Big in Japan
Feb 20 - Mar 05, 2015
(John Jeffcoat, 2014, United States, DCP, 100 min)
U.S. premiere!
Director John Jeffcoat in attendance on 2/27 and 2/28!
Post-screening live sets with Tennis Pro on 2/20 and 2/21!
Making its theatrical premiere in Seattle after world premiering at SXSW, Big in Japan is an upbeat rock 'n roll road movie by local director (and founding member of Northwest Film Forum) John Jeffcoat (Outsourced). Creative nonfiction meets comedy, as Seattle-based band Tennis Pro play versions of themselves in their quest for fame. The guys are about to call it quits on their hometown: bored with their day jobs and unable to build a fan base in the local music scene, the trio sets out to make it big in Japan. Comedic adventures, cross-culture connections, rock concerts, and a zanily psychedelic animated sequence ensues.
Jeffcoat first met Tennis Pro while shooting an episode for MTV's 5 Dollar Cover. They hit it off so well that they decided to make a feature (and many music videos) together. The guerilla-style production of Big in Japan consisted of 2 - 3 crew, with Jeffcoat both shooting and directing scenes that blend improvised and scripted dialog and escapades.
- Read our interview with John Jeffcoat during Big in Japan's world premiere at South by Southwest >
- Don't miss a free, behind-the-scenes talk with John Jeffcoat about the making-of Tennis Pro music videos, on February 23 >
"If Tennis Pro's exuberant, catchy music and the band members' scrappy, self-deprecating charm don't win you over by film's end, you probably have terminal anhedonia." —The Stranger
"Jeffcoat makes you care about these characters who may or may not 'succeed' in common or self-defined ways. He does this with an outstanding sweet low-level hilarity, in dialogue and situations that become hysterical about mid-way through the film, putting Big In Japan up there with some of the all time great rock and roll movies." —KEXP 90.3
"zippy energy. . .the comic misadventures of innocents abroad. . .street-level pace and texture" —Seattle Weekly
THE SUBPOENAED LEMUR VOCODER ORCHESTRA is a improvised yet tightly-synched musical-animation entertainment act comprised of a Human Being, a Roland VP-550 Vocoder / Harmonizer, a Thingamagoop (an analog monosynth toy modulated by light into a photocell), and two cans of compressed air.
The Human is Korby Sears, a composer, game designer, animator, and general hustler based in Seattle, WA. Korby is the recipient of a Stranger Genius Award and a Seattle Weekly Music Award. He is also the creator of IRON COMPOSER, THE POP SMEAR TEST, FRANCES FARMER ORGAN KARAOKE, and TECHNOSAURUS EVENTS.