The night we stayed in Onomichi we stayed in a very beautiful traditional Ryokan – if you need a good reccomendation it was Nishiyama-B

So I took the opportunity to record all of the doors, as we needed them for the film…

The front entrance door

Interior Shoji doors:

Interior Fusuma doors:

The windows were interesting – the glass was held in without any putty and rattled very nicely so along with opens and closes I also did a few careful recordings of rattles & shakes…

I also recorded some footsteps & movement on the beautiful Tatami floors – not to actually use but as a reference for our foley team

I also recorded some footsteps and movement on the wood floors too, which had some beautiful creaks

Meals were included in our stay at Nishiyama and they were fantastic – this was breakfast! Oishi!!

With regards to foley, it is historically interesting that footsteps/foley were often used as a warning device in Japan. For example all of the grounds surrounding the Imperial Palace in Tokyo are covered in a fine crunchy gravel – it is impossible to take a single step without making quite a lot of sound and this is a deliberate feature of the Palace, so that back in the day no one could sneak in without being detected by guards. I also read of a temple that had famously creaky floorboards – known as a Nightingale floor or uguisubari for the very same reason: “Dry boards naturally creak under pressure, but these floors were designed so that the flooring nails rubbed against a jacket or clamp, causing chirping noises” – there is a lot more info along with examples here

Suspect I’ll have to visit one of these next time I visit Kyoto:

Daikaku-ji temple in Kyoto.
Ninomura Palace in Nijo Castle in Kyoto.
Chio-in temple in Kyoto.
Toji-in temple in Kyoto.