Lost in Translation (film) film editor Sarah Flack
Filming
Principal photography began on September 29, 2002, and lasted 27 days. With a tight schedule and a limited $4 million budget, filming was done six days per week and was marked by a "run-and-gun" approach: Coppola was keen to stay mobile with a small crew and minimal equipment. She conducted few rehearsals and kept a flexible schedule, sometimes scrapping filming plans to shoot something she noticed on location if she thought it better served the story. Since the screenplay was sparse, missing details were often addressed during shooting, and Coppola allowed a significant amount of improvisation in dialogue, especially from Murray. One example includes the scene in which Bob is being photographed for Suntory whisky; Coppola encouraged Murray to react to the photographer spontaneously as she whispered names for the man to repeat to Murray as unrehearsed dialogue, such as "Roger Moore".While key crew members were Americans that Coppola invited to Tokyo, most of the crew was hired locally. This proved to be challenging for the production, as most of the Japanese crew could not communicate with Coppola in English, so both sides relied on translations from a bilingual assistant director and a gaffer. The production encountered frequent delays while translations took place and suffered from occasional cultural misunderstandings; in one example, Coppola described a shoot in a restaurant that ran 10–15 minutes late, something she said was normal on an American shoot, but it prompted the restaurant owner to feel disrespected; he subsequently disconnected the crew's lights and the film's Japanese location manager resigned. Despite this, Coppola said she worked to adapt to a Japanese style of filmmaking, not wanting to impose an approach that her crew was not used to.Coppola worked closely to visualize the film with her director of photography, Lance Acord. She showed him and other key crew members a book of photographs she created that represented the visual style she wanted to convey in the film. To evoke a sense of isolation in Bob, Coppola and Acord used stationary shots in the hotel and avoided conspicuous camera movements. They also had numerous discussions about shooting on video, but they ultimately decided that film better suited the romantic undertones of the story. Coppola remarked, "Film gives a little bit of a distance, which feels more like a memory to me. Video is more present tense". Acord believed that new film stocks would reduce the need for excessive lighting, ultimately using Kodak Vision 500T 5263 35 mm stock for night exteriors and Kodak Vision 320T 5277 stock in daylight. Most of the film was shot on an Aaton 35-III while a smaller Moviecam Compact was used in confined locations.With high-speed film stocks, Acord chose to utilize available light as often as possible, only supplementing with artificial lights when necessary. He reported "never really" rigging lights for night exteriors, relying on the natural light on Tokyo's city streets. For interior sequences in the Park Hyatt Tokyo, he relied mostly on the hotel's practical lighting sources, shooting at a wide open f-stop and heavily cutting the light to eliminate reflections in the hotel window. Acord said he heard objections about lighting from some of the Japanese electricians, who were unaccustomed to relying so much on available light and were concerned that the exposure would not be sufficient. Acord, assured that the film stocks would hold up against lower lighting, ultimately shot much of the film two stops underexposed.Many of the shooting locations were Japanese places of business and public areas at the time of filming, including New York Bar in the Park Hyatt Tokyo and Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo. On public streets and subways, the production did not secure filming permits and relied on city bystanders as extras; Coppola described the shooting as "documentary-style" and was worried at times about getting stopped by police, so she kept a minimal crew. In the hotel, the production was not allowed to shoot in public areas until 1 or 2 a.m. to avoid disturbing guests. In the film's concluding sequence in which Bob and Charlotte make their final goodbyes, Coppola reported being unhappy with the dialogue she had scripted, so Murray improvised the whisper in Johansson's ear. Too quiet to be understandable, Coppola considered dubbing audio in the scene, but she ultimately decided it was better that it "stays between the two of them". After production concluded, Coppola supervised 10 weeks of editing by Sarah Flack in New York City.
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