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Tokyo Aglow

Tokyo Aglow tours the Japanese capital by road and rail. Whereas Aerial Arterial (the first installment) explores the edifices of the city from elevated perches, Tokyo Aglow captures the city from the blacktop.

The automated Yurikamome flows through Odaiba and arrives downtown. A taxi whips to converging clusters of crowds in Shibuya. Scores surge, stream and swarm, tangle and scramble. Patterns of people, probabilities and periodicities, play. Weaving and knotting, the masses rhythmically engage with the machinery of modern life.

Koto inspired chords underpin the music of the piano. Trombone, trumpet and violin map to the patterns recurrent and emergent. Crosswalk chimes, chirps and cuckoos echo into the night.

  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Time-lapse, experimental, Non-narrative
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 36 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 6, 2016
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Japan
  • Shooting Format:
    Canon 5D Mark III, Sony A7s
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.40
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Timelapse Film Festivals
    Santa Monica, CA
    United States
    August 13, 2016
    World Premiere
    Best-In-Show
Director Biography

JUSTIN TIERNEY is a time-lapse filmmaker and classically trained composer of concert and film music.

His music was declared “superb, robust, and grand" by the Boston Globe, who described how his “dark-hued music had polished, ominous richness… and sound-worlds that were cogent and immediate.”

His most recent project, At the Conflux, combines time-lapse images and original music in a film that explores the rhythm of Japanese cityscapes. Tierney holds graduate degrees from Yale, and Tufts, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Duke University.

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Director Statement

I compose music and create time-lapse films. Sometimes I do both at the same time.