Introduction
All of SIGMA's products are created in one single place, our Aizu factory, and then reach our customers all around the world. In this video, we focus on the people that create our products, the people that use them, and the environments that surround them. Scene by scene, we introduce some of our Aizu employees as well as their families, the beautiful nature of the Aizu region, and artists of different fields from all around the world.
It is our goal to match the passion driving artists to create new works with our own passion towards our products. With this video, we would like to present both an essence of our philosophy as well as the showcase the creative fervor of everyone who helped create it.
Thoughts and memories about the shoot
What impressed me most when I visited Aizu were the children shouting in unison, "Bet you're jealous of our beautiful nature here!", and the love everyone at SIGMA seems to put into their products. On many occasions, I had the impression that SIGMA is one of the prides of the Aizu region.
And then everything I saw exists within these almost shockingly beautiful landscapes.
With the film, I wanted to capture SIGMA's products as they are, the environments in which they are created and how they are received around the world.
In order to reflect the temperament and the sensibilities which the Aizu region stimulates in the video, I decided to ask musician Haruka Nakamura - himself born in Japan's Tohoku region - to create the soundtrack.
Almost all the videos were captured using SIGMA lenses. The color balance and the sheer expressive force of the lenses were just as brilliant as I had expected. For one part of the video, I used SIGMA's 14mm fixed-focal lens, and the footage captured by this perfectly rectilinear lens are simply astounding.
Six years ago, while I was working as a website developer, it was a film about SIGMA's Aizu factory which gave me the chance to start creating videos.
I am very thankful that, after all this time, I had the chance to work on a video together with SIGMA.
Yuichiro Fujishiro
Born in Tokyo in 1984. In 2016, he joined Tokyo-based creative agency Drawing and Manual.
Fujishiro's portfolio includes music videos (Sekai no Owari, Sambomaster, Suiyoubi no Kanpanera etc.), commercials (JA Bank Aichi, Mercedes Benz, karimoku, Yoyogi Seminars etc.) as well as directing NHK's "Japangle" program and the credits scenes for prestigious NHK jidaigeki series "Etchan"
About "Made in Aizu"
I have held concerts in Fukushima before, at Shokudo Hitoto and for the Fukushima bank.
When I recalled the happy, friendly faces of the many friends who had helped create these events, the sounds just came into existence on their own. I composed the music impromptu, while revisiting all the memories I have made in the region.
I am proud, both as a musician and as a Tohoku-native, to have had the chance to participate in this project.
Haruka Nakamura
Born in Aomori Prefecture. Nakamura's music features in Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Odawara Art Foundation"; the Calorimate commercial "Susume, Calorina"; NHK BS Premium's "Gaudi's Testament"; a CITIZEN commercial, and more. Starting in 2018 and lasting for a year, the Tokyo Skytree Planetarium holds weekly string quartet live performances of Nakamura's music.
In a collaboration with clothes brand "evam eva", he created the album "Yukusaki".
Nakamura played live music during a series of reading events by literary translator Motoyuki Shibata, which have been recorded and published as the album "Windeye". Nakamura collaborates with Japanese artist Machiko Miroko on an ongoing live painting series.
