By Chris Betros

Executive Impact Aug. 23, 2010 - 05:12AM JST ( 1 )

TOKYO —

John Williams has been making films since he was 14. Growing up in Wales, Williams had little idea where his passion for filmmaking would take him. After studying French and German Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, he worked as a French teacher in North London for two years before moving to Nagoya in 1988 to teach English.

But he didn’t give up his interest in filmmaking and in 1999, he founded 100 Meter Films. Williams produced, wrote and directed eight short films and a documentary about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka before releasing his debut Japanese language feature, “Firefly Dreams” (2001). He was nominated for Best New Director by the Directors Guild of Japan for this film, which also won numerous international film awards.

He completed a second feature, “Starfish Hotel” in 2006, co-produced a documentary with Holland, wrote a third feature, and developed a slate of feature films for international co-production. In addition to managing 100 Meter Films, Williams teaches film-related subjects at Sophia University.

Japan Today editor Chris Betros visits Williams at his office in Tokyo to hear more.

How easy is it to make a film?

Anybody can get hold of a camera and some actors and make a film. But if you want it in theaters, on DVD or on the festival circuit, then it gets expensive. I went through that learning curve. Earlier, I made a film with my own money and pretty much bankrupted myself. The challenge is getting a distributor. Their business is often risky and so now, they often ask producers to bring money to the pot.

I suppose a lot of smaller films never get seen in theaters.

It is a multi-tiered business. There are the big international release films. Then there are domestic productions which rarely get released outside their own countries, although some of them are seen in festivals. A lot of the films you see at festivals are often subsidized by state funds but seldom getting picked up by distributors. Finally, you have the art-house films released in other countries on DVDs.

How difficult was it for you with your first major film, “Firefly Dreams?”

I was still in Nagoya at the time, but it’s actually quite hard to make films there. We had to cast the film in Tokyo and do all the post-production here, so we ended up coming here a lot. I asked about 20 distributors to come to a screening and two said they were interested and the film was eventually released theatrically.

What have you been working on recently?

Up until a year ago, we worked for METI, running a development scheme for Japanese producers. Every year, we would choose a number of projects initiated by Japanese producers that they wanted to do as co-productions. METI’s idea was to open up the Japanese film industry. We designed and ran the program and brought in experts to work with Japanese producers. Basically, that is all we did for three years.

Are co-productions difficult to manage?

A lot of countries subsidize their film industries, but Japan has virtually no public funding for films. So it’s very challenging to make a co-production between Japan and, say, Germany, which has good public funding. One of the METI projects we worked on was a German-Japanese co-production. The Japanese producer asked us to stay involved. In order to access public funding from a European country, you must have a Japanese director who is bankable enough for domestic audiences. I’d say there are only about five Japanese directors who could attract financing outside Japan.

What is the production quality like in Japan?

It’s low compared to other countries because the budgets are low. A low budget film in Europe is $2-3 million, whereas in Japan, a low budget film would be $200,000.

Is there a lot of talent in Japan?

I think so, but unfortunately, some of the most talented people don’t make films that regularly because it is a struggle to raise the money. 

How has the recession affected the industry in Japan?

Up until a few years ago, the video market was strong and lasted longer here than in other countries, so there was a lot of money from video sales and companies interested in films. About 10 years ago, around 400 Japanese films were being made a year. Then the recession hit and many mid-level distributors went bankrupt.

How is your company doing now?

We are doing OK but we want to get into more regular production. We are working with Marza, which is a new animation arm of Sega. They were setting up an animation studio and asked us to help their story development department. One of the things we do with them is the Story Circus competition. The idea is to produce feature-length CGI animated films, based on original stories, for global distribution. The competition invites original and entertaining stories for children and families with contemporary themes and positive messages, set in any culture or period.

Do you ever get contacted by overseas filmmakers looking for help?

All the time. When we doing the METI work, we would go every year to Cannes and other film festivals promoting Japanese films. A lot of individual filmmakers who have had some experience in Japan, have gone away, written a script and now they want to come back and are basically looking for a producer. They send us a script and ask us to help them find one. That is almost impossible because they are not very experienced, so Japanese financing bodies would never be interested.

I hear you are planning to direct your third major film.

Yes, it is called “Sado Tempest.” Pre-production starts in November and we will start filming next February. It’s a near future reworking of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” about a rock musician who falls foul of the government and gets exiled to Sado. I wrote the script. Like my first two films, it will also be all in Japanese. It will have a mini-theater run, and maybe a simultaneous Internet release.

Do you have any plans to do films in English or other languages besides Japanese?

One of the projects we have is a film set in Thailand which we are coproducing with a British producer. That will be mostly in English.

How have you changed as a filmmaker since “Firefly Dreams?”

When I made my first film, I was naïve and had a gut sense of what audiences might think. But it’s very different when you start showing it to people in a movie theater. Now, I am much more aware of what happens when a film is released, of what an audience is going to think about the film. 

What is your future goal?

We need to get into production on more substantial budget levels and make a film every two years, either a Japanese commercial film or one for the international market. The plan is to reach a level where we can sustain developing and producing $2-3 million films.

For more information, visit www.100meterfilms.com