'One Night in Tokyo', Director & Composer, Joshua Woodstock & Topher Horn

0:10Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Thinking of Dreams Podcast, The Making of Stories. I'm your host, Joel Rabineer. Today, my guests are Joshua Woodstock and Topher Horn, who are writer-director and composer-producer respectively for an independent flick called One Night in Tokyo. The film, One Night in Tokyo, is about an American man who, after breaking up with his girlfriend, travels to Tokyo and finds an unexpected friend. The reason I wanted to have Joshua and Topher on the podcast is just to talk about the challenges from an independent filmmaker standpoint and how they were able to pull off so many things in the film that you will see. The film is available on various platforms, including Mubi and other VOD platforms. Do check it out. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Joshua and Topher for One Night in Tokyo. Awesome. Well, good to have you to talk about your film, One Night in Tokyo. Just to sort of give you a little bit my thought process, I just saw it. And for me, it's more about the process of the film that you guys shot in Tokyo.

1:16Jawad MirI mean, I have my own comments and stuff, which I will k… kinda keep it on the side. But, just to kinda get an idea of who you guys are first, w… your backgrounds, what do you guys do, in terms of your films and how you got into filmmaking. Let's start off with that, and then we can go and dive into the film.

1:38Guest 1Cool. Topher, you wanna start?

1:40Guest 2Yeah. I guess so. Sure. I met Josh, gosh, 15 years ago. We were playing in bands in Detroit back then, and we met to work on a compilation of those bands, that we eventually put out on vinyl and all that. And then Josh, you know, we kept in touch, and Josh hit me up a couple years later when he was making films, and we started, yeah, making films together. A few shorts, and then eventually this feature.

2:11Jawad MirGreat.

2:11Guest 1Yeah.

2:12Guest 2You wanna step in there, Josh?

2:13Guest 1Yeah. And, yeah, for me, I was doing a lot of... I always liked film a lot, but I was doing a lot of music. And I always intended on getting into film more, but I didn't think I had studied it enough, so I never wanted to release something or put something out that I didn't feel like was gonna be good. So I kind of, I waited a little bit. I did law school. I graduated from law school, and then right away, I kind of just jumped into... I said, "Oh, I wanna do film. If I don't do it now, I'm never gonna do it." And so I jumped into that, and then, joined the advertising world, where I was a producer and, you know, for TV commercials, directed some commercials, and shot commercials as a cinematographer as well. And so that really got me into it, and then finally I just kinda made the leap where I was like, "Oh, I wanna be making my own films." And I kind of always assumed that people would, you know, if I did enough commercials, that people would just come to me and say, "Oh, yeah, you wanna do a movie?" But nobody ever did that. So I was like, "Okay, I gotta write and write my own movies and do it myself, basically."

3:17Jawad MirRight. So what was the catalyst with One Night in Tokyo? What inspired you to do a story of that nature, in Tokyo, and with the story of sort of wrapping up, spanning around one night?

3:36Guest 1So yeah, 'cause that's interesting, 'cause originally I was planning on just taking a trip to Japan. I lived there for six years, and so I've, you know, I'm familiar with it, and I just thought, "Oh, I'm gonna go see some of my friends," and I was gonna take, like, a two-week trip there. My wife was actually traveling to India, and, she had a really long layover in Korea. And I just… when she was saying like, "Oh, what should I do for, like, eight hours in Korea?" I just, my first thought was like, "Oh, that would be a cool movie of somebody who has, like, a long layover or something." So that's kind of the catalyst for that. And originally, you know, I was thinking, "Oh, maybe it'll be a cool short film." But when I wrote it out, I said, "Oh, I'm skipping the whole middle section of the movie. There's no point in doing this." So I was like, "Cool, I gotta do a feature." And so I, you know, I gave a call to Topher, who, you know, we've been partners on, all my films for the last, you know, what, six years, seven, eight, whatever it is. And I said, "Is it crazy that I wanna do this as a feature?" And then he's like, "No, let's do it," you know?

4:37Guest 1So we just kinda jumped into it that way.

4:41Jawad MirGot it. And Topher, when you received the call, like, what was your... Did you have any reservations, or if there was excitement, like, what was that emotion and element behind all that stuff when, Jo… Joshua gave you a call?

