JAPENESE AMERICANS MOVIE One of the most memorable experiences I have ever had occurred recently. To be exact the dates were May 4th, 23rd and 24th, 2010. The events surrounding these dates was the filming of a miniseries made for Japanese television by the Tokyo Broadcasting System, and was shown in Japan later that Fall. The title of the miniseries was called Japanese Americans, which was shown for two hours a night, on five consecutive nights. There was also three one hour segments advertising the film and telling about how it was made. These segments were shown one hour per week prior to the actual story. The theme of the film was the story of the Japanese American citizens who were living in the United States at the time Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941. The United States considered all Japanese American citizens potential enemies of our country and placed them in internment camps. Many of these Japanese families lost their businesses and or property even though they were U. S. citizens and in most cases were actually born in this country. HOW WE GOT INVOLVED Sometime in January of 2010 our Ritzville Classic Car Club received an email from the Chamber of Commerce at Palouse, Washington, regarding the filming of the Japanese Americans. The email was at the request of the Tokyo Broadcasting System telling of their need for cars and trucks from the late 1930s to the early 1940s to be used in their film production. As a member of the Ritzville Classic Car Club I received this same email. I answered it by sending a short written statement why I thought our cars might be what they were looking for and sent several pictures. Initially I thought they may pick one or the other but not both. Actually I did not feel as though I had much of a chance for either car. To my surprise they chose both the coupe and sedan. I was given three tentative shooting dates in May and that started a long period of waiting to see if it would really happen, as I did not want to start counting eggs as chickens. DAY ONE On May 1st I received an email telling me to be on location about five miles east of Palouse, Washington, at 8:00 am on the morning of May 4th. This location is actually just across the Idaho border. Since it is about 100 miles from Ritzville and accessible entirely by windy back roads it meant that we had to leave Ritzville at 6:00 am. We arrived on time but were told that we would not be needed until 10:00 am, so we turned around and headed back into Palouse where we found a nice coffee shop. Finally the hour arrived and we returned to the location of the filming for that day. It turned out that we were still way early, and there was noting to do but wait. It was very cold that day and just staying warm was perhaps the biggest challenge. Since I had no exposure to this type of activity I was very interested to see exactly how a movie was really made. I had remembered to bring my camera so went to work taking as many pictures as I could. Most of the time I could not get the shots or camera angle I wanted because we had to stay well out of sight and behind the real camera. This also prevented me from getting real close-up shots too. The rest of the story will be mostly a collection of the photos and descriptions that I took on May 4th, 23rd and May 24th. Each scene was usually done once in rehearsal and then filmed twice. Sometimes a scene was not to the directors liking and had to be done over and over again until everyone got it right. In some cases the total was over 20 times. Other times they got it right the very first time. Many of the Japanese actors were evidently very famous in their own country. I was told that one older lady was as famous as our Merle Streep. For the most part all of the Japanese actors would not even look at us let alone talk to us. The exceptions were the Caucasian actors who played the part of the bad guys. Because of the amount of time spent waiting, I was able to get acquainted with most of the latter actors. A BRIEF INTERLUDE We had the misfortune of having the clutch go out on our coupe on the way home from the first appearance on May fourth. I had about two weeks to get it fixed and everything back together for the next shoot later in May. At that time I was not sure exactly what day it would be. I immediately made arrangements to take our coupe out to Jerry Talley, a friend of mine, who lives about ten miles out in the country. He recently retired as transportation superintendent from our local school bus garage. Jerry has kept all of the school buses going for about thirty years and is an excellent mechanic. He is also very knowledgeable on old cars. The first order of business was finding all the right parts. I called my old friend Dave Tacheny in Minnesota who specializes in 1937 and 1938 Buick cars and parts. He is the same man we bought our 1938 Buick sedan from in 1996. Dave had everything except the gaskets, which I was able to make from gasket material. It turned out that once we got it apart (the disassembly involved dropping the transmission, rear end, rear springs and shock absorbers, etc.) we found that a spacer washer/seal was missing between the back of the bell housing and the front of the transmission. I also found that several other parts were badly worn and needed replacing. It took over a week for the parts to arrive, which put us on a rather tight schedule to get everything put back together. Further complicating matters was the fact that the clutch disc was the right size but the spline was not. It was for the big series. We drilled the rivets out and Jerry turned new ones on his lathe. I should point out that Jerry is an accomplished machinists