Want to Film in Tokyo? City Welcomes for Locals Foreign Shoots Still Hit COVID Restrictions

variety.com:

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentTokyo has been the nerve center of Japan’s movie industry for more than a century. Kyoto, the country’s ancient capital, has a proud filmmaking tradition, especially for samurai period films, but all the major film companies — Toho, Toei, Shochiku, Nikkatsu and Kadokawa — are headquartered in Tokyo and operate studios in either Tokyo or the Tokyo metro region.

Locations in Tokyo, Hiroshima and other Japanese regions also feature prominently in Oscar-nominated “Drive My Car.”This doesn’t mean that, outside the studio confines, Tokyo is a particularly easy place to film.

One veteran director and line producer who has worked in both the U.S. and Japan, and for professional reasons prefers to remain anonymous, says, “shooting in Tokyo is harder than other cities, say New York.” One reason: the Tokyo film office, in contrast to its New York counterpart, does not help productions in obtaining permits. “They just have lists of possible locations.

You mostly obtain permits for shooting in the street from the police, but they are not so cooperative and the forms are kind of complicated.” As a result, permits typically take three to five days to process. “So when a foreign crew asks us to shoot at some new location tomorrow, we always get into trouble, because you can’t obtain permits at such short notice.” The lesson: “Plan ahead and don’t expect to expedite the process by paying under the table [bribe], as you can in some Southeast Asian countries.