Daiki Sai (TBS) / “My own job” of going back and forth between drama and documentary productions | Documentary film made by a TV man #3

Interview/Sentence·photograph / Nanaka Waki

Basically, 99% of my life is drama work.

──First, I would like to ask you about your usual work at TBS. Mr. Sai belongs to the drama production department and was in charge of the January drama “Eye Love You.”

He was the third producer from the top for “Eye Love You.”

──Did you work in the drama production department from the first year you were assigned?

For the first six months, I experienced the variety show “Matsuko’s Unknown World” as a kind of training, and then joined the drama production department at the end of my first year. After working as an AD and AP, I started working as a producer for the past year and a half. I’ve wanted to do drama since I was a student, and I used to like “Ultraman” and “Keizoku” (1999) on TBS. I used to watch dramas from the 2000s in real time, such as “Queen of Lunch” (2002), “Proposal Operation” (2007), and “To You in Full Bloom ~ Handsome Man Paradise ~” (2007). I also really like Fuji TV dramas.

──While working on drama series, you are also making documentaries and movies. I’m expecting it to be incredibly busy…

Basically, 99% of my life is drama work, and I write the structure of the documentary on the day when filming ends early, and I work on documentaries in my spare time, so it’s not like I’m reporting all the time. . So, my life won’t be ruined due to conflicts between my different jobs. My name often gets out in the public eye when I work on documentaries, but I actually work mostly on dramas, so I think the way I’m seen in the world and the way I’m seen within the company are different.

“What is this?” in the late-night drama that Hitoshi Daikon was making.

──Did you start making documentaries while working on dramas because the TBS Documentary Film Festival started?

I agree. The “Hinomaru” project was accepted in the call for proposals.

*Editor’s note: Director’s film “TBS Documentary Film Festival 2022” screened atHinomaru ~Maybe now is the time.” Later, “Hinomaru”Shuji TerayamaIt was released in theaters under the title “40 Years of Provocation”.Playwright·This project is a reboot of Shuji Terayama’s experimental TBS documentary “Hinomaru” that aired in 1967, and involves street interviews where people are asked questions such as “What does the red color on the Hinomaru mean?” . By contrasting 1967 and 2022, the film attempts to highlight the image of “Japan” and “Japanese.”

──Why did Mr. Sai react to Shuji Terayama’s work in the first place?

I knew about it from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s book or something, but I never had a way to watch it. After joining the company, I was able to dig into the archives, so I watched it when I was new and thought, “This is amazing.” The documentary programs “Hinomaru” and “Anata wa…” composed by Shuji Terayama are media theory works that are heavily influenced by the French Nouvelle Vague of the 1960s, and the idea of ​​showing them on late-night TV is… I found it very interesting. Someone happens to turn on the TV and wonders, “What is this?”I think television is a medium that has such possibilities, and I am working on TV Tokyo.When I was a junior high and high school student, I watched the late-night drama “Yukemuri Sniper” (2009) and the TV version “Moteki” (2010), both of which were produced by Hitoshi Oone, and I thought to myself, “What on earth is this?” In that sense, doing something experimental late at night was highly motivating for me. (*Editor’s note: Prior to the screening at the film festival, a shortened TV version of “Hinomaru: It May Be Now 22” was broadcast on TBS’s “Documentary ‘Liberal Area'” slot.)

──When I talked about the content of the work, I first got the impression that the on-the-street interviews seemed extremely difficult. You don’t say your name and ask questions out of the blue.

It was very. Only about 1/10th of the people answered. People thought I was a strange person…well, I am a strange person (lol). It’s meaningless if you just call yourself “TBS.” There was a point in filming the confused look of the person asking, “Huh?” when suddenly asked a question, so I was very careful not to give my name.

──What kind of impact does it have if you call yourself “I’m from TBS”?

I think a relatively large number of people would be relieved (as long as it’s not a suspicious person). Also, when you think you’re going to be shown on TV, you have a TV-friendly attitude, right? I think people get scared or angry when a camera is suddenly pointed at them and asked strange questions in a situation they don’t understand, and I think that’s the kind of thing you don’t usually see on TV.

— Mr. Sai, weren’t you afraid of being scolded or ignored by the people in town?

In the first place, I knew that I was the one making them feel scary, so I wasn’t scared myself.

