American movies in Japan

[Aaron Gerow]

> While subtitling definitely is cheaper than dubbing, could it be that in a
> domestic film post-recording is cheaper (or easier?) than sync sound?

I wonder about this these days. Again, I wonder how much of it doesn't 
have to do more with conventions and political stances than pure 
economics. Many filmmakers today are shooting on very low budgets, but 
there are quite a few who insist on location sound like Suwa Nobuhiro and 
Kawase Naomi. Thus they use sound recordists with a background in 
documentary like Kikuchi Nobuyuki, who started out with Ogawa Shinsuke 
and has done films ranging from Angel Dust to M/Other, Eureka to Oinaru 
gen'ei. There's is in many ways a statement about reality and reveals 
once more the important influence of documentary on contemporary Japanese 
film. Given this experience in low budget documentary (not all of which, 
in the 1960s, was sync sound, by the way), one wonders if there is really 
that much of a difference in cost.

For more on sound in Japanese cinema, people should read Hashimoto 
Fumio's book with Ueno Koshi, Ee oto ya nai ka? (Little More, 1996). 
Hashimoto is one of Japanese cinema's great sound recordists who started 
out with Nikkatsu in the late 1950s (Michael, you should read this!) and 
is still active today (he did sound for Mohohan).

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171