The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

A Danish Journal of Film Studies 53
tutor in high school and then throughout college. My junior year of
college I studied in Kyoto.
There are special challenges in directing child actors. Did you use any particular
strategies in working with Riuichi Miyakawa and Sayaka Hatano?
First of all, I can't say this enough. These two kids are just so smart
that the usual challenges that you hear about didn't come up. With
Sayaka the only problem I had was that she didn't speak any
English. My Japanese isn't perfect but once I got the basic idea of the
scene and the emotion I wanted her to convey, she just got it. One or
two takes. Ryuichi was a slightly different case. He has an incredible
memory. I actually gave him very mechanical directions, like look at
the teacher for two seconds and then look down for three seconds. I
had to previsualize the timing exactly. Because he would do exactly
what I said. But I could also tell him things like look surprised. Not
that surprised. And he could dial these emotions up and down in
discernible degrees. He just has such an expressive face. But he
never really went over the top. Except once. The scene where his
mom comes back to school and he calls out her name in sort of a
whiny voice. I had to take a wild line that we recorded afterwards
and slip it in because every on-camera take was so whiny. Other
than that, however, he was always beautifully understated. Neither
of them had acted before. I think that's the main reason their performances
feel natural.
Were there special challenges involved with casting and with creating a
Japanese set in Los Angeles and Pasadena?
I couldn't take an ad out in the trades, which is standard procedure,
and find bilingual child actors. Adults were no problem. But my