–If you become the scariest person, you’re invincible (lol). In addition to interviews, I think it’s extremely difficult to gather the necessary materials from a huge amount of material and organize it.

I personally like digging up old things, and when I want something like this I go to the library to look for it, so it wasn’t that hard. Newspapers and magazines are normally difficult to dig up, but luckily I still had Shuji Terayama’s notebook and the scrapbook of Haruhiko Hagimoto, the director at the time, and I was able to be introduced to people involved at the time in a rosary style. I did. In a sense, it was created within a narrow community, so it may have been relatively easy to reach people regarding the past.

Documentary is more like fiction

──”Hinomaru: Shuji Terayama’s 40th Year of Provocation” and “Charisma: State Funerals, Pistols, and Religion”, which was screened at the TBS Documentary Film Festival 2023, have some issues with the structure and the ending, which does not provide a clear answer. I got the impression that the “association” and “suggestions” that were happening in Mr. Sai’s head became a work of art. I was shocked to find out, “There is so much freedom in the direction a documentary can take.”

People say, “This isn’t really a documentary.” People say, “If we dig deeper, wouldn’t we find some kind of “fact” or “truth”?” But to me, documentaries are more like fiction. I will. People who believe that there is truth in documentaries tend to think that they have run away when I talk about the conceptual aspects of my work, but they are actually making documentaries. I think that for humans, it comes down to the fact that the creator cuts and pastes the material (edited), so it’s all made up.

──How is it different from fiction such as dramas?

In dramas, actors act based on a script, and everyone tries their hardest to make the fictional people and stories appear as fact. I think that process is more of a documentary and factual. What happens on the set of a movie or drama is a documentary, and everything that happens in a documentary is fiction, which is what I got from working in both.

–When did you realize that?

I became convinced of this while making “On the Ark: The Truth About the 44th Year of Jesus’ Ark” (broadcast on the “Documentary “Liberation Area” in June 2023). I think it was because I had a clear interview subject, but when I was editing and thinking about how to capture the interactions with these girls, I thought, “This is already a work of fiction.” Maybe people in the documentary and reporting fields are very motivated to pursue the truth, but I’m not a reporter, so I tend to create documentaries based on the premise that it’s a fabrication. I find it interesting.

The person making the product should bear the brunt.

──I’m curious about the reason why you appear as an interviewer in all of your works.

In documentaries, the interview subjects are not bad no matter what they say. The person conducting the interview puts the other person on the table, listens to what they want to hear, and then edits the story according to their wishes. That’s why I think it’s the people who are making it that should bear the brunt of it, and they should come out and show that “this is my idea.” Regarding “On the Ark,” there were people who said, “It’s all just your impressions,” but the interviewees will not be criticized by my participation. Also, documentaries are supposed to be interesting when you can find something like “the truth,” but if anything, it’s more interesting to find out how to tell the story, and that’s why it’s so interesting to film. I feel that this is where the differences between people come into play. People with excellent storytelling skills are the ones who attract attention as documentary directors. It’s not always about meeting good interview subjects. Of course, deciding when and what to cover is very important and is the basis of the plan, but it shouldn’t end there. I feel like it’s important to know how to put it on as a show.

──You are not only the interviewer but also the narrator.

I don’t have a budget (lol). If you’re a reporter, you can edit the footage you’ve taken (from news gatherings, etc.) and turn it into a documentary, but if you’re like me and don’t have any footage, you’ll end up with almost no money left over if you start from scratch. That’s right. Even after the interview, I do all the editing on my computer and type the captions myself. I completed the MA (adding background music, sound effects, etc. to the video and adjusting the sound quality and balance) in a few hours, and then read the narration by myself… I often have to finish things in a day or a day and a half.

──Will that budget increase in the future?

I don’t think it will ever get bigger. I think documentaries don’t necessarily get better just because you give them money. In the 1990s on Fuji TV’s late-night slot called “NONFIX”.When you look at what Tatsuya Mori and Kore-eda were shooting, you can see that they didn’t spend a lot of money. I guess it’s interesting to maximize it. That’s why I think the creator’s unique perspective and storytelling will be put to the test. How do you feel satisfied when you don’t have money? I think it’s because I have experience working on drama productions where so much money is spent that I think about what I can do without spending a lot of money.

Following page
Filming documentaries with a “1990s AV feel”

(c)TBS

Other articles by Daiki Sai