Film Production Japanese Style, from Author Ben Bryant’s Hollywood memoir

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film production

house modestly called Perfect Marketing Company provides services for Japanese companies shooting in the U S. In 1979 George Braun, the owner, who is fluent in Japanese and his wife/partner Junko a lovely Japanese woman, hired me as First AD for a group of shoots. Here’s an excerpt from Circumstances Beyond My Control, Chapter 20: The Japanese.

… “the working style of the Japanese … is quite different from the American. Aside from the inherent formality of their behavior the main difference was the pecking order. Unlike the U S structure where the director is the ultimate boss, on a Japanese crew it’s the senior man; in this case their producer. On a later job when the director was a lad in his twenties the muscle was with the DP.

“If an American company was going to Japan to shoot a spot they would, most likely, send the director, a producer or production coordinator and a DP. In some rare cases maybe they would send an AD but that would be about it. Not so with them coming here. There were, in addition to producer, director and DP six or seven more guys: a gaffer, a camera assistant and several others about whose specific jobs I was never clear.

“Yet another difference: Production meetings. American: Producer, Director, AD and sometimes DP. Japanese: Everyone. George warned me about the first one and I still wasn’t ready for it. For starters ninety-five percent of the time the language was Japanese. You think I was lost in French and Italian?

Fuggedaboutit!

Click to get Circumstances Beyond My Control

… “But I sat there and stayed awake. After half an hour or so the Japanese DP spoke at some length to George who then asked me if we could get a Nike crane. I had learned their word for yes so I said, “Hai”. Several more minutes of back and forth and then George asked me the lens height for a Nike. I replied, “Nineteen feet.”

“The Q & A continued in this manner for quite a while and between each question and answer it seemed that an average of ten minutes elapsed and every Japanese person in the room was part of their conversation. The meeting finally ended and we scheduled a location scouting trip for the next morning.

… “As we rode around the city we Americans began to notice an unusual device in the hands of the Japanese camera assistant. It looked a bit like a smallish paperback book except it seemed to be metal and plugged into it was a tiny set of headphones.

Walkman

“It didn’t take long for us to learn what it was. Fully a year before this revolutionary gadget was introduced to the US we were looking at a Walkman TPS-L2, a 14 ounce, blue-and-silver, portable cassette player with chunky buttons, headphones and a leather case. It even had a second earphone jack so that two people could listen in at once.

“Needless to say it was proudly shared with all of us New Yorkers who were struck with wonderment and the constant question was, “Where can I get one?” The answer was, alas, Japan.

…  “The product shot – nearly every commercial has one at the end – required a nighttime NYC skyline as a backdrop. Our location was a small terrace off a midtown apartment on a high floor. We did the shoot and that was it. Job over. Not. When they saw the footage the next day they decided to redo the shot but for some reason we couldn’t get the location again.

“George knew about my penthouse so the entire Japanese army came up to have a look. After much discussion George told me it would be fine and asked how much we wanted as a location fee. I pointed to the AC who was bopping around the terrace to his private music and said, “I want that.”

“Thus I became the first person in the U S of A to own a Walkman. They had only given me one pair of headphones and there were two jacks so a week or so later I went to Harvey’s Audio on 46th Street to try and buy another pair. Well let me tell you, I drew a crowd in that place. Of course they didn’t have any phones with a stereo mini plug. There was no such animal in the country at the time but they sure did love that machine. I had trouble getting out of there.”

I still have that original Walkman. Maybe some day It’ll be worth some serious money.

Click to get Circumstances Beyond My Control

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