SOTETSU is a Japanese railway company operating entirely within Kanagawa Prefecture, which neighbors Tokyo, since 1917. It has been contributing to the wellbeing of local communities for over 100 years through railway operations and regional development efforts.

In March 2023, SOTETSU established a direct through service to central Tokyo by connecting with the Tokyu Line, which had been a long-awaited dream since its establishment.

Our mission was to promote the newly-opened link to families and potential families, showcase how it provides transfer-less access from the Kanagawa suburbs to downtown Tokyo, and present it as a place for families to settle down.

The direct connection opened in March, which, in Japan, is the season for graduation ceremonies, entrance ceremonies, and the start of new careers. It’s a season that the Japanese feel deeply about and associate with new beginnings.

Based on this insight, we decided to celebrate the story of children's growth and leaving the nest, which is a universal experience in life for many families. Our idea for the film draws from two perspectives relevant to the brand purpose for local life alongside the lines.

The first is to celebrate the beauty of ordinary family life: The Sotetsu Line isn’t for temporary events. Instead it’s a long-standing vital infrastructure that supports the everyday lives of its passengers, particularly families.

The second is to celebrate the newly-extended potential of those living along its lines: The direct connection to Tokyo expands their scope of activity and opens up new possibilities.

Our film follows the track of the father-daughter relationship evolving over twelve years as they commute to work and school on the same train on the Sotetsu Line. The entire story is set on a train and was filmed in one shot.

As the daughter grows, she explores new social values, ventures beyond her family circle, and becomes distant from her father. The ever-changing father-daughter relationship throughout the years is styled as a seamless time-lapse sequence of 50 lookalike actors with train's winding movements to express the swaying emotions of the two. It reflects how life goes by in a succession of ordinary moments like an uncut one-shot film.

In the final scene, the father prepares to get off at their usual station, except this time, the daughter will continue on to her new university in Tokyo. She is on the new connecting line that goes directly into Tokyo.

To portray the ever-changing relationship with a human touch and unique visual style, we focused on human-operated filming and tackled two ambitious challenges.

The first is to film a time-lapse sequence of 50 actors in one shot instead of filming the same pair numerous times. We struggled to find 24 lookalikes for each lead actor from over 1000 actor agencies. The 25 pairs underwent extensive practice to perform the choreographed sequence.

The second was to use a hand-powered train. We prepared 25 train car props and manually moved them to recreate a train’s winding movements and express the swaying emotions that the father and daughter experienced throughout the years. Outside the makeshift train, the lighting crew ran with light shades to recreate the play of light within the train.

Season:

The direct connection opened in March, which, in Japan, is the season for graduation and the start of new careers. It’s a season that the Japanese feel about and associate with new beginnings. In addition, this spring also marks a return to normalcy from the COVID-19. (In fact, three days before our launch, the long-standing mask requirement was discontinued in line with government policy.) That's why we celebrate the thrill of going out to new places.

Music:

We sampled and mashed up two Japanese songs and connected them into one track like a train. The first is "Family Scenery", a folk masterpiece with the theme of "family" released in 2002. The other is "On A Time Machine", a hip-hop masterpiece with the theme of "time" released in 2017. The train of songs from different eras with a pair of themes tells a timeless father-daughter story running through the years.