American movies in Japan

[John Dougill]

Perhaps it should be pointed out that dubbed videos of foreign movies also
exist but they are admittedly much rarer than subtitling which is the norm.
It seems however there is a market for dubbed films - perhaps for those for
whom reading is troublesome or a distraction (such as the aged and visually
impared).  

on 6/6/02 10:58 AM, Aaron Gerow at gerow at ynu.ac.jp wrote:

>> 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
>