Chapter Ninety-Five: Let’s Make a Movie

The group had rented out a barbecue restaurant in the city center. At gatherings where minors were present, the atmosphere was never likely to grow too heated; even the adults had only politely drunk a little beer before calling it enough. Before nine o’clock, the meal was over. Tsuyoshi Domoto and Rie Tomosaka hurried back to Tokyo overnight under the guidance of their managers, while most of the production staff chose to stay nearby, since they would be entering the set before four the next morning to begin preparations.

Once they stepped out of the barbecue restaurant, Yukihiko Tsutsumi asked, “Will Ye return to Tokyo tonight, or stay here?”

Ye Zhao did not answer at once. Instead, he waited for what came next. As expected, Tsutsumi went on, “You probably weren’t very satisfied with the drinks just now, were you? If you don’t mind, why don’t you join us for another round somewhere?”

“Us” referred to the screenwriter for the first episode, Masaki Fukazawa, and the assistant director, Kousaku Amamiya.

“Of course, no problem,” Ye Zhao said at once. “I’m still supposed to be bothering the crew tomorrow, so I might as well stay here tonight.”

So after sending Yuki Uemura off at once to book a hotel overnight, Ye Zhao did not need to take a taxi with the three of them. After a walk of about five minutes, they found a tiny little dining place by the roadside.

There were hardly any customers inside. The four of them took over a square low table set on the tatami floor and ordered shochu, a sashimi platter, and the shop’s simple assortment of snacks for drinking.

The first round was poured personally by the proprietress. She appeared to be about forty, a woman of considerable charm. Her long brown hair was parted to one side and fell over her right shoulder, while the hair on the other side was tucked behind her ear. From her face down to the line of her neck, her features were graceful and soft. As she poured, she held the neck of the flask in one hand and lightly supported the body of it with the other. Up close, one could see the fine lines around her eyes that not even foundation could conceal, betraying her true age.

“Let’s have the first toast,” Tsutsumi said, lifting his glass. The four of them touched glasses lightly and drained them. As the youngest of the group, Ye Zhao took the flask first and refilled everyone’s cups in turn.

After the first flask had been emptied, Masaki Fukazawa suddenly asked, “How is Tsutsumi-san’s film progressing?”

“The principal shooting has already wrapped,” Tsutsumi said, taking a sip of shochu. “Once these two episodes of the drama are finished, I’ll have to hurry back and start post-production editing. There’s still plenty to keep me busy.”

“Tsutsumi-san made a film?” Ye Zhao asked.

“If I remember right, it was a film called Goodbye, Japan!” Kousaku Amamiya recalled. “Around this time last year, Tsutsumi-san mentioned it in a tavern in Shin-Okubo.”

“You actually remembered that?” Tsutsumi said, extending his chopsticks toward the sashimi platter.

Ye Zhao was curious. “Tsutsumi-san, is there a big difference between making a film and making a television drama?”

“A difference?” Tsutsumi said, chewing on tuna as though delivering a deadpan joke. “Of course there is. The length is different.”

After swallowing the tuna, he added slowly, “The fact that films and television dramas differ in length is something even children know. All the finer distinctions that follow stem from that single, fundamental difference.”

“That’s right,” Fukazawa said, taking up the thread. “An episode of television drama is about fifty minutes long. If you take the standard ten-episode format, that gives you five hundred minutes. But a film runs only ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes, so it’s impossible to tell a story in the same way as a television drama. I’m not familiar with the techniques of shooting, but when it comes to scriptwriting, because the length is so much shorter, you have to abandon the television-style emphasis on relationships between characters, and the demands on the writer’s skill are much greater.”

“On that point,” Ye Zhao said, recalling something, “when I was taking classes at screenwriting school, the teacher said that television storytelling tends to be more delicate, relying on language to move the plot forward, whereas film storytelling has to be more concise, using light, sound, movement, even props—anything that might appear on screen—to bring out the drama. A good film never wastes a single shot.”

“More than that,” Amamiya added, “the screen in a cinema is so much wider than a television screen. Things like how refined the image is, whether the lighting is exactly right—once they’re transferred to the big screen, every last detail is laid bare. That’s why the demands on equipment and production staff are so high, and naturally the scale of investment is larger as well.”

“Take the Kindaichi project they’re shooting now, for example,” Tsutsumi said. “According to the schedule, the location work for the first episode is three and a half days, studio shooting is two days, and post-production editing is another two days. That kind of efficiency would never work for a film.”

What Tsutsumi was interested in was something else. “Ye, did you go to screenwriting school?”

“Because I’m very interested in that sort of thing.”

Noticing that Tsutsumi’s glass was empty, Ye Zhao reached for the flask, but this time Tsutsumi declined and poured for himself.

“Do the three of you think it’s annoying for an outsider to try to force his way into film and television?” he asked.

“Are you an idiot?” Tsutsumi rebuked him in a teasing tone. “People like us, and even the more highly trained talents, all started as outsiders learning from zero.”

