Meet Tapio

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tapio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tapio, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

As a filmmaker, I had to take various risks, such as using different technologies and new skillsets, spending more time and money than what was initially expected, challenging audiences through narratives, and introducing a personal story that makes myself extremely vulnerable. Although I was not quite comfortable with taking risks when I was small due to the academically high-profile schools I attended and the Japanese social expectation of keeping good grades as well as conforming to other people, it was this encouragement from my parents that kept giving me a great reminder to take risks in creative fields and my daily lives: “do something different from what others do, and do something people don’t expect you to do.”

One of the most important events that signifies my ability to take risk is my directorial work and senior thesis at my university. This short film “MINIFIG” is based on the loss of my mother, the toughest memory which I have been avoiding to deal with as a creative topic for years. Despite the fact that I wondered if I wanted to make this film until the very last minute, I decided to direct the project thanks to supportive cast/crew members, while at first I could neither imagine how this filmmaking process would affect my mental state or see if I can actually finish this project under such an emotional weight on myself. Without the production team’s and professors’ help and generosity, I would not be able to go through all the creative process including refining the script, coming up with shots, filming during the principal photography, and post-production, where I could not stop crying whenever I had to re-experience the hardest memory in my life. In addition to this personal narrative, I employed various unorthodox methods in storytelling, such as the mixture of stop-motion animation and live-action, the reverse psychology in its color scheme, and significantly disproportionate durations for each scene. The film ended up as one of the most successful works among the thesis films in my graduation year, with multiple recognitions at film festivals around the world. Judging both from my growth as a filmmaker and the project’s outcome, this experience did not only showcase my ability to take risk for creativity and create something original, but also taught the significance of counting on other people in a team to leap beyond my comfort zone.

Another recent experience as a director of photography displays a level-up in taking risk. A short film “Heirs,” directed by Lisa Shiomi, depicts a Japanese high school student who struggles within his family and friend relationships due to his violent and abusive father. In addition to the challenging and complex social topic to deal with, the film has a huge difficulty in the necessity of filming in the U.S. while making it look like Japan and in preserving Japanese visual representation that largely differs from the western look. Although it was quite difficult and time-consuming to find a location that could look like a Japanese house and school as well as develop the visual language that the U.S. audiences can understand and appreciate, Lisa and I had long hours of discussions to pursue what we envisioned as a “Japanese story” and never gave up. I also had huge discussions with the lighting team and PD team to establish the Japanese lighting style and the complexity of interior designs, which involves lower contrast, the constant presence of reflective surfaces due to the proximity in spaces, and so-called ‘flat’ lighting which is often a taboo in the western cinematography. Thanks to all those efforts, we successfully made a Japanese look and represented the Japanese social issues on the American soils with the American cast/crew members. Especially as a Japanese filmmaker, this experience further developed my ability to take risk for the cultural identity and social/political voices in the creative field.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Born and raised in Yokohama, Japan, I am a freelance narrative filmmaker specializing in directing and cinematography. Having graduated with Bachelor of Arts in film and TV production alongside with the minor in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, I have worked on multiple student films, semi-professional films, and commercials mainly as director, director of photography, and 1st assistant camera, but also grip/electric team member, production sound mixer, and 1st assistant director, etc. After my graduation, while continuing my journey as a freelancer, I also started working at SONY Digital Media Production Center, where I teach and spread SONY’s cinema camera technologies and its applications to film students, industry DPs, and ASC members, help Hollywood productions test/prepare the specific gears among SONY’s cinema camera lineup, and get involved in the development of new SONY cinema camera products.

As a film director, embracing the motto of “life is a storytelling,” I make films that challenge the meaning and value of life, combined with experimentation with characters’ strong and various emotionality, often based on my childhood where I had to face loss of lives within my close relationship. My directing style reflects a huge influence from 1990s Japanese anime and LEGO stop-motion animation with which I started filmmaking. Many of his short films, such as TADAIMA and BLANK SLATE, were recognized in film festivals across the globe. Instructed by professors and mentors like Michael Kang (Sundance Filmmakers Lab Fellow), Jason Rosenfield A.C.E., Kenji Shiratsuchi (commercial planner), my recent directorial senior thesis film MINIFIG at LMU, an experimental drama short about teenage family loss, is currently in a film festival circuit with recognitions from LA Shorts International Film Festival and Damah International Film Festival.

