As we mentioned a couple blog posts ago, there have been some major changes taking place at ELFS Japan recently. We’d like to share a little more in depth about those changes this week.

New Team

ELFS Japan is excited to announce the addition of two team members. Louie Okamoto (yours truly!) has joined full time as the Administrative Assistant and Kai Hewitt has joined as a summer intern. A quick intro on both of our new team members:

I (Louie) was born and raised completely bilingually in Japanese and English in South Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. Motion picture production has been close to my upbringing for as long as I can remember because many notable film productions were filmed in my hometown, including Gone with the Wind (1939), Halloween(1978 & 2007), The Terminator (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Flags of our Fathers (2006), and most recently, La La Land (2016). I moved to Tokyo in May 2016 to become a “Cultural Bridge” between the English- and Japanese-speaking global communities in a variety of fields, including work to build sustainability in Japanese seafood industry, interviews to share multicultural perspectives, and putting my native-level Japanese and English abilities to use as a freelance translator and interpreter.

We also have Kai Hewitt onboard as an intern this summer. Kai just completed his first year at the University of St. Andrews where he is studying Mathematics and Economics. Kai has been working at the Adidas store for the past three years and have experience as an Film Production Assistant for an event held by Adidas Corporation. Kai is enthusiastic about gaining hands-on experience while he is with us at ELFS Japan and we are lucky to have his support!

We’d like to give a warm Thank You to Christian Bell for providing invaluable support to ELFS Japan during his stay here, as well as helping Kai and I transition to ELFS. We wish you all the best moving forward!

New Office

Last week we packed up our small office in Kamiyacho and moved into a new office space in Edogawabashi. What’s great about our new location is that we have our own studio space! Previously we had to rent out several locations to hold our workshops and seminars. We are very excited to hold our first workshop — Screenwriting for Beginners — at our new studio space starting next week! Here are a couple more photos of our new home:

New Logo

With a new home base and new team we have released a new logo design, which is now live on our website and social media accounts. Believe it or not, our summer intern Kai designed the logo. Thanks Kai!

Other Updates: Filmmakers’ Night in Akihabara

Yesterday we held our monthly Filmmakers’ Night at The 1/3 Bar & Cafe in Akihabara. With the gusty, rainy weather we were a bit worried about the turnout; however, we had a fun night of networking of three dozen actors, directors, producers, screenwriters and film lovers! This was my first networking event with ELFS Japan and I was delighted about the energy of the room as people mingled and shared current projects with one another over a bottle of cold beer. Here are a few photos from the night, I am planning to upload the rest on our ELFS Japan Facebook page early next week. We will be having these networking events once a month so we look forward seeing old and new faces for future Filmmakers’ Nights!

Feel free to leave a comment or contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments regarding our new look!