Emerald-colored sea and white beach... This is the sort of view you might expect from a tropical island... but no - it's Japan.

Kagoshima is a region at the south end of the Kyushu island. To promote the region, the local government has been releasing beautiful footage of the region.

In their most recent installation, the production team used a 4K camera and a drone to get aerial shots of six isolated islands around Kagoshima.

One of the good things about using a drone to capture a video is that you get to shoot things that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.

An accompanying site that tells you things about the islands (available in English)

Do check out the special site "BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF KAGOSHIMA" as well. The site introduces the places where the video was shot.

Interview with the creator

We've got hold of Yuki Eikawa, a videographer who was involved with this project.

What has led you to doing this project?

There are many great regional assets in Kagoshima's isolated islands - comparable to Hawaii. However, it was not widely recognized. I think the ever-changing landscape of each island has an unparalleled appeal, yet it was not possible to show that. With drone becoming widely available, I thought this landscape can now be captured - so this project kicked off.

During the shoot

Just when the shooting began, an incident occurred where an unidentified drone flown over the Japanese parliament. So we were concerned that people might complain about us flying a drone. However, locals were positively curious as they came and watched us do the shooting, saying "wow this (drone) is what people's talking about". After the video was released, we were relieved that we hardly received negative comments - instead we received comments like "this is how you use the drones".

Fighting the weather

This year, we had a lot more rain than usual, and we didn't have a lot of days in which to shoot under fine weather. Because we wanted to release the movie just in time for summer, we were under a very tight schedule.

Message from the creator

The video shows special places that even some locals are unaware of. We hope the video will reach a lot of people.

And here is the fantastic aerial footage of the beautiful sites of Kagoshima.

If you liked what you see, we thoroughly recommend you go and see it for yourself if you can.