Alongside with directing, I have had long-lasting interest in filmmaking technology, which nurtured my visual language as a cinematographer. I recently DPed Phantom Heart (dir. Josephine Spanier), a magical rom-com, and Heirs (dir. Lisa Shiomi), a Japanese social drama. My new DP work, The Knife Man (dir. MP Hayes), a noir anti-hero suspense, in 2025, is currently in its post-production. During my journey to be a cinematographer, I collaborated with talented cohorts, such as Matthew Cheung (DGA Student Award Winner), Thomas Bolles (ASC Heritage Award Winner), Milena Mooradian (Student Oscar Semi-Finalist), and Jason Yu (ASC Heritage Award Nominee), as an assistant camera and G&E team member, and received instructions from Amy Vincent A.S.C., Natasha Braier A.S.C., Katie Eleneke (SONY DMPC), Sarah Galley (1st A.C.), Tommy-Maddox Upshaw A.S.C. and many more.

I am also involved in his new directorial work, PLATFROM, currently under its post-production, and planning on finishing the film in summer 2025.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I have a strong belief that anyone can obtain any skill and knowledge required to accomplish whatever they aspire to do. The fact that I acquired my ability to speak English, which is a non-native language for me, filmmaking techniques, and coding skills simply because of their need in what I do professionally exemplifies my belief. Behind those acquisitions of skillsets, I have embraced three important qualities that drove me to constantly learn and move forward.

The first key element, diligence, is something I naturally developed since I was a kid in Japan. I often found it difficult to give up on something that I got interested in, and often did over-work, even if it was merely a homework for a school. I also hate breaking a promise with anyone, which has developed my strong loyalty and commitment to whatever work I am assigned to. My personalities like these helped me develop my diligence and persistence in my work and productive attitude toward the end goal, which constantly drives me to find solutions and next steps beyond criticisms when I face a challenge or issue. It is easy to throw something away or give an unproductive opinions within one’s journey, but instead always thinking ahead and expecting what you can do to achieve the next goal does not only help you and other people grow but also force you to constantly learn new findings and give you more opportunities of different work, friends, and possibilities that you might not expect to acquire.

To support diligence, aspiration plays an essential role. I luckily have had an aspiration to become a filmmaker since I was seven, which significantly encouraged me to learn different kinds of knowledge and skills, in the hope in which anything can contribute to new storytellings in my filmmaking journey. One of my examples is learning mathematics at high school: though I liked math as an academic subject, I found it hard to see the meaning in learning some of the college-level topics of mathematics there. I just blindly believed that these mathematical knowledge will help me as a filmmaker in the future and did my absolute best to learn the concepts, and it ended up helping getting a position at SONY’s cinema camera development team that requires certain mathematical knowledge to understand optical quality and color science. Any aspiration, not limited to a dream to be a filmmaker, can contribute to diligence, and eventually, the success in your journey.

The third quality I would like to emphasize is open-mindedness. Thanks to my parents who took me out of Japan many times, my high school with students with different personalities and talents, and my university life outside of my home country helped me encounter people from different backgrounds all around the world. The filmmaking in the U.S. also gave me new perspectives in creativity, cultures, and artistic expressions. Difference is not something to be afraid of, but a new opportunity to grow. In any type of journey, you will encounter people from different backgrounds and collaborate with them. In the long run, it’s always better to make friends rather than enemies. While it may feel very difficult to understand different cultures, practices, and personalities, open-mindedness will help you nurture new friendships and healthy collaborations, and it is worth getting out of your comfort zone to listen to others and understand differences rather than judging and labeling people from the beginning. At the same time, it is quite important to retain your core and your personality, which should not conform to those of other people, and I was able to achieve this balance through my diligence and aspiration.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

It is difficult to pick one person here, but I would like to say my mother is certainly the one who helped me grow as a person and an artist the most. Whenever I encounter a huge challenge, I would ask myself what my mother would do. She kept telling me to think what you can do next and not to focus on what you cannot change. This teaching certainly drives me forward in both my personal and professional world. Right before she passed on, she also tells me to treasure my friends. This lesson influenced me on how to develop my open-mindedness and find more people to collaborate. That being said, I hold lots of quality I learned from my mother, and they serve as my core to be an artist, collaborator, and leader.

I would also like to mention a couple more people I met at a university. One of the most important encounter was to meet Syuen Chia, who almost feels like my sibling. She was an international student like me and helped me not only join school communities with which I hang out most of the times and camera teams in which I learned skills as a cinematographer, but also teach how to live outside of my home country. My work ethics, my embracement of my own culture and backgrounds, and professionalism largely come from the collaborations and times with her. Even now, I often ask Syuen for help and advice whenever I encounter challenges in my work and personal life, which makes her essential to my journey to be a filmmaker.

The most recent encounter with Lisa Shiomi, who is also a Japanese filmmaker in the U.S, also changed a course of my journey as an artist. I DPed her project about domestic violence within a Japanese family in 2024, which did not only deepen our collaborations but also remind me of my Japanese background and the importance of my own identity. Especially as Japaneses who study filmmaking in the U.S., I found it very helpful and nurturing to share experiences and perspectives with Lisa, which gives me a lot of help and resources in my post-grad life with full of new challenges and adventures.

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