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X Japan Films 4 Music Videos in Heart of Hollywood (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
The X Japan rock group filmed four music videos from a transparent rooftop platform 50 feet (about 15 meters) over the center of Hollywood on Saturday. The video shoot lasted from 4 in the afternoon to a little past 10 in the evening, and featured fireworks, pyrotechnics, laser lights, three camera cranes, and at least two helicopters. The band performed two songs from its original lineup — "Rusty Nail" and "Endless Rain" — and two more recent songs, "I.V." and "Jade."
Guests from Japan and elsewhere took advantage of the rooftop perch at a nearby hostel, while people at local restaurants and Disney's Soda Fountain and Studio Store at the El Capitan Theatre enjoyed similar views. Actor Danny Masterson (That '70s Show) posted a photograph of himself from the platform itself. Most fans assembled below the platform near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, just below the Sephora store where fellow Japanese singer Hikaru Utada made her first 2009 American appearance.
Many fans held up handmade signs, and some held up X Japan plush figures and at least one Hello Kitty X Japan "yoshikitty" plush figure. Judging by the flags hoisted by the crowd, fans turned out from Japan, Brazil, and Mexico, in addition to the United States.
X Japan's most notable anime contributions were the songs in the X² music video collection and later X movie. The animation studio Madhouse adapted both productions from CLAMP's X manga. The surviving band members — Toshimitsu "Toshi" Deyama, Yoshiki Hayashi, Tomoaki "Pata" Ishizuka, and Hiroshi "Heath" Morie — reunited in 2007, ten years after they first disbanded and nine years after the death of guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto.
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Images © YSK Entertainment, Inc. 2010. All rights reserved. Photographer A. Delphine.
Photographs courtesy of BAM! Marketing, Publicity, & Promotions.
Update: More background information added.
Update 2: Actor Danny Masterson (That '70s Show) posted a photograph of himself from the platform itself.
Update 3: By ANN's estimate, the crowd was no larger than 1,000 people at any one time, although people moved in and out of the audience during the six-hour filming session.
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