4:56Guest 2I mean, I was, I was thrilled 'cause we made a handful of shorts, and I figured eventually we'd get around to making a feature. And this was gonna be a short, and we were talking about that, and he was like, "Think we can do it." And I was like, "worst case, we'll cut it down to a short somehow. I don't know." Seems like we may as well shoot too much than too little. And, you know, once we s… like, fleshed out the script and got that all going, I was like, "Oh, this will definitely work as a feature."

5:20Jawad MirAll right. So tell me the logistics. How'd you guys, shoot it? Like, was it... I mean, I don't wanna, I don't wanna assume anything, so I'd rather you guys kinda take the lead here and tell us what was the production like, and what kind of leeway you guys had, if any. Or was it just, like, all run-and-go, scenario? So just, you know, talk about that if you, both of you, one by one.

5:46Guest 1Yeah, the production side of it was very, everything was kind of fast. I think I wrote the script in December. We cast it in January. We did, you know, the rehearsals in February over Zoom with the actors, and then we shot it all in March. And so I shot it over seven days, and, it was just… The production setup was very lean. We had about six of us on the ground, I think. And it was... I was directing and shooting at the same time, was how we were able to make those moves. So I had, then I had an assistant camera person if I needed, B cam coverage as well. And, I, yeah, I just, I had two camera setups, depending on the type of shot I was using. And I would just switch between them. And I used, you know, full frame cameras, Sony cameras that could handle lower light, 'cause a lot of it, obviously, it's at nighttime. And it allowed us to really be lean with our lighting equipment too.

6:50Guest 1So I used all battery powered lighting, and just real quick setups. Each scene is just a couple hours of shooting.

6:58Jawad MirGotcha. Topher?

7:00Guest 2I don't have much to add. I was at home in New York being sent…

7:03Jawad MirOkay

7:03Guest 2... Being sent stills, working on music. So yeah, I was not one of the few boots on the ground.

7:10Jawad MirSo…

7:10Guest 1But it's interesting with Topher though, 'cause a lot of the music we had actually done ahead of time. So we actually, you know, even on the way to the airport, my wife had dr… drove, me and another producer to the airport. We were listening to the tracks already, you know, on our way there, and so that was something the actors all had them. We had them to play on set if we wanted to get a feel for some of the mood and pacing, and just, to prime the, prime the actors of like, "Cool, this is, this is kind of the mood." Because, you know, one thing I always wanna steer away from is doing something that's too melodramatic. You know, I don't wanna dive too far into that. So, having that music as a tool is super helpful.

7:53Jawad MirRight. And what about the actual logistics? I mean, to be able to... Obviously you shot a lot of the stuff, not all, but, you know, stuff on the subway, airport… ... Airport, and streets, like with a long lens. Trying to, for creative reasons or for logistic reasons in a sense that permission to shoot so, and all that stuff. Like, was there any kind of, any kind of in… permits that you guys got, or was it just like, "Let's just go and do it"? And were… if that's the case, were you stopped at any time by anybody?

8:27Guest 1So I had worked as a producer in Japan before, so I was familiar with how a lot of that works. So there's a lot of areas, like for example, when you're at the Shibuya crossing and everything, they actually don't have permits for those areas. And what they ask is that you don't have cameras on tripods, and you keep, you know, you don't…

8:45Guest 1... Stop traffic in any way. So a lot of, using a lot of that knowledge. There's a lot of, like, bars and locations that we use that we actually, we rented those places. The subway and the airport was very much planning a ton of it ahead. I had everything stor… so I storyboarded every shot in the movie basically to the edit is already done, so that we could go in there and shoot that in, like, a half hour. You know, and just handheld cameras, not, you know, full... You know, just using natural lighting, and just being really quick and having rehearsed all that so everybody just knew what was going on, getting the shots and leaving. And yeah, we never ran into any issues, at all.

9:29Jawad MirNobody came to you at the airport, "Hey, what are you guys doing?"

9:32Guest 1Nope. But we also shot in areas that, we shot more, like, in the train y… 'cause it's kind of built into a train station.

9:41Jawad MirYeah.

9:41Guest 1So as a way... You know, I'm not gonna, obviously obstruct any of what they're trying to do with security and everything that way.

9:48Jawad MirRight.

9:48Guest 1So trying to... You know, even though we're shooting in those ways, trying to be courteous of that. Just understanding Japanese culture as well. Just, trying to be respectful in everything we're doing, and not obstructing any type of, you know, people going through or, you know, where security's at. We just didn't wanna obviously bother travelers.

