The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
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hadn't seen that much of it, for the audience, the city of Tokyo had become a major character in the show," adds showrunner J.T. Rogers (HBO's Oslo). For the first season, Poul and Rogers both felt like they'd been forced into shooting a lot of people in rooms. Aikawa and his team would have to be on top of their game to deliver locations that would fulfill the creative vision for the second season—and playing the game in Japan is not always the way it is played in other parts of the world. According to Aikawa, there are many locations in Japan where "money doesn't talk." THE JAPANESE WAY Everything in Japan is based on relationships, and while LMGI members in other parts of the world know how important it is to build a relationship and camaraderie with property owners, in Japan, it is the only way anything gets done. In terms of getting specific locations approved for shooting, the process begins and ends with the property owners, and it can take four, five or even six months to get a single location. "It's enormously labor- and time-intensive," explains Poul. "In many cases, it means going somewhere and bringing a little box of sweets and staying for at least one cup of tea." And if someone from Masa's team goes and creates that relationship, that person must remain the only point of contact for that location. "You can't show up and say, 'oh yeah, yesterday you talked to Joe. Well, I'm Dave, one of the other location scouts, and I'm going to handle things today,'" continues Poul, "that's not possible. You have to keep the continuity of the first contact." Another tricky element is that if the team scouts a location but opts not to use it, that can be viewed as an insult. "Masa and his team essentially live on a tightrope," says Rogers, "because you might want to use a place later on, but by simply not choosing it now, you've offended the owner." Gaining permissions and access for filming around the world is often more of a top-down process … working with film commissions, city offices and police, then residents. In Japan, everything is bottom up. You start with residents and, while you may get support from the top, ultimately, the decisions at a city level get made by the local police because as Poul explains, "Should anything go wrong, they're the ones whose necks are on the line." Japan also operates very differently from other countries when it comes to gaining actual control of an on-location set. Shutting down and "owning" a street or having traffic control just aren't things that happen there. Ultimately, if you are granted permission by the police, it's only a "street usage permission," which means that the police are aware of your presence and that you've proven the support of the location and its neighbors … but not that you control a street or location in any way, shape or form. American execs and creatives had to come to terms with the sheer size of the Japanese Location Department required Ayumi Tanida (center) with Tokyo skyline