Personal History in Lighting:Part Seven

In collaboration with Professor David Hall and Elena Marchenko, this installation, which focuses on   the experimentation with Kinect for XBOX 380 by Microsoft to discover new approaches to public installation with the emphasis on our cinematic expressions, was completed during an interaction design course as a part of the Green Growth Research Project founded by the South Korean Government. 

Elena Marchenko + Yuri Endo + David Hall 2011

While many of Kinect experimentations are largely focused on the user experience; human behavior when they constrained by technology and how it influence their life and social interaction, we focused on the aesthetics of the actual hyperreal visions that can be captured from Kinect's infrared camera to explore new possibilities in the motion pictures and video installation art. Though this  installation piece  had been completed and exhibited under said research project, it could be further developed in relation to light and optics as an independent assignment.

Personal History in Lighting: Part Six

I created a mini photo studio in my tiny studio apartment for a photoshoot  featuring the three-way computer container, ZZZ, which I created during a product design course.


Yuri Endo 2011

By utilizing available sources; a DSLR, long fluorescent light tube, handmade paper dimmer and white paper-faced foam board as a light reflector, I managed to shoot a series of images that introduce the development process and the bag functions. As I was still a beginner in RAW processing, I may have not taken full advantage of some prominent functions of Camera Raw, notably, noise reduction and white balance control. 

Personal History in Lighting: Part Five

This projection mapping piece which I consider as my first light installation,  was completed during a digital media design course. 2 animation sequences, created with photoshop, illustrator and after effects, are mapped to two 3D models, created with Autodesk Maya, and projected onto the actual objects that I made the 3D models from. 

Yuri Endo 2011

Although the chosen objects had relatively simple shapes and supposed to be easy to map, I failed to tweak the 3D models in precise measurement and that caused some light-leaks as well as image distortion. In addition, the colors appeared to be somehow faded out over the process of importing the original animation to Autodesk Maya which unfortunately I also couldn't manage to restore even with manipulating the color contrast options in the projector.   

Personal History in Lighting: Part Four

These five sets of LED bedroom lights, The Moody Clan, were completed over the course of a production design course at my first year of design studies.  

Yuri Endo 2010

Each set is constructed with a 10cm x 10cm acrylic square box with a sheet of flexible light strips with 3 LED inside and accompanied by a sheet of interchangeable colored polycarbonate filter (Red, Yellow, Orange, Green and Blue).

Yuri Endo 2011


As seen in the stop-motion video above, the colored filters supposed to enable users applying various ambient effects to their bedrooms depending on their mood. Nonetheless, having been using the final products myself, I realized that both acrylic box and the filters needed to be either sandblasted or their color density should be adjusted lower in order to function as I initially designed. Consequently, when a color filter is inserted, I can barely see things around ( especially blue and green) or lights up the room as if it were the infamous red light district ( red, yellow and orange). On the other hand, when used without any filters, it does serve as a bedroom light yet does not create a favorable ambience that I hoped to create. Additionally, the quality of the polycarbonate filters needs to be higher as they currently get scratched easily. 

Personal History in Lighting: Part Three

The second short film, About a Gummy Bear, was shot on 35 color film as a cinematography exercise at a film school in Prague. 

Yuri Endo 2005

For this project, with the help from my fellow classmates, I managed to multitask the principle roles except for acting and camera operation as I was not able to hold the camera which weigh over 15 kg for more than 10 minutes. During the process,  I learned how I should not multitask in the film production, however, more importantly significance of lighting in cinema and the playfulness of light and color. 

Yuri Endo + Elise Toledo + Eva Hausberger  2005

As seen in those production photos,  I used several types of color gels and studio lights for both indoor and outdoor shooting to create a surrealistic mise-en-scène where the colors were highly exaggerated.  Although as a film it was rather a flop, the whole experience worked as my benefit understanding the light and color relationship as well as the versatile visual effects that could be created by it. 

Personal History in Lighting: Part Two

Upon completion of my undergraduate studies, I attended two film courses at two different institutions in order to set my foot in the film industry. 

Yuri Endo 2004

This short film, Fascinado pela Capoeira, is the first short film that I made with a professional film camera. It was shot on 16mm black & white reversal film and features New York based professional Capoeiristas to explore the world of Capoeira, an afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, games, music, and dance. 

While the outdoor sequences were shot entirely with natural light, I used one large studio light (without  any filters or dimmers) for the indoor sequences in hopes of achieving  a highly theatrical  mise-en-scène. Thinking back, especially upon receiving unexpectedly good responses at the final screening, I was certain that I succeed in creating a very dramatic montage by taking advantage of available light sources and this experience drove me to extend my film studies further to the world of cinematography. (Nonetheless when I watched the film for the first time in over five years, I couldn't help but noticing how limited knowledge and experiences in the use of lights I had back then.)

Personal History in Lighting: Part One

In this second section of the STAGE ONE, while I simultaneously try out additional experiments and in-depth researches, I would like to take a moment to review and analyze my own experiences in lighting to add further thoughts to my new project ideas.

A long story short, my interest in lights probably dates back to the first year of my undergraduate studies when I enrolled in a basic photography course. 

Yuri Endo 2000-2008

On the first day of this photography course, I neither had an idea of how to maneuver the camera with no auto focus function, nor compositing subjects in shots. Though all images that I took at this stage of my life was under natural light, by running around the city day and night with the SLR and living in the school  darkroom for  three consecutive months, I came to understand the basic mechanism of camera overall,  the glee of manipulating the relationship between lights and optics.