Meet Hiroki Ohsawa

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hiroki Ohsawa.

Hiroki, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
From the beginning, I didn’t want to go out of my home country Japan. There was no reason to leave my heaven, one of the world’s safest place with the best Sushi and Ramen for the cheapest prices, and above all, the most comfortable high-tech toilet! However, I abandoned the sanctuary and am eventually in Los Angeles as a film director. Why is that?

When my parents told me bedtime stories in my childhood, they always asked me what would happen after endings, and we made our original stories. This imprinted storytelling in my genes and made me keep creating something new for the rest of my life.

In my school age, I broadened the ability to embody my imagination and the scale of my art expression step by step. Drawing and crafting as personal art with tools at an elementary school, making shows and plays as collaborative art with dozens of schoolmates at a mid/high school, directing movies as worldwide art beyond time and space with filmmaking technologies at a university.

Because some of my films got awards in Japanese film festivals, people recommended me to challenge as a filmmaker out of Japan, but I was not interested in going abroad at all.

Consequently, after I graduated from university, I started to work at a toy company as a consumer sales operations because I also loved toys which makes children’s dream come true. Nevertheless, the passion of visual storytelling kept burning in my heart.

And a couple of years later, I decided to quit the job and pursue the way of filmmaking in the best environment in the world, Hollywood. By the way, originally my English was so terrible that I didn’t know the difference between the number 7 and 11 because of the convenience store… I’m not kidding. Yes, I studied English hard as hell, and still continue.

Since I moved to Los Angeles, I have worked with tons of international filmmakers and have worn many huts such as; director, producer, writer, editor, motion graphics designer, and more for feature/short films, TV/web series, and promotion videos in the U.S. and Japan. My next step is to enhance my storytelling skill with intercultural communications.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Filmmaking is a series of obstacles like a typical Hollywood movie story itself.

Confronting unexpected troubles and limitations of schedule, budget, cast, crew, equipment, etc. one after another is the filmmakers’ fate even if we prepared more than 100%. Whenever I direct a movie, I don’t feel I’m filmmaking but problem-solving.

The biggest challenge in my filmmaking life happened when I directed my latest superhero movie THE ALC-MAN. Two months before filming, we hired a professional costume designer to make a superhero battle suit. We gave him my battle suit design and a budget, but his work was unbelievably slow, and what he finally started to make was totally different from my order, even size, and looked so cheap.

We kept following up with him to finish the battle suit correctly by filming, but just five days before filming we lost not only touch with him but also the budget and the battle suit itself which supposed to be an icon of the movie like a hero suit of Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man.

The question is who really cares about my independent film: no one, but myself. So I shopped around for all materials of the battle suit, cut, glued, stitched them, and completed it by myself in five days, 120 hours, during my directing work in pre-production.

That case almost killed my film and myself both, but filmmaking is still what I love most. I never ever give up to save my “babies” no matter how ruthless the “serial killer” is.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I focus on directing most. At the same time, there are two biggest things people expect from me: Japanese knowledge and graphic skill.

First, I’m Japanese, meaning naturally a specialist of Japan. That’s why many non-Japanese filmmakers including Academy and Emmy awarded/nominated artists who want to create something relating to Japan have asked me to join their projects. Interestingly, a couple of directors hired me as an actor to play Japanese Yakuza (mafia), Otaku (nerd), and so on.

Second, I have a license of Japan Certified 1st-Class Caricaturist and ten years experience of Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Making full use of them, I can create different styles of still and motion graphics as people request. For example, character designs, concept arts, and opening and ending credits sequences of movies. This skill also helps my own filmmaking a lot.

There are astronomical number of film directors in the world. However, who can combine filmmaking, Japan, and graphics design together? That’s my unique advantage.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
When I enrolled a grad school in LA, I was surprised that I was the only one Japanese out of one hundred MFA Filmmaking students. There was even no Japanese instructor and staff in the school. Some people said it was bad luck, but that was absolutely good luck for me.

Of course, that isolated situation brought me many barriers to follow the classes, finish assignments, and communicate with others not only at the school but also in daily life. Without the situation, however, I believe I couldn’t make a huge international connection what I have now with communities of American, Chinese, Indian, Saudi Arabian, etc.

I worked on many film projects in their communities and learned remarkable differences between Japanese storytelling and theirs. That deeply affected to my current filmmaking. In addition, I still keep in touch with them.

Luck is luck. I might not be able to change my destiny, but I can define it as good or bad depending on how I deal with it. I’m not sure if all efforts would pay off, but nothing will be overcome without efforts for sure.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hirokiohsawa.wixsite.com/hirokiohsawa
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hirokiohsawaproductions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HirokiOhsawaProductions
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/c/HirokiOhsawaProductions

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