Extra! Extra!

There is a Manga cartoon called My Darling is a Gaijin, that tells the tail of a marriage between a Japanese woman and an American Man and cultural hurdles they experience. It is so popular it is played on the trains that have small video screens above the doors. A Japanese woman wrote the cartoon based on her own real situation being married to an American. The story is now being produced into a feature length film and Jennifer and I were recently on set as extras in the "Gainjin" party scene. A friend asked if we wanted to do it (she works with the production agency) and we said yes.

We went to Tokyo for a filming session that was supposed to go from 2pm-4am. So we geared up, and went in. There were international people from all over, but we were suprisingly amoung the only Americans. The only critieria for being in the scence was to not, as it was put to me, "look like a Japanese". There were some people who made a living here out of being an extra and it was to easy to ask when they were going to realize that if they hadn't moved beyond an extra by this time it was time to find new work. The director was an extreme looking skinny Japanese guy shouting what he wanted (it was very Lost in Translation). We were told to act natural just don't speak Japanese and some Frenchie was all, "Can we speak French or does it have to be English only?" He asked in English.

We actually got to leave after a few hours and still got paid the same, so we win! It was a fun experience and Jennifer was in front of the camera for almost the entire scence so when the movie (sorry, "film") comes out it seems like it will be subtitled in English, so we will let everyone know.