TG97Elevators (born August 5, 1997) better known as Theo Gunawan, is a now-retired elevator filmer and enthusiast based in Bandung, Indonesia. Originally he filmed a lot of elevators in Jakarta.
History
TG97Elevators started his first YouTube channel with the username of his real name on April 3, 2012, and his first video was first uploaded on April which was a Minecraft tutorial video. His first elevator video was a Hyundai elevator at Mall Kelapa Gading, and his first escalator video was a GoldStar escalator recorded at the same shopping mall.
On June 2013, he began filming elevators with user Sumosoftinc in Central Park Mall, Central Park Residences, and APL Tower, Jakarta, and on July 2013, in WTC I and II, Plaza Indonesia and Grand Indonesia Shopping Town, and other places on August and December 2013. Later on December 15, 2013, he film elevators with IDLift3000 and Sumosoftinc in Pondok Indah Mall complex.
Temporary halt and return
On August 24, 2013, he decided to stop filming elevators due to personal reasons. He also stopped uploading new videos on his channel. Instead, he decided to make animated elevator videos and upload them on his new channel called TG97Animations, which was opened on August 25, 2013. On August 28, 2013, he uploaded his last elevator video as a farewell video, which was a Shanghai Mitsubishi elevator at Mall of Indonesia, Jakarta.
On November 20, 2013, he returned to film elevators and started uploading newer elevator videos on YouTube. One of his first video uploaded after his elevator filming hiatus was a Dong Yang hydraulic scenic elevator at Mall Pondok Indah 1, Jakarta.
Channel optimalization
On November 24, 2013, he opened a new channel for elevators called TG97Elevators. He is currently re-uploading all of his older videos, leaving his main channel as his own personal channel.
Hiatus
From July 27, 2014 until April 2015, he stopped filming elevators and uploading videos on YouTube as he had to focus for his exams in high school. During this period, there was no activity on his YouTube channel, but all of his videos were still available to watch.
Continuation of uploading videos
On April 16, 2015, after a long hiatus, he started filming elevators again (the first elevator video after the hiatus was a Fujita elevator modded from an Abtech elevator at Menteng Huis, Jakarta), and on June 2, 2015, he returned to YouTube and started uploading some of his past videos which were recorded before his hiatus. At the same date, he started using the word "Lift(s)" instead of "Elevator(s)" for all of his new uploads[1]. In addition, he recently started filming elevators along with sumosoftinc again for several times, mainly from April to May. On August 8, 2015, he moved to Bandung, West Java and currently attending college at Institut Teknologi Bandung (Bandung Institute of Technology), making him the first and only elevator filmer living in Bandung.
Semi hiatus
On January 16, 2017, he decided to temporarily stop filming elevators and upload new videos until at least May, as he was focusing on his college. However, he still publish elevator videos on a regular basis thanks to YouTube's schedueled video feature. Most of these published videos were recorded in 2016.
Permanent stop
On May 25, 2017, he has decided to stop filming elevators permanently due to several reasons; one of them is that he needs to stay focus on his college. Another reason is that his elevator addiction has greatly affected him and has becoming a major concern to his parents. As the result, he doesn't want to deal anymore with any elevator-related things, including uploading of new contents to his channel. However, his channel is still open today. This is because some videos (some of them are from the Penang series) which were recorded and uploaded prior to May 25, 2017 have been schedueled to air on the next certain days.
On May 30, 2017, he decided that he will delete both his elevator and elevator animation channels soon. At the time he decided to stop filming entirely, he has several backlog videos which haven't been uploaded to his channel, some of them are videos recorded from Penang (Malaysia) and Medan (Indonesia) in late December 2016. To prevent these videos from becoming a waste, he offers IDLift3000 to upload these videos to his channels instead, which he agreed to. A few videos are expected to be uploaded by Sumosoftinc as well. It is unknown when exactly he will close his channels permanently.
Video devices history
- BlackBerry 9320 mobile phone (2012 - 2014)
- Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 (2014-2016)
- Samsung Galaxy W (June 2014, temporary phone)
- Olympus digital camera (unknown model) (2013)
- Panasonic Lumix (unknown model) (2015)
- LG G4 smartphone (July 2016 to May 25, 2017)
Opening signatures (discontinued)
- Jakarta Fair 2013 Coupons (only at Gedung Pusat Niaga at JI Expo)
- BCA Flazz card
Trivia
- He is the second elevator filmer to film a Mitsubishi DOAS elevator, after Vincent561967 (Vincent Chong).
- He has filmed elevators in many cities in Indonesia, such as Cirebon, Semarang, Yogyakarta, and Solo.
- He is the first Indonesian elevator filmer who filmed an Otis Series 1 elevator, which was at Arthaloka Building in Jakarta in mid 2013.
- He have also filmed elevators with different people (usually Sumosoftinc) such as IDLift3000, Eiffel Vale., AudioAnimatronics1874, JC 95 Elevators, VR303 Elevators, and even Circleline28.
- On December 15, 2013, he joined with Sumosoftinc and IDLift3000 to film some elevators together at Pondok Indah Mall, Jakarta, making it the first ever "elevator trio" in Indonesia.
- On July 22, 2015, he joined with Sumosoftinc, VR303 Elevators (now VR303 REBORN) and JC 95 Elevators to film elevators together at JI Expo Jakarta, making it the first ever "elevator quad" in Indonesia.
- He also (but rarely) makes animated elevator videos and upload them on his other channel called TG97Animations.
- Like MelvinMan10, he is a very cautious person.
- However, his cautiousness are very different from MelvinMan10. While MelvinMan10 avoid filming elevators in office buildings, hospitals, newer hotels and residential buildings, he still filming these kind of buildings with high cautiousness, especially when security cameras are present.
- Like Orisa's Elevatours, he is also a railfan, especially former JR 205 series which are currently used on the KRL Commuter Line in the Jabodetabek region.
- Like NingSama, he is also a fan of destination dispatch elevators.
- Currently, he has the longest elevator video uploaded in the elevator community, which is an elevator and escalator tour in Surabaya, Indonesia. The video duration is 2 hours, 30 minutes and 1 second[2].
- He is one of the two South East Asian elevator filmers (The other elevator filmer is NingSama) to almost successfully filmed manually controlled elevator, but elevator was out of service that time. In his case, it was in Eastern and Oriental Hotel, Penang, Malaysia.
- His last elevator meetup happened in May 2017 with VR303 REBORN in Jakarta.
Gallery
