The shadows in Miharashi Hills Town, where I live, often cast intriguing patterns on the streets. I find myself captivated by their ever-changing shapes. In summer, as the sun shines brightly, the shadows deepen, creating a vivid contrast. Each silhouette possesses its own uniqueness, as if harboring the town’s secrets. Every morning, I walk my dog and observe these shadows. I’ve long wanted to create a film centered around them.

Using LiDAR—a laser scanner mounted on an iPad—I scanned the streets of Miharashi Hills Town. The scanned shadows include those of houses, poles, trees, and vinyl greenhouses projected onto the asphalt-paved streets. More precisely, the surfaces of the streets were scanned, and the data collected were transformed into 3D models with shadow textures. Once they became 3D models, I could move a camera more freely within them. As I walked along the street, holding the iPad, LiDAR measured objects up to 5 meters ahead. This explains why the boundaries between light and dark sections appear like torn edges of paper. The jaggy edges show the scanning process. The accompanying sounds were recorded in the town: residents’ conversations and the chorus of cicadas during summer.
Miharashi Hills Town, a suburb of the northern Japanese city of Yamagata, was once predominantly vineyards on a hill. Housing development began in 2001, transforming it into a quiet residential area with abundant greenery and a few remaining vineyards.