Abstract
Research on TV Producers NEO ＜Attachment to the Locality＞ is a series portraying “earthly stars” whose luster does not fade even now at the production sites of local broadcasters. The third installment of the series features Takao Ito, aged 69, who was born to a farming family in Akita Prefecture in 1950. He joined NHK in 1970, and, after working at Production Engineering Department in Tokyo and Akita Station back home, was assigned to the visual production division (former filming division) of the Production Engineering Department in Tokyo in 1985. Ito’s appointment attracted attention as he was the first NHK engineer to join the former filming division that had a long tradition of film shooting, where Ito made a series of large-scale programs involving overseas location shooting such as NHK Special: shakai shugi no 20 seiki [The 20th century of socialism] (1990) and Berurin bijutsukan [Berlin State Museums] (1991). However, he made an about-turn; in 1991 Ito moved to Sendai Station at his own wish and started dedicating to shooting and producing programs that depict people deeply rooted in the soil of Tohoku (Northeast Japan) in farming, mountain, and fishing villages. Consequently, a great number of programs were made during his 28 years in Tohoku including documentaries for NHK Special series: Masayo Baachan-no tenchi: hayachine no fumoto ni ikite [Gramma Masayo’s universe: living at the foot of Mt. Hayachine] (1991), Yuki no bohyo: Okuaizu sousou-no fukei [Tombstones in the snow: in funeral scenery in Okuaizu] (1993), Igune: Yashikirin ga hagukumu denen no shiki [Igune: four seasons of the countryside fostered by homestead woods] (2002), Isana ga mata fuku hi: Kaze yoseru shuuraku ni ikiru [The day southeast wind blows again: living in a windy district] (2012, The Age of Regionalism Video Festival Grand-Prix winner). Among them, Isana stories became a series depicting people’s lives in Sendai City’s Arahama district—a traditional fishing and farming community, spanning over an eight episodes covering before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake until last year, which was highly acclaimed as a video chronicle documenting the residents’ struggle to live each day to the fullest after the tsunami disaster. Why has Ito been attached to Tohoku—his home region—so much and trying to document the area? The first installment explores how he reached such a frame of mind by analyzing his programs and based on interviews with him as well as his professional acquaintances. *Takao Ito currently works as a senior staff member at Sendai Branch of NHK Technologies, Inc.
