Things that I'm excited about right now

Update [Mar. 25, 2010]

• The kichigai promotional site is up and running and can be found here.
  
• Another short film that I worked on last year, "Banki", is a nominee at the Tokyo Short Shorts Film Festival taking place later this spring!

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It's been a very enjoyable month thus far even if I haven't been lucky enough to win an Olympic medal. I've been busy meeting friends, both old and new, and working on a pretty large swath of projects that will hopefully make waves later in 2010.

Here are some of the big things that are making me smile:

Script. I'm currently working on the spec script for a film that we'll probably start filming in late March or April. I'm very stoked about this because we're exploring a new genre and looking to build on what we learned from the production of Little Tokyo (more info on that later).

Pre-production. Not exactly film-related, but in the prep-stages nonetheless, a couple of new web projects look like they may be getting off the ground soon. One is an information portal related to living in Japan and the other is a site about celebrity fashion. My role in both projects is mostly on the developer side which is probably hard for some of you to believe--especially regarding the fashion site.

Filming. Japan Booze Blind continues to grow within the Japan Eats network. The word 'network' is apt here as we've been experimenting with live tapings of the show, and the next one is scheduled for March 28th at 3pm (Tokyo time). Live tapings via Livestream are a blast because I can interact with the audience in (nearly) real-time. The show on the 28th will deal with my favorite spring pastime, hanami. This post over at Tokyo Terrace will give you a good idea of what we've been up to.

Post-production. A film that I worked on last fall, Kichigai (Japanese title: Wasted), is in post production now and will hopefully be screened at a film festival later in 2010. There's a website being developed to help promote the film, but I've been advised that it's not ready to go live, so I'll hold off on posting a link just yet.

Promotion.  We'll be hearing back next month about whether or not Little Tokyo will be screened at the 2010 Short Shorts Film Festival. Please keep your fingers crossed  for us. Another film that I had a leading role in, Banki, will also hopefully get screened. Fortunately (for me, anyway), Little Tokyo and Banki are not entered in the same category.

Of course, there's also the redesign of the Tokyo Swallows website to be excited about. That took quite a bit of hair-pulling and face-slapping (my own) to get under control, but I think that it was definitely worth it. There are still several things to get sorted out, but I think that we'll have a better feel for what we need to do once more content gets posted within the new framework of the site.


And as many of you know, I've jumped face-first into the world of social networking sites (SNS). Facebook, Mixi, Twitter, and Disqus to name a few. I've actually hooked this site up with Disqus, a service that aggregates the social aspects of several SNS platforms, so make sure to leave a comment at the end of this post and see how it all works. I'm very interested in seeing how it helps users keep track of the ongoing dialogue as it moves and changes across the web.

Anyway, one thing that I'm very grateful for is that I've been able to easily reconnect with a bunch of people that I didn't have any idea how to contact, and that includes both family and friends.

So those are some of the things that I've been thinking about, stressing over, and working on recently. Just need to stay motivated and keep working with the talented people around me. Hopefully I can keep up.

Things that I'm excited about right now

The Hitman

I played a hitman in an episode of Hanchou which aired on Monday nights on TBS in Japan. It's finished its' run now, but it was a reasonably popular drama about a team of police officers and detectives that dealt with the various n'er-do-wells that haunt the crowded confines of Tokyo.

The headliner of the series was Kuranosuke Sasaki, and he played the lead detective of the team.
In episode number 12, Michael Shorter was my name, and shooting mafia-related types hanging out in Tokyo was my game. But in the end I was rather easily apprehended by the cops. The featured guest of this episode was kabuki actor Kamejiro Ichikawa who played the role of Andy Matsuo.

The episode took several days to shoot, of course, and the longest of those days was spent out at a complex of warehouses in Chiba where the episode's climax occurs and the bad guy gets nabbed.

One of the highlights of the day was the BBQ that the crew set up for dinner. They brought out a very good variety of beef and pork cuts and had three separate grills going at the same time.

It was just what the doctor ordered as I had spent the previous two hours on set with a gun pointed at my nose.

There's a quick preview of episode 12 viewable here. If you go to that page, you should see a small, round, red button on the left side of the screen. Clicking that will open a player that will show you the very short trailer for the show.

And yes, that's me in the beard.

The Hitman

Big Bucks for Freelance Audio Transcription

I occasionally peruse the job ads. Just to see what kind of opportunities money is out there. I don't know about you, but I often find myself wondering about any differences that may exist between the published hours, responsibilities, wage, benefits, etc. and reality.

While cruising through Gaijinpot.com this morning, looking for interesting tidbits on nothing in particular, I noticed a job ad for audio transcription. After clicking the link, I found that the company in question, Urban Connections, a "language solutions" firm in Tokyo, was hoping to add more freelancers to its network of audio transcribers.

An audio transcriber, just to be clear, is anyone who puts what is being said on paper. What is being said can involve everything from the minutes of a meeting to an interview to governmental press conferences, and the typing might be done live (on site) or while listening to a recording of the proceedings.

Anyway, Urban Connections is looking for freelance transcribers who would have the option of working at home, and the published wage is 8,000 - 10,000 yen per hour (US$70+/hr) of audio transcription. They ask that applicants have some free transcription software, an internet connection, Skype (which is also free), and a transcriber's foot pedal (which can be purchased for between fifty one hundred dollars).

Wow! That's a lot of cash for typing. So I dug a little deeper.

I googled "Urban Connections, transcription" and was led directly to the company website. Sure enough, they do a lot of conference organization, translation, interpretation, and transcription. And they're looking for interns, by the way.

The first two sites returned in the Google search were part of the company's site. Number three, however, linked to a Metropolis interview with Urban Connections founder Larry Greenberg.

Summary of the interview:

"We rarely outsource transcription work for people to do at home."

"We pay by the hour, which starts at JY2500 for a qualified person."

And what about a highly-skilled transcriber who brings
more value to the job?

"A 70-word-per-minute typist who is very knowledgeable about current
events, for example, could expect JY3000 per hour."

Oops.

It looks like this is one of those rare cases where both the job ad (ie. false advertising) and the reality (ie. about one third the published wage for experienced transcribers) have been made public at the same time.

Either someone at Urban Connections is trying to bait a bunch of people into applying so that they can search for the proverbial diamond in the rough, or some staffer really goofed on the wage over at Gaijinpot.com when they posted the ad.

Big Bucks for Freelance Audio Transcription