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Go Go Go: Japan via RV | Full Film + Photo Gallery

By: Downdays November 02, 2020

"A simple story about friends traveling the Japanese countryside via RV," Go Go Go clocks in at under five minutes long. Yet in this brief time frame, it packs in the emotions of a much longer project. Must be the Super 8 footage: there's just something about film that pleases the soul.

Go Go Go | Full Film (Vimeo)

Featuring Mike Henitiuk and Callum Pettit and shot by Alex Biel, Go Go Go isn't your typical ski porn. But it is a heartwarming glimpse of the good times to be had with an RV, a few buddies, and a few weeks to spare in Japan. Since the Go Go Go viewing experience is a short one, we asked Mike to share the following photo gallery with a few more stories from their trip.

Click the arrows or swipe to view the gallery.

We pulled the RV into Hakuba, a bit groggy from lack of sleep from the long travel day. The sun was shining so it only made sense to head into the alpine, to the mountain range they coined the Japanese Alps. You take three chairlifts up to around 2000m, throw on your skins and start walking up the ridgeline skin track. With 360-degree views of dramatic spine walls, these mountains were living up to their name.

We spent about a week cruising around Hakuba. Without much prior research on parking the RV, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to find free overnight camping. We would rotate between overflow ski hill lots or onsens. We didn’t have a shower on board so we would hit the onsens every other day after riding, adopting the Japanese culture of the after-ski soak.

Views from the camper in Hakuba.

Our camera equipment consisted of two different Super 8 film cameras and a handful of point-and shoot-disposables. We had no idea what footage we got till a month after the trip finished. Seeing the film for the first time was one of the best feelings ever.

We used a mix of chairlift assist access as well as ski touring throughout the trip. There's something special about walking through a Japanese forest. After spending two weeks with four dudes in a tiny RV, the single-seater chairlift at Seki Onsen was a treat.

We all shared the driving responsibilities. Driving on the wrong side of the road for us made for some funny moments. The locals seemed to give us a wide berth when we passed. They saw us coming from miles away!

Here’s Mike doing a classic Japanese powder turn. Although Japan wasn’t having its best season to date, the powder is of the utmost quality when it does fall.

We had a mixed bag of weather throughout the trip. When sunny days do come along in Japan, you must take full advantage and get yourself into the alpine. Here’s Mike on one of those days.

Aga Iwanicka did the illustrations in post production. “It was a very intuitive process," she says. "I watched the movie and imagined where there could be extra motion, noted down the time & sketched the frame and idea right away. Mike trusted my skill & after discussing the general guidelines I was free to improvise. The process started in a notebook, because every good project should start with a pencil and paper."

Cal blasting an air in the Hakuba alpine, I think he can see the RV from there, sitting in the parking lot waiting for us with a fridge stocked with ice-cold beers and candy from 7/11.