Every great athelete has heaps of support in new film for Asia University via ADK Tokyo

Asia University has launched its first-ever movie campaign “Support is Sport!” via ADK Tokyo to increase the number of students applications for a new “Sports Hospitality” course starting 2016, in the Department of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business Administration.

VIEW THE SPOT

Asia University started in 1941 as Koa Senmon Gakko – Koa Professional School, with the underlying belief that education should be based on a spiritual closeness between teachers and students. The Department of Hospitality Management has taken on this belief and will open a new course on “Sports Hospitality” from April 2016.

The Sports Hospitality Course aims to provide a curriculum for those who support athletes and sports lovers. This course has been established in preparation for the year 2020, when the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo and demand for these human resources will increase.  It is aimed for the students to be fully prepared to assist the athletes and the sports-related community with the Japanese hospitality mind-set of “OMOTENASHI.” Asia University signed the partnership arrangement with 775 other universities and colleges to promote and reinforce the Olympic values toward the 2020 Games. This partnership will utilise the resources of “TOKYO 2020” and the universities to promote Olympic education, help keep Olympism at the heart of Japanese society and raise awareness of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020.

In a competition the athletes are always at the centre of attention. However, there is an enormous group of people supporting every athlete. To express the hospitality and service of which the university students will be trained for, Asia University created a movie to show the efforts of people supporting, featuring the managers of high school club activities.

One athlete and 10 managers compete in 11-on-11 table tennis, expressing the passion of managers, who are usually behind the scenes. They are seen competing as one with the athlete, making the same moves. With the help of the choreographer unit “Hidari,” the managers practiced the action for 2 weeks. Five sports events; football, baseball, table tennis, tennis, and basketball were filmed with a total of 29 athletes and managers, totalling 400 takes in just one day.

The most challenging scene was the sliding and catching for baseball. One athlete and 10 managers were falling down and getting up 16 times covered in sand. Thanks to all the hard work including 2000 strokes of table tennis, 200 layup shoots for basketball, the sincere passion of the supporting people were successfully and dynamically expressed. The film and the making-of can be seen at the special site.

Associate Professor, Dr. Fumito Yokoyama said, “In sport, the main focuses are the players.  But the truth is that people supporting sport contribute greatly to make the sport more interesting.  Through this film, we want people to not only focus on the roles, whether it is major or supporting, but also focus on the fact that the supporting people are actually participating in the sport with all their might. Through the recognition of this fact by the athlete, the audience and all those involved; we would like to spread the importance of supporting sport with a hospitality mind-set.

“Towards 2020, Japan will be more and more focused on sports and hospitality. Asia University will also strengthen education in sports hospitality and contribute to spreading the Japanese hospitality mind, “OMOTENASHI.”

Credits –

Executive Producer: Shunichi Takano