10:11Jawad MirRight. Topher, since you did the music and also co-produced it, let's talk about your involvement as a composer, in terms of the feel of the music and the mood of the music. What was the process and journey for creating, something that, something like that in the film?

10:33Guest 2Well, Josh and I talked a lot about, his filmmaking influences as a director, for this project. So we talked about a lot of French New Wave movies, talked about a lot of old, American silent films. Jazz scores, that kind of thing. And it took a little while to hone in on what our sound palette was gonna be for this film, 'cause we couldn't go too big and orchestral. It didn't really warrant that, which is why we ended up with a pretty small ensemble sound. But I wanted to pay homage to those French films that we talked about. And then also bring about the American roots of Sam's character, who is Iranian American, in the film.

11:16Guest 2And to do that in a way that was manageable for me was with a mandolin, to kind of bring some of the Persian influence there. So yeah, it was really just, like, mixing the… all these things up. Some of my favorite Japanese film scores, kind of there are echoes of that in there. Some jazz sounds, some sort of French influence, and then that mandolin kind of pulls it all together for this, you know, relatively unique palette, small ensemble thing that's helpful for these two characters. You know, to accompany them through their journey.

11:49Jawad MirRight.

11:49Guest 2Josh, do you have anything to say about the music?

11:54Guest 1I mean, we always, we always link up. As soon as he has a script, we're talking about music, and we're talking about what's the character of it. What does the music represent? And so we're, we get really deep in that early on. And it's super helpful to do that. And, you know, Topher's a composer, but he's also a producer on all my films because of how,... Crucial it is for like the music and the images both to kind of, you know, meet up and help tell that story. So s… definitely something we talk day one on. Cool, what's the music saying? What does it represent? Is it, is it helping showing, you know, emotions that are there on the screen, or is it a subtext thing, you know? There's a lot of, lot of thought that goes into that.

12:44Jawad MirWhat ch… which scene was, the most challenging to direct, also shoot, or both?

12:56Guest 1Wow. That's…

12:57Jawad MirAnd why?

13:00Guest 1I think there's two scenes that stick out. And both scenes are longer scenes. I think the first one is there's a larger, there's a longer scene where they're all in an izakaya, which is a Japanese-style bar, and it's right when, Sam and Ayaka meet up and, you know, they go, they go meet Ayaka's friends. But there's a table full of like six friends that are all talking, and it's very, casual talk back and forth. So getting that ready before shooting and also during shooting, making sure all that felt cohesive and like kind of true to that izakaya culture that exists in Japan, that was difficult, to do, I think. And then the second thing would be really that the scene where you have, there's a scene where, Sam and Ayaka are speaking in a bar, and that's also, you know, a very long conversation, but there's so many different, emotions that swerve through that.

14:05Guest 1And really trying to, in the rehearsals and in talking to the actors, honing in on, cool, h… how much do you wanna show and how much do you bring out and all these so that the peaks hit in a, in a very natural way. And a lot of that's in the writing of it, but, you know, obviously once you've written it's really in the actors' hands. And like I said, it's, it's something avoiding melodrama or somebody... You don't wanna hit an emotion too hard, because it, that emotion's kind of peaked, and there's nowhere to go from there. You know, you wanna have a buildup of these. So it's, it's almost like a, an orchestra, right, where you're, you're trying to get two actors to really, build up their emotions in a very natural way, but in a way that doesn't distract or turn off a viewer quickly.

14:56Jawad MirRight. And Topher, for you, what was... You know, you're, you're sitting in US, seven-day production. How up to date were you with what was going on? Were you resolving any, if there were any issues remotely? Like what was going through your side of things?

15:18Guest 2You know, it's interesting because I was very involved leading up, and then I think during the actual shoot was when I was most hands-off. There's the time difference of course, which is like, you know, pretty much day and night.

15:30Jawad MirRight.

15:31Guest 2So I... Yeah, I was just responding to the still images I was getting. I don't think I was even seeing a lot of footage or anything until Josh got back. I was just getting stills to see what this thing was actually gonna look like, and there was so much anticipation after, you know, months of discussions and, you know, tweaking the script and rehearsals on Zoom with the actors and all that. To finally get to see those stills was really exciting. And then, Josh had storyboarded it all, and then I think I had a rough edit, and a rough edit for Josh is like 95% done w… about a week after they got back, maybe two. It was really fast.

