Kawamura-san also joined us, but in on camera only in Snowpark.
On this day we filmed the opening in the Old Town. It is so funny how during winter there are not so many people, especially so early in the morning. but the few people how were there were so curious and came to talk - the moment when I had a lot of explanation to do in Estonian and Russian and translate it into English/Japanese. In addition, we had a bit of time to make souvenir shopping and take photos together. Sadly I do not have the photos and I have not seen them.
We went on with shooting at Snowpark where we made Shovel Racing. We asked "one guy" to show us how to do it and say some words about it. Now half years later I can thank ItteQ for making me now one awesome guy who is good friend of mine. In secret I can say that we happened to meet again few weeks later in a club and I hope he likes also to have a friend like me. In addition, I can say that for some reason in the final production his name seems to be Paul, but in reality they referred to him by his surname that sounds the same as Paul in Japanese. His real first name means something very valuable. If any of the readers and ItteQ watchers happen to get a crush on him then write me and I will give his real name and you can contact him on Facebook :P To give some good words about him - he is snowboarder, football player, loves to travel, open to adventures and single! Oh, I just love to mess with him :D
The last place to film was in Sushi Plaza, but this also never made the cut in the episode. From that filming I understood that Estonia is full of young successful people. That gives me hope for the future of my country..forgive me for not staying here!
After we finished we went back to the hotel and went to eat at restaurant next to hotel and then was my time to say goodbye to them. Even though I was sad that it was over, I felt really happy and satisfied. I definitely got more than just an experience to help filming crew - meeting those amazing extraordinary people, getting to know behind-camera actions and getting memories for a life time. In addition, if you think that it is easy to be spend time with world famous actresses and official filming crew and be 100% professional without any fan-girl feelings, then you are wrong! I was fighting with my inner fan-girl all the time and every night when I went home I was jumping up and down from happiness and screaming like 4-years-old girl over fluffy pony toy! My year had a perfect start and I will not forget it.
If you want to know the outcome of the shooting then this episode aired on 15.02.2015. Sadly I was not able to see the it on time, but I found it online some time late. As you all can see, there where parts that were cut out of the real thing as winter wind-surfing and eating sushi and more scenes were from the last day when I was not there, but it all makes me really really happy.
Even though I have watched it over and over again, I still get butterflies when I watch the episode :D
If you really want to see the episode then here is the link (NO ENGLISH SUBS! and Morisanchu part starts somewhere around 20+ few minutes)
If you ask me, how did I first got to this opportunity at all, then I can only answer that sometimes luck smiles to me :D KIDDING! Just my country is really small and right people happened to know me and Yanne with our knowledge of Japan and Japanese(but she is in Japan, so unfortunately she was not able to participate). But how ItteQ found these people who contacted me? Easy - all mighty Youtube and crazy videos are all that they need :)
This is my "Short" story about ItteQ. Once again: ItteQ crew, HONTONI ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU~~!!
Who does not know, then "Sekai no hate made ITTEQ" is travel variety on Nippon TV (NTV) that airs every Sunday. There are around 10 famous people as Becky, Imouto, Kawai-san, Morisanchu (currently - Miyazaki Masayo, Kurosawa Kazuko, Kawamura Emiko, Yashiro Yu) and Tegoshi Yuya (
This day was really short for me, because Director Nagata-san and European coordinator Paola-san were the first ones to arrive and they spent the day with other local assistant in the other part of Estonia. I only met them for a dinner to talk. I must say that we did talk a lot and also about why I love Japan etc. I understood that I am even able to understand some Japanese when somebody is talking - surprising :D
Day 2.
We met already in the morning and director assistant Funaki-san, cameraman Chiba-san and his assistant Hirose-san had arrived. When I met them everybody already knew my love for Johnny's. Embarrassing! Gomen Tegoshi for not being my ichiban, but I know a lot of personal things about you now. But also Sorry Tegoshi-fans, because I cannot tell you these things. I am a person who respects idols having personal lives, so I will bury these secrets with me. All I can say that from everything I heard, he is really really really really nice guy. Maybe next time I have possibility to work with him.
First days were location hunting - meaning that we went, checked the places and made first shootings. We went for winter windsurfing, fire-brigade and to one sushi place.
As every day was hectic and there are things you never see coming. As having a wrong location.. This happened to fire brigade as there are more than one place offering sauna in old fire-truck. What a luck that my country is small and a lot of people are really kind and are willing to go with the flow.
We finished the day at one sushi place called Sushiplaza. It is the best sushi place in Tallinn, but they serve really western and really interesting sushi. Of course we had to try the ones that seemed the most weirdest.
 |
| Me - totally not ready to be also in front of cameras |
It was actually my birthday and a day when I had exam. Still I went to meet them at 9:30 and we had another day of location hunt and some shooting.
