Foreigners Behind The Scenes In Japanese TV & Film

[Mulboyne]

Variety: Outsiders find success in Japanese biz
The Japanese film and TV biz has long been insular, even xenophobic, with local pics often showing outlanders in a negative light as loutish soldiers or brutish gangsters. Over the past decade, however, more gaijin (foreigners) have been making inroads in the local biz in a variety of capacities, from subtitlers, interpreters and sales agents to helmers, scripters and producers. In the process, they've made the Japanese entertainment market easier for outsiders to deal with -- and profit from. One of the leaders is Aussie Max Mannix, who co-scripted the award-winning Kiyoshi Kurosawa family drama "Tokyo Sonata" and helmed the set-in-Tokyo thriller "Rain Fall", distribbed in country by Sony. Another is Cellin Gluck, an American born and raised in Japan who helmed "Sideways", the Japanese-language remake of the hit Alexander Payne dramedy, with the backing of Fox and Fuji TV...One expert at bridging the gap between Japan and the rest of the world is Georgina Pope, an Aussie who has nearly two decades of experience easing the way for outlanders shooting everything from big-budget pics to musicvids in Japan. Head of production at Tokyo-based Twenty First City, which has been providing production and casting services to international clients since 1991, Pope recently worked on Isabel Coixet's 2009 Cannes competish entry "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo"...Japan has a rep for being an expensive and difficult location -- a rep Pope insists is no longer justified. "The costs in Tokyo are not high as you would expect; they're about the same as London or New York," Pope says. "Besides, you can negotiate the prices down"...Serving the 24/7 needs of foreign TV shoots is Richard Kipnis, who heads the Tokyo office of California-based production shingle Virgin Earth. In Japan since the early 1980s, the company recently moved to a new studio in central Tokyo..."We have a bit of a cowboy mentality," says Kipnis with a smile. "We'll bend the rules and do things that Japanese companies can't or won't do"...more...

[Mock Cockpit]

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Met Max a few times. This always makes me laugh.