16:13Guest 2And then I was, I suddenly went from, you know, this movie being totally imagined to pretty much done in front of me, and I was like, "Oh gosh, now I have to figure out how this, how all this music is gonna fit in." 'Cause I thought I'd get like, "Oh, here's the first 20 minutes. Here's the next 20." And no. It was just like, "Here's the movie." And I was like, "Is it gonna change much?" "Not really. Like you might switch some takes out, but like this is, this is it." so then it was really go time for me. So there was a little lull there in terms of my, you know, engagement during the shoot 'cause I was so hands-off, and then it was like all systems go. This thing is suddenly, you know, right here in front of me. And that was…

16:52Jawad MirGotcha

16:52Guest 2... Fun and exciting and a little overwhelming.

16:55Jawad MirRight. And in terms of audio, it didn't seem like to me that you guys did any dubbing and whatnot, but it's, was it lav mics? Were there any booms, or how did you sort of, you know, especially places like airport and, public places, what was the, what was the work around that, like around that?

17:16Guest 1So, we had each actor have lavs, throughout the whole performance and, we mixed that in with, booms. So we had a, we had one, boom mic and we had one sound operator, with us. And so, that was a real key thing. I think the difference between a good movie and a bad movie a lot of times is the sound.

17:35Jawad MirIt is the sound.

17:35Guest 1You know, bad sound…

17:36Jawad MirAlways. Yep

17:37Guest 1... Yep, kills the movie. So that was something going in, it's like, we had to get a good sound, engineer that would be able to help us, on the ground. And then, yeah, in each place, you know, in the airports it's lavs, and then, we used a boom for one line. We, there's one scene where I did an overdub, but I recorded them. I knew I was gonna need it, so I actually just recorded them on the street. I had… It was a…

18:07Jawad MirOh

18:07Guest 1... Very loud area, so I had them go around a corner. I said, "Cool, do these lines." And we did a couple wild records of some lines that I knew I was gonna throw in, and that was it. So we didn't do any dubbing afterwards.

18:20Jawad MirRight. And were the locations where you guys shot, like the streets, especially the exterior, not necessarily the bar and the subway, were they pretty much all, figured out before production? Or if so, were there any improvisations on the spot?

18:39Guest 1Yeah. Most of the spots that I picked were places that I re… that I've been to. You know, I lived in Tokyo for a long time. I was a, you know, a college student there, and then I went to work there. So a lot of, a lot of the scenes are places where I'd go and study or places where I'd walk. So I had those all picked out ahead of time. And I had arranged a lot of the production shooting schedule in order to get from place to place. So a lot of those, my production schedule is built around, proximity to locations. There's one scene in particular that I changed the location. A lot of that was, I just wasn't liking what it looked like. And so there's a scene where they're on the stairs, and they're, they're talking. I actually... I was like, "I don't like this spot. We have to go figure this out." So we went over, like, 15 minutes, found a new spot, and I just, I just sat there and took 15 minutes and reblocked the scene. Originally, it wasn't them talking and coming downstairs and doing this stuff. So I just reblocked the scene, spoke to the actors, and then we just, we rolled on it that way.

19:43Guest 1So there's that. There's one scene, too, where they're sitting, they're both, standing, and there's, like, a... I think it might be in the trailer, where there's, like, this light post, and they're both sitting against it, and you see, like, the cityscape behind them. That was another one that was kind of on the fly. I was doing some... I was call… you know, walking talks, and I felt like I just wanted them to be still and have that conversation. I felt like it wasn't, wasn't working with them moving. I liked it still. So that was just shot very quickly, really. I think it was the last shot of that day.

20:22Jawad MirRight. Topher, coming to you, and I'll come back to Joshua. Now that the film is done, where… what's the plan? Where is it going? If it has already been somewhere, where are you guys in that?

20:39Guest 2Well, we premiered at Cinequest last year. And then we picked up distribution, I think, that same weekend. I'll toss this back to Josh 'cause this is more his wheelhouse.

20:50Guest 1Yeah. I think maybe it was the following week, I wanna say, we found distribution. And, we had been working with a producer rep, named Glenn Reynolds, who was helping out a lot. And, we showed… we won the Audience Award over at Cinequest, and then, for drama, and then I think it was really quick. Like, that was our first screening. We thought it was gonna be a longer process to get distribution. Plus, it was our... We didn't really have a distribution plan going into, you know, you're going and doing, like, a little, you know, feature like that. So it was, it was fairly quick. And, so that was picked up by Buffalo 8, is a distribution company.