“Ye, although the world speaks of genius, in the field of film and television, experience is what truly rules,” Fukazawa said more seriously. “Right now, the leaders in the industry are almost all people who rose after years of accumulated experience. It’s even fair to say that the more dazzling a genius seems at first glance, the more likely he is to disappear without a trace, because he lacks the necessary foundation. Especially in television, which is such a highly commercialized business, having the precise eye to grasp the pulse of what the market wants is the most important thing.”

Fukazawa’s expression grew even more serious. “How should I put it? Whether someone is acting on a whim or truly wants to delve deeply into this field, I would never oppose an inexperienced person entering the industry. Only by constantly bringing in fresh blood can the vitality of the industry be maintained. I’m a television writer, but if I had to use film as an example, the reason domestic cinema has fallen into its current condition has a lot to do with the loss of talent.”

Tsutsumi withdrew the chopsticks he had been extending toward the shrimp tempura and gave a somewhat subtle smile. “As it happens, I’m one of the people who lived through the last brilliance of domestic cinema, though that little burst of brilliance disappeared like foam in no time at all. So back then I resolved to become a film director. But in the end—” He seemed unable to find the right words, paused, and let out a sigh. “With the film market in such poor shape now, just getting an investor to sign off on a decent film is difficult, especially if it isn’t commercial.”

Fukazawa added his own view to Tsutsumi’s words. “In truth, the world of television may look fiercely competitive and harsh, but its tolerance for failure is very high. Even if one drama collapses, it’s rare to see actors and production staff thrown out with a red card. Compared with that, film is actually less forgiving of failure.”

“So, in order to achieve commercial success more quickly, the film industry adopted a great many short-sighted, impatient measures. In the short term they gave the market a slight recovery, but very quickly they exhausted the audience’s patience, and that is what made the film business decline further. Because it was declining, costs became even harder to recoup, so film companies began cutting production budgets and trimming staff, causing large numbers of practitioners to leave, until the industry fell into the vicious cycle it is trapped in now.”

...

The shochu kept emptying in that loose conversation, three flasks in succession, and because there was still filming the next day, this after-hours drinking session did not last too late. It ended around eleven o’clock.

After parting with Tsutsumi and the other two at the door of the little shop, Ye Zhao returned to the hotel where he was staying. The conversation he had had tonight with those three veterans of the film and television world kept replaying in his mind.

He had made so much preparation before this. It was impossible to say that he had no ambition to enter the world of film and television. If he wanted to gain a position of real weight in Japan’s entertainment world, writing songs for others and serving as a producer would never be enough; at most, that would limit his influence to the music industry alone.

Unlike songs, which could simply be borrowed and performed, he had far too little in the way of film and television. It was fair to say that he would have to begin from the beginning. After spending the day on set as an errand runner, Ye Zhao realized that trying to learn by observing in that way would amount to nothing more than joining the fun as an amateur.

If he wanted to avoid being controlled by others, he had to step beyond the identity of the one being produced and become the producer of others. He did not have the luxury of time to spend years, even more than a decade, as a subordinate to one director or another, only then beginning to direct on his own. If he wanted access to the most essential parts of the craft, there was nothing better than making a film himself.

“In that case, what should the first film be about...?”

The three singles he had already released, along with the single he had provided to WANDS, had brought in more than two hundred million yen in royalties. That would be enough to invest in a small-budget film. And when it came to small-budget films worth making, a certain title flashed through Ye Zhao’s mind.

...

“Miss Kawamoto, the tempo is a little slow when the chorus begins. Please watch that.”

“...”

“Very good. Let’s do it again.”

“...”

Inside the recording booth, Kazuyo Kawamoto was working through a trial recording of her debut single under the direction of the sound engineer. Standing before the console were not only the engineer but also Ye Zhao, wearing monitoring headphones of his own.

After deciding to make a film himself, Ye Zhao abandoned the idea of continuing to observe on set. Once that evening’s filming had ended the next day, he said his farewells to the crew and hurried back to Tokyo overnight.

After Kawamoto Kazuyo signed with Sony, her schedule could roughly be summed up as a straight line between music lessons, the recording studio, and her apartment. Sony had a dedicated music school under its banner. In addition to honing her vocal skills, she was also receiving instruction from a professional guitar teacher. Since she would debut with the image of a female singer who played guitar, her proficient playing would itself become a selling point.

As a top record company, Sony had several recording studios with first-rate equipment across Tokyo, including professional studios in the company building itself. But Kawamoto’s trial recording was not taking place inside Sony; it was in a Shibuya studio.

Only after the sound engineer announced a short break did Kazuyo Kawamoto come out of the booth. “Ye Zhao-san.”

“Compared with the first time I heard you in the studio, this is a remarkably fast improvement,” Ye Zhao encouraged her gently.

“Thank you.” Kawamoto smiled.

The sound engineer picked up the CD player and a disc. “This is the demo with the backing vocal effect you requested earlier, Ye Zhao-san.”

“It’s already done? Thank you very much.”

Ye Zhao took the CD.