as well, having two vertical mills, lathe and various other hand and power tools and years of experience. Jerry ended up doing a lot of machine work to get everything back together. We actually ended up with about three days to spare. A brief road test proved satisfactory and we were now ready for the next call. DAY TWO I received an email from the producer telling me that our sedan was needed on May 23rd. We were told to arrive at 11:00 am and be ready to stand by. We arrived on time and did indeed stand by….for the next four hours. It turned out that our sedan was used by the FBI in the movie. The FBI sends two agents out to the Japanese farm to arrest a Japanese agitator who is telling his kinsmen that they should resist and not go to the internment camps. I was not able to get many pictures at all and certainly no good pictures, as I was told not to take any more pictures. The arrest scene was filmed many times and from a variety of angles. Most of these scenes included complete audio as well. Much time was spent waiting for lighting conditions to be just right. One of the last scenes to be shot on day two involved the camera being placed inside my car. It was propped up on a box covered with moving blankets. The cameraman had to kneel down on the floor of the front seat, while filming the two FBI agents interrogating the Japanese agitator in the back seat. Evidently the scene was supposed to be at night, so a Mylar-like film was placed over all but the front windows. You could not see inside but you could see outside. It looked like it was dark outside. I had to drive the car for about two miles while the cameraman filmed the scene. We turned around and they continued filming all the way back to the old farm house. By the time our last scene was finished it was 7:30 pm. We could have stayed for a wonderful catered dinner that was served to everyone, but I wanted to get started for home as the daylight was quickly turning to darkness. As it was, we did not arrive home until 10 pm. The old bulb and reflector lighting system is not nearly as good as the modern sealed beam headlights. Our route was entirely on secondary roads that ran through deer country. Hitting a deer was not on my agenda of things to do on the way home, so the darker it got, the slower I drove. The return trip was accomplished without hitting anything. DAY THREE We again brought the coupe to the filming location the following day, May 24th. The new clutch assembly worked to perfection. The coupe was a complete restoration about ten years ago and is a much easier car to drive long distances over poor roads. We were told we would need to be on location by 11:00 am and we were right on time. Shortly after arriving we were served one of their famous catered Japanese lunches. The chef told us that he brings the food all the way from Seattle in a special van and makes two round-trips a day. Right after lunch I was asked to find the wardrobe truck and get outfitted to play “an extra.” I was dressed in period clothing from the waist up. I don’t know how authentic the outfit was, as they could not find clothing or a hat big enough to fit me. I think I was in about four or five partial scenes. Each of the partial scenes will later be edited into one complete scene. One scene we only had to do twice, while others were repeated many times. I am happy to report that I was not the problem. There were a number of other people in the scenes and one guy just could not remember his lines. He wanted to ad-lib all the time and this did not make the director very happy. After everyone got their parts right, a short break was announced. After a few minutes I looked back at my coupe and found a man sitting inside talking on his cell phone and playing with the knobs on the dash. He just happened to be the same guy who could not remember his lines. My opinion of him dropped to an all time low when I had to ask him to get out of our car. The last scene of the day, for me, was when the old International truck, the 1941 Plymouth sedan, my coupe and the 1937 Dodge sedan were filmed driving about a mile over a very dusty gravel road and up to the farmhouse. They wanted us to go about 40 miles an hour and stay close together. They had several cameras set up on high ladders out in the wheat field. One pointing one way and the other pointing the other. They were at about the half-way mark. Because of the dust I could not see the car in front of me and the guy behind me fell way back also because of the dust. They had us do it over at a much slower speed. This way it dramatically reduced the dust and it was “a take.” The sun was just setting in the West when we finished. After a fabulous dinner we headed for home with a lot of dollars in our pockets. We arrived home just before 11:00 pm. SOME FINAL THOUGHTS The days were long and tiring. Each day lasted about 14 hours from the time we left Ritzville until we returned home at night. Each day was very different and both Marilyn and I found them to be very interesting and fun. We met some very interesting people and were allowed to see first hand and close up what goes into the making of a movie. I suppose I was more impressed with the camera men, sound men and a vast assortment of other crew members that made up the behind-the-scenes of a movie production. They were all very hard working and literally ran from one place to another, often carrying heavy cameras, ladders, tripods and a vast array of other equipment. The experience was well worth the time and effort and I would do it all over again tomorrow.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:02:22 +0000
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