Movie et al.

First things first. A cold seems to have invaded our home since early January and is here for the long term. Last week it seems each one of us missed a day of school or work or something. This week we are a little better but coughing, sneezing and sniffling are still the order of the day. On top of that, Robyn is in Beijing for the week. Already looking forward to the weekend.

Getting to the movie now, after just wrapping up a three day stint on set. We filmed two courtroom scenes. I was slated to be an MP that escorted the prisoners (including the star of the movie) out of the courtroom. Talk about face time! However the other guy and I were in those roles for about 1 minute before the director replaced us with two other fellows. Curse the director! Can't he just trust his casting people? So I became a courtroom person sitting in uniform behind the prosecutors. I believe I'll be in quite a few shots though.

As far as the shooting, it was pretty interesting. I think it would be hard to be an actor though. Each take took 2-3 rehearsals and then 1-2 official takes before it was satisfactory. Each scene might be filmed from 8-10 different camera angles so that means each scene would be created 40-50 times. This would all be for only a few minutes in the actual movie. Add to that a fair bit of time between each take to set up the cameras and lighting and props and each day can become quite long and boring. I've been asked back to be a jailer for a few more days. Not sure if I'll do it though; they'll have to talk to my agent.


A few interesting tidbits about the movie:
*We are shooting at TOHO studios, one of the bigger (the biggest?) studios in Japan. TOHO actually has their own chain of cinemas to distribute their movies. They also made the Godzilla movies, or at least I assume so since the above picture was from the front gate.
*The director, a big bear of a man even by U.S. standards, is from a famous family I hear. One of his forefather's picture is on the Japanese 10,000 yen bill.
*The movie is actually a true story but the main character wasn't executed in the end. He lived to write his memoirs and see them become a movie.

Take Two

Well, not quite yet. For the next three days I'm scheduled to go to the studios for filming. I'm not as much excited about these days though. First of all I found out I'm one of 45 foreigners that will be on set. I'm guessing I'll be more of a face in the crowd for these scenes. Secondly, now that I know it's wait, wait, wait, film, wait, wait, wait...I know that it gets a little boring. It's interesting to see for a couple days, but I think three days in a row will get a little long. Finally, they aren't even providing us lunch this time. The nerve.

I'll be sure to blog on the high/low lights.

Take One

So yesterday was my first day on the job at the studio. I was joined by two other foreigners, a Spainard and a Frenchman and we were to play the American soldiers. Can I say that I'm not surprised that the Frenchman was the complainer of the group? The casting company managers didn't do enough for us, it was too long and boring, the Japanese didn't respect us enough...blah, blah, blah.

They dressed us up in soldier uniforms complete with jackets, coats, gun belts, boots and leggings. I kept thinking that they were going to all this trouble to dress me up and then they were going to find out that I can't act. Either that or what kind of low-budget, fly-by-night outfit would employ me to act in their movie? After we got dressed was makeup. I didn't get any. Evidently I'm beautiful enough without it. Some got it and some got haircuts too. We were then taken to the studio to wait for the filming. Check that, we were taken to the door outside the studio to wait for the filming. We waited outside for much of the day. The "talent" would come in their private vans and be ushered inside the studio. When called into the studio I did the same thing all day: stand in the middle of the prison bus and hold my rifle. Stand up straight, look straight ahead and don't move my eyes (or anything) and don't make a sound. I also held on to a pole to show that the bus was moving (it wasn't).

I think this same scene was shot from 5-6 different camera angles because I did the same thing 5-6 different times. They served us breakfast and lunch and we wrapped up late afternoon. I'll definitely be in the movie if this scene is used; just not sure what part of me. Just some Army-issue-uniformed body part or my face? Not sure. I also had a helmet on which I was instructed to pull down very close to my eyes. Still, I'm sure they recognized the acting talent...

Cut! That's a wrap!

An Early Start

It's 5:10 AM on Friday and I'm off to the movie studios. A rush of late emails and phone calls has gotten me into a couple scenes being filmed today. I'm hoping for a prominent role of maybe 10 seconds and not a "Don't call us, we'll call you." I'll update more later.

My Fifteen Minutes...

...or more likely fifteen seconds of fame. I recieved an email from the casting company saying that the dates of filming on February 23, 24 and 25th are now fixed. I've gone from being a prison guard to being a medical soldier. Also intriguing is this line in the email I received: "I’ll send you an English Script of the scenes, #42 & 50 later." What exactly does this mean? Will I have a line(s)? This is all moving too fast for me. Maybe I better hire an agent and negotiate some better terms. My wife is just aflitter with excitement for me.

You'll see my current countdown is for the Tokyo marathon. Unfortunately due to recent achilles' tendon problems I won't be able to participate in this event. Hopefully I'll be able to do the 10k that is run at the same time. Since it has been posted in my countdown I'll leave it there but you can be sure that I'm going to change that to my acting debut as soon as the marathon is over.

A LITTLE BIT MORE INFORMATION
At first I thought the name of the movie was "I want to be Kai"; Kai being a common boy's name. However I've found out that kai = shellfish. So that's interesting. This movie was first made in 1958 and later adapted for television. Click here for more information.

Our Weekend

Click here for pictures from our weekend in Sapporo. It was actually the weekend before the official opening of the snow festival so they were still working on the sculptures. Still we got to see some that were quite big and impressive. Our favorites were the blue ice/snow building, the elephant sculpture, and the one with the famous world sites. They really didn't have many of the ice carvings done. I think the one that I took the picture of is Stonehenge. Maybe if you get really squinty it could be the heads on Easter Island. Maybe not.

Cole pounded a brick at the temple sculpture and then proceeded to carry it around until it "about froze my hands". He was sad to give it up, leaving it in a snowbank by the sidewalk. The kids were troopers (for awhile) walking around in the cold and snow. Robyn and Kaori each got a stylish new stocking cap.

Movie Update: I emailed the casting company back last week saying that I was interested in doing the movie. Then they sent me another email saying that although I hadn't replied, the movie people want to use me specifically for a prison guard, an actual role! So I sent two more emails saying that I was interested but they still haven't replied. ?!?