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.