First we spent time in the Old Town which meant of course shooting. This morning I was actually revising my exam questions a bit too, because I had to remember just 90 questions and answers. If you wonder what exam I had then it was psychology.. Why interior architect learns psychology? it is important to understand the client, the work relationship etc. Anyways, I had to leave for some hours to make my exam and everybody wished me luck. It feels great to hear "Ganbatte kudasai!" in real life. Of course I ended up getting perfect score. Sorry for being out of ItteQ-topic for a moment, but I just wanted to share my thoughts that I discovered during the exam. My exam-question was about motivation, goal-keeping and achievements. As it was oral exam then professor had the chance to ask extra questions in addition and then she asked about me - if I am motivated and do I feel that I accomplished something already in my life? And then during that 5 seconds I had before answering I thought "Today is my birthday. I am 22 now. I am helping to film ItteQ. I have blog that has troubles, but there still are people who read it. I have seen the world. I am going to Japan in spring. I am studying the one thing that my heart wants. I have friends and family that I love. I know who I am and what I want and I am willing to grow everyday" and I answered "Yes, I do believe that I have accomplished some of my life goals already". I think that understanding this knowledge was the best birthday present for me this year. So my readers too. please from time to time think about what great things have you succeeded in :)
But back to the topic. After exam I joined the crew again and we went to other places in Tallinn to shoot the beauty of the city. Then we went to Snowpark to check if the slope is good enough for filming. It ended up being higher than we expected, but other slopes were not high enough. But our logistics were a bit off, as usually with filming you cannot predict if some place takes more time than first expected. For the final thing for the day was sumo club where Baruto basically started out. At the moment it is a sumo club which students are European champions and one even World Bronze. I think that there will be a lot of talk in the future about them too. As you see, then Estonians are really good at sumo. Sadly we did not meet Kaido Höövelson (real name of Baruto) this time, but I have met him already before.
During the drive crew got to know that I have birthday. Everybody were surprised that that I am so young and despite having a birthday I had an exam without being nervous and spent the whole day with the crew. Well, in the end birthday is just a day when you add up one number on your age, but the life goes on as day before.
This was the day when actresses Miyazaki-san, Kurosawa-san, Yashiro-san and assistant Sugihara-san arrived. Of course me being a fan of Massu was the first thing they got to know about me and then I learned that Kurasawa is a friend of him... KYAAAA!! For some reason this seemed to be most important or the funniest fact about me to share. They all the time managed to talk about it right as soon as I arrived. My little heart hopes that this small talk reached him too.
But Morisanchu is truly amazing. They are all so nice and friendly and even though their English is not so good, it was really enjoyable to be with them. I had to drive all day in their car and they gave me Japanese snacks.
We started with shootings at winter windsurf and spent a lot of time there. This was one thing that never aired in the episode. This was the day when I had to bring lunch from a close food place and I think I never forget the waitress face when I entered only and placed a order for 12. In Estonian language 2 and 12 start the same, so at first he typed in only 2 and I had to correct: No, I said 12, not 2. Well, the 2 workers had at least something to do for a while.
After half day there we rode out of town to shoot fire-brigade sauna. It was so funny that I hurt my stomach. In addition there are the only scenes where you can actually see me O.o Thank gyoza that I had good camouflage in really light-color winter jacket (
It was the last day for me, because on their last day they did not need me as the shooting took place on the other side of my country and they had another local assistant there.
This day also Kawamura-san also joined us, but in on camera only in Snowpark.
On this day we filmed the opening in the Old Town. It is so funny how during winter there are not so many people, especially so early in the morning. but the few people how were there were so curious and came to talk - the moment when I had a lot of explanation to do in Estonian and Russian and translate it into English/Japanese. In addition, we had a bit of time to make souvenir shopping and take photos together. Sadly I do not have the photos and I have not seen them.
The last place to film was in Sushi Plaza, but this also never made the cut in the episode. From that filming I understood that Estonia is full of young successful people. That gives me hope for the future of my country..
After we finished we went back to the hotel and went to eat at restaurant next to hotel and then was my time to say goodbye to them. Even though I was sad that it was over, I felt really happy and satisfied. I definitely got more than just an experience to help filming crew - meeting those amazing extraordinary people, getting to know behind-camera actions and getting memories for a life time. In addition, if you think that it is easy to be spend time with world famous actresses and official filming crew and be 100% professional without any fan-girl feelings, then you are wrong! I was fighting with my inner fan-girl all the time and every night when I went home I was jumping up and down from happiness and screaming like 4-years-old girl over fluffy pony toy! My year had a perfect start and I will not forget it.
If you want to know the outcome of the shooting then this episode aired on 15.02.2015. Sadly I was not able to see the it on time, but I found it online some time late. As you all can see, there where parts that were cut out of the real thing as winter wind-surfing and eating sushi and more scenes were from the last day when I was not there, but it all makes me really really happy.
Even though I have watched it over and over again, I still get butterflies when I watch the episode :D
If you really want to see the episode then here is the link (NO ENGLISH SUBS! and Morisanchu part starts somewhere around 20+ few minutes)
If you ask me, how did I first got to this opportunity at all, then I can only answer that sometimes luck smiles to me :D KIDDING! Just my country is really small and right people happened to know me and Yanne with our knowledge of Japan and Japanese
This is my "Short" story about ItteQ. Once again: ItteQ crew, HONTONI ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU~~!!
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