21:32Jawad MirRight. And where can it be seen now? Is it online for people to see, or is it still going through festival circuit?

21:38Guest 1So the festival circuit, we finished. It's actually coming out on Valentine's Day on d… digital and VOD. So it'll be on Amazon and I think Apple, Xfinity, Google Play, basically worldwide, a lot of different countries on the same day.

21:58Jawad MirAwesome.

21:58Guest 1And then it c… it'll come out later on Avon.

22:02Jawad MirGreat. Topher, anything that you want to add about anything else that, we may not have talked about?

22:11Guest 2No. I don't think so.

22:16Jawad MirWhat's your process of cr… I mean, we kinda touched upon it, but in general, like, how do you get in… inspired by mu… by… to create music? Or who do you listen to, if any?

22:29Guest 2Sure. Boy. Oh, I li… I listen to a lot of music, and I also write a lot of music. I do a lot of commercial work on the music side, and that's very temp track heavy. So I listen to a ton of temp music, write a ton of cues for that. So I'm in the process of writing a lot of music on a daily basis, but working on the film, side of things is very different, and I find it to be way more meditative. And I, let's see, spent a lot of time at the piano for this one, out of… outside of the studio, away from picture scr… I mean, it wasn't picture for most of this. Away from the script, and recorded a ton of voice notes on my phone that I would send to Josh as text messages with no titles or context or just moods. And it was really just trying to figure out what mood was feeling right. And working with a director for this is really fun 'cause working on music without picture, it's up to me to figure out what feels right or doesn't. But the director, it's really fun to bounce things off of Josh and for him to respond to that really without knowing what he, what he wants or doesn't want, but he can tell immediately if this is, like, working or not.

23:41Guest 2So I was able to bounce things off of him, get a little feedback of like, "Eh, cool," "Eh, not so cool," and then, and really go from there. So it was a ton of experimentation, throwing things at the wall. We had the luxury of time, at the beginning of the project as we were just preparing for the shoot. But yeah, it's a lot of the piano and voice notes.

24:00Jawad MirGotcha. What's next for you guys, now that this film is done, going to be seen by people worldwide, give and take? What are you guys working on next, if anything?

24:13Guest 1I mean, we're really deep in working on a new film. We're, I think, fairly deep on that, in pre-production on that. So just same kind of process that we've done in the past, just really talking through the script. You know, what are people feeling? What's the music gonna do? And really trying to find that and, really trying to build off of the experience 'cause, You know, the way we shot One Night in Tokyo is very, is very difficult. I mean, you've shot and worked on, a few films as well, right? So it's like you know how it's just hard. Every process is hard, but you learn so much from each of them, and when you go into the next one, you just feel, you just feel more seasoned. It's like going to, it's like going to war, you know? Like, you just, you've done it, and you look at it differently. And I think just approaching it on this new one just like, "Oh, this is what we learned. These are things we have to…

25:12Jawad MirSure

25:12Guest 1... Have to do differently, and how can we as filmmakers and, you know, producers, composers, directors, everything, all these different aspects, how do we improve? And making sure you're constantly leveling up because I think it's, making a film is a very humbling thing 'cause every day something's gonna go wrong, even after you finish it, a year after finishing the film, things, something's, something's going wrong, and you have to solve problems constantly. So it's really just learning from that, and with this new one, it's really just trying to do something a little bit, you know, bigger and taking the experience and the learnings we had from One Night in Tokyo and applying it there.

25:54Jawad MirGreat, and, for you, Topher?

25:56Guest 2I'm scoring a short with one of our producers, Brandon, from One Night in Tokyo. So that's where my focus will be as soon as that cut is in the next, maybe today. So switching gears to that, and then pre-production on this next thing, and making some music for music's sake, and making some more house music this year. I have a whole side quest DJing and making house music too, so a bit more of that on the lighter side of things.

26:22Jawad MirGreat. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, guys, Joshua and Topher, for joining. I appreciate your time, and, good luck with all the projects in the future.

26:32Guest 1Awesome. Thanks so much.

26:32Guest 2Thank you so much for having us.

26:33Jawad MirAll right. Take care. Bye-bye.