Paul Leeming
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2006
- Messages
- 2,359
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 38
- Location
- Osaka, Japan
- Website
- www.visceralpsyche.com
I am very happy to announce that I have decided to move back to Japan to live again from March this year.
The last twelve months has been quite tumultuous, to say the least. “May you live in interesting times” has definitely been a quote I have been reminded of a lot recently!
It has also given me plenty of time to hone in on, and remind myself of, precisely what it is I want to do in this business we call movie making; namely to write and direct movies.
“An American Piano”, the recent short film I had the pleasure of directing, really reminded me of why I started this journey back in 2005. What an amazing experience! I am now in post-production on the film and can honestly say that it's going to be such a powerful, emotional movie to watch when it's complete.
I have many people to thank for the film, but two people in particular have been instrumental in helping me decide on the reasons for moving back to Japan to take my writing and directing career to the next level.
Hamish Downie, whom I met so late into my first stay in Japan, has been such a great person to work with on the very core of filmmaking – screenplays. We just clicked when we met and both of us get each other when it comes to writing and generating ideas. It's such a blast working together and I really want that to continue, so I'm greatly looking forward to being able to do so again!
The other person (well, two really), is Rina Akamine and her husband Yoshi Masuda, parents of the wonderful Leon, the young actress starring in “An American Piano” and agents for actor Lou Oshiba. They have helped me realise that I am capable of directing a film in Japan, in Japanese as a primary language, opening a lot of potential doors in the future (though of course I have to thank Eiko Mizuno Gray for helping out in that regard as my wonderful translator – you rock!).
I have greatly missed Japan since leaving last year, and spending quite some time back there in recent months just reinforced that feeling.
I do, however, want to go back there with a renewed focus on writing and directing, as opposed to camera work. I have been promising myself for years that I would write some feature screenplays to get them out of my head and on paper, but lack of time and the craziness of staying afloat business wise after the great earthquake in 2011, along with the abortive move to the US, put a damper on it for too long. Not any more.
This year I have promised myself to write, write and write some more, until these stories in my head are finally down on paper like they need to be, so I can begin pushing towards my ultimate goal of directing a feature film from a position of owning the material.
In order to really give myself the stability to write without needing to worry about income each month, and also to immerse myself in the written language (of English) even more, I am thinking about making my primary employment that of English teacher again, as I was in 2007.
Naturally, I want to keep enough flexibility in that line of work to enable me to do film jobs that arise, so it's going to be a balancing act. Of course, if a couple of major jobs eventuate, those will easily cover my income for some time and allow me even more time to write, but what I don't want to do is get into another situation where I'm living job to job or relying on others to make ends meet. That's just too stressful and was one of the major reasons for not being able to relax and be creative in the writing process. Stability is therefore the primary motivator for 2013.
Specifically, while I plan to do the same jobs as I did before I left when it comes to camera work etc, my main goal is to have three to four feature screenplays (with varying budgets in mind) done by the end of Q2 or Q3 this year. I will then begin shopping them around and preparing them for production in order to finally become a feature film director by the end of 2014.
I'm really looking forward to returning to the country I have been calling my spiritual home of late, and I am most of all glad that I can be close to all of my friends in Japan again. I've missed you all dearly and it will be wonderful to finally be back with you again after a long break. See you all again soon, and gambarimasu for a successful 2013!
Cheers,
Paul
The last twelve months has been quite tumultuous, to say the least. “May you live in interesting times” has definitely been a quote I have been reminded of a lot recently!
It has also given me plenty of time to hone in on, and remind myself of, precisely what it is I want to do in this business we call movie making; namely to write and direct movies.
“An American Piano”, the recent short film I had the pleasure of directing, really reminded me of why I started this journey back in 2005. What an amazing experience! I am now in post-production on the film and can honestly say that it's going to be such a powerful, emotional movie to watch when it's complete.
I have many people to thank for the film, but two people in particular have been instrumental in helping me decide on the reasons for moving back to Japan to take my writing and directing career to the next level.
Hamish Downie, whom I met so late into my first stay in Japan, has been such a great person to work with on the very core of filmmaking – screenplays. We just clicked when we met and both of us get each other when it comes to writing and generating ideas. It's such a blast working together and I really want that to continue, so I'm greatly looking forward to being able to do so again!
The other person (well, two really), is Rina Akamine and her husband Yoshi Masuda, parents of the wonderful Leon, the young actress starring in “An American Piano” and agents for actor Lou Oshiba. They have helped me realise that I am capable of directing a film in Japan, in Japanese as a primary language, opening a lot of potential doors in the future (though of course I have to thank Eiko Mizuno Gray for helping out in that regard as my wonderful translator – you rock!).
I have greatly missed Japan since leaving last year, and spending quite some time back there in recent months just reinforced that feeling.
I do, however, want to go back there with a renewed focus on writing and directing, as opposed to camera work. I have been promising myself for years that I would write some feature screenplays to get them out of my head and on paper, but lack of time and the craziness of staying afloat business wise after the great earthquake in 2011, along with the abortive move to the US, put a damper on it for too long. Not any more.
This year I have promised myself to write, write and write some more, until these stories in my head are finally down on paper like they need to be, so I can begin pushing towards my ultimate goal of directing a feature film from a position of owning the material.
In order to really give myself the stability to write without needing to worry about income each month, and also to immerse myself in the written language (of English) even more, I am thinking about making my primary employment that of English teacher again, as I was in 2007.
Naturally, I want to keep enough flexibility in that line of work to enable me to do film jobs that arise, so it's going to be a balancing act. Of course, if a couple of major jobs eventuate, those will easily cover my income for some time and allow me even more time to write, but what I don't want to do is get into another situation where I'm living job to job or relying on others to make ends meet. That's just too stressful and was one of the major reasons for not being able to relax and be creative in the writing process. Stability is therefore the primary motivator for 2013.
Specifically, while I plan to do the same jobs as I did before I left when it comes to camera work etc, my main goal is to have three to four feature screenplays (with varying budgets in mind) done by the end of Q2 or Q3 this year. I will then begin shopping them around and preparing them for production in order to finally become a feature film director by the end of 2014.
I'm really looking forward to returning to the country I have been calling my spiritual home of late, and I am most of all glad that I can be close to all of my friends in Japan again. I've missed you all dearly and it will be wonderful to finally be back with you again after a long break. See you all again soon, and gambarimasu for a successful 2013!
Cheers,
Paul
