Shooting a ¥0 Music Video in Japan, without speaking Japanese
An introduction into the underground Japanese noise music scene and guerrilla filmmaking
I came to Japan during the worst period possible, Christmas. “But… that’s the most wonderful time of the year” I hear you sing. Exactly, Christmas in Japan is like an American Sushi restaurant claiming to be the real thing. No matter how hard they try it’ll lack the little charms which make it authentic. Every shop plays ‘Last Christmas’ on repeat until you literally rip out your heart and give it to someone else. There’s only one Christmas market in Tokyo and it is overwhelmingly packed. By the time you’ve queued for the mulled wine it’s closed. Also video calling your family on Christmas day isn’t the same. They’re sitting by the fire next to the Christmas tree, and you’re lying on the floor next to the futon (the only ‘furniture’ I had). You can quickly forgive the Japanese though, considering the country is traditionally Shinto or Buddhist. Christmas in Japan is just a cute thing they wanted to try. KFC even cashed in and made it a tradition to get a Christmas day bucket with a date.
I’ve never been a stickler for traditions though, so after my work induction I searched online for music gigs to go to. Coincidentally, one of my favourite Japanese musicians happened to be playing that weekend. Melt Banana, an experimental-noise-rock band who plays fast enough and loud enough to make even veteran noise fan’s ears bleed. The gig was all day with several weird and noisy musicians playing. One guy played the defibrillator (a well-known percussion instrument), another simply screamed into a microphone and a few played with ‘real’ instruments like guitars and drums. Overall, a very enjoyable experience, par the subsequent ringing ears all night and into the next day.
The music finished and I approached Yasuko Onuki (the lead singer). She’s surprisingly shy off stage; I asked her if I could make a music video for her. She seemed happy and gave me her agent’s email address. I also talked to another band, Jailbird Y, they were a lot more enthusiastic and I ended up making a video for them instead. Mostly because Yasuko’s agent never replied and I needed to get my filmmaking fix again (my last music video was over 6 months ago).
Now the juicy technical planning details. I Googled long and hard and I still couldn’t find a site where people offer to work for free on amateur films (in the UK I’ve used Starnow and others). It didn’t look hopeful and I almost gave up. But as is so often the case in life, just as things seem impossible someone unknowingly appears with the answer. A colleague in my work told me about meetup.com and suggested I check it out for film events. I found some film related events going on and went down to a few to seek advice. They’re mostly crowded with Japanese actors trying to learn English, but amongst those thirsty Hollywood hopefuls there are a few very insightful people.
Someone told me about cinepu.com, it’s the go to place for Japanese independent filmmaking and theatre work. It looks a little daunting but with the help of Google translate you can make sense of it. Once you make an account, simply click ‘+ Article post’ on the top right and get writing. If you’re using a native translator you might have to keep turning it off and on again to refresh the translation (works with Twitter too). I wrote my ad with Google translate (I’m not sure how much sense it made though) and I provided the English underneath. Just make sure you put this “協力者として参加いただける方募集”. It means you are looking for people to help and you can’t offer payment. Also separate roles into different posts, it’s a little annoying but I tried a general one the first time and got no replies. For example, one post for the lead role, one for the art director, one asking for a camera operator and so on.
Now your email is full of applicants, you’ve got to find a place to audition them. I was living in Saitama so I usually met people in a café in Ikebukuro. Anywhere not too busy and a little spacious is fine. Making bilingual friends is also key. I met a guy in another gig (Nori) who offered to help. But when all else fails your old friend Google translate is there for you. With my art director and I having to meet several times to discuss the costume, her busy schedule plus mine was hard enough to organise, adding a translator friend to that equation was just impossible. Google translate meetings are remarkably fun though. Just make sure you can type fast otherwise it’s a little annoying waiting, also be patient in case they can’t. My art director and I had wonderfully weird conversations all through Google, from which fabric to use to the time she metamorphosed into a fish.
Once you’ve found your cast and crew location hunting is fairly easy in Japan. Most people live alone in one floor flats, if you’ve managed to charm your crew someone might offer their place. If not then Airbnb is always there and relatively inexpensive (even on an English teacher’s salary). My art director offered her flat and I used mine as well, the rest was shot outside. The liberating thing about Japan is even if your actor walks around wearing a costume made out of plastic bottles, no one will say anything.
The shoot went surprisingly smooth, considering almost everything went wrong. My costume designer hadn’t finished the suit/ made any progress at all. She’d been working nights several months in a row, in her theatre job, and even the night before. The transformation scene wasn’t until later so she kept designing the costume in true Japanese style, without sleep. Nori’s wife made a surprise visit from Germany so he couldn’t stay for the entire shoot. The assistant director (Ayaka) was the main translator though so it wasn’t an issue. However, she had to dip in and out of her remote-work. We didn’t have a smoke machine so just boiled glycerine in a pan. This went a little overboard and smoked out the entire apartment, causing us to a break to ventilate. Then the next day we’d planned a lot of outdoor scenes but Typhoon Hagibis was coming, Japan’s biggest ever typhoon. Shota (DOP) had a ground breaking idea to us an umbrella and solved that issue. In the end, we filmed everything and even finished early on the first day. Also with all the trains being cancelled the next day because of the typhoon I got an extra day off work.
To summarise, try to avoid arriving in Japan during Christmas if you’re planning a long term stay. Go to Meetup events to engage with fellow filmmakers, small live houses are a good place to socialise and use cinepu.com to find your Japanese cast and crew. Be ready to improvise, things will go wrong, and don’t let anyone tell you collecting other people’s plastic bottles for 6 months (making your flat look like a recycling centre) for a music video is a bad life choice.
Here’s the video if you’re interested, I’ll let you be the judge if I created an authentic experience or another Christmas in Japan.
