Sentai & Rider - Development/Production Process

[themidnighter]

As a Hollywood entertainment industry professional (and obsessive), I'm very interested in the behind the scenes development/production process of my favorite shows. How stories are broken, how the writers' room is structured, who the showrunner(s) is (are), what the creative organization/hierarchy is like, who reports to whom, what production/shooting schedules are like, how quickly an episode is turned around, how closely a finished series resembles the initial pitch, etc, etc, etc... -- these are the kinds of things I obsess over.

Since Super Sentai and Kamen Rider are foreign productions, there's very little information out there about their production processes.

Some of you more-enlightened forum regulars must have an intimate knowledge of this process. I'd love to hear the nitty gritty of how a series is developed, written, directed, staffed, run, shot, produced, edited!

No detail is too small! No minutia too... well... minute!

 

[themidnighter]

Here's an interesting link that goes over a little of it...

http://cherryblossomstorm.de/Toei_Interview.pdf

But I'm still craving more details.

 

[SynchroMax]

Here's an interesting link that goes over a little of it...

http://cherryblossomstorm.de/Toei_Interview.pdf

But I'm still craving more details.

The link is not working.

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

A guidebook for Kamen Rider Double had an incredibly in depth explanation of the process. Going on what that show's producer said, he would go back and forth from Toei and Bandai, shuttling his ideas around and trying to make them work with what both sides want, in some cases pushing for what he thinks is best for the series. These shows don't exist in a vacuum, leading to the every staff member in a creative position needing to keep up with social trends and norms. (are military themed shows not doing well? let's not do one! Did our last show bomb? Let's pick a theme that's always been popular!) Once they have the basic layout of the series done, they would need to consult prop makers, specifically the company that makes the suits so they can adjust the designs and have them be something the suit actors can actually do stunts in while wearing.

Once the show is physically ready to go, the writer will give motion to the producer's ideas as best they can while giving the scripts their own voice. There are inconsistencies from time to time though. Sometimes a producer will create a character or setting that doesn't factor into what the writer wants to do at all, which was the case in Kamen Rider OOO. This can lead to shows having characters or aspects that are fairly visible, but largely unimportant in the grand scheme. There are also writers who hate the toy commercial aspect of the shows, leading to instances of a toy being overtly shoved in because the writer just doesn't care to make it a real part of the show.

Filming is tricky because the schedules seem to change all the time. It's my understanding that various fight scenes, at least for the first few episodes, will be shot months in advance while the actors coming in happens a little later. Kyoryuger's first episode began filming around December. Kamen Rider Gaim, which premieres in October, began filming just last month. Based on what various writers say, scripts are finalized about three months in advance while the production is usually four to eight episodes ahead of the most recently aired episode. Though, again, schedules change all the time. The script for Kamen Rider Wizard's first episode was finalized in January of last year, with the show beginning its run in September.

I imagine pitches also change quite dramatically from what we end up seeing on screen from time to time. At one point, Kagaku Sentai Dynaman was called Baseball Sentai V-Leaguer, and you can see this reflected in some of the early production art for the show. IIRC, Goranger was at one point going to be a team based Kamen Rider series, but that idea eventually became its own concept while Kamen Rider Stronger took its place.

 

[themidnighter]

The link is not working.

Just edited it. Been a while since I posted a link in a forum!

 

[themidnighter]

--snip--

Very interesting. From what I gather, the main producer has complete creative control, and their job is to wrangle a huge number of logistic loose ends -- from the writers to the toy companies to the prop makers. The main producer basically acts as the equivalent of a non-writing showrunner in Hollywood.

As far as the writers go, I wonder how much creative control they have over the direction of the show. It sounds like they work with the producer to create an outline/overview of the show, and then are set loose to write the scripts -- with their level of freedom dependent on the show and their own prominence as writers. Do you happen to know if there's a writers room full of people breaking the story, like an American show? Or is it more like a British show, where a main writer/writing team handles most of the scripts and story, occasionally farming out episodes to freelance/guest writers? If it's just one or two people writing all 45+ episodes of series, I'm impressed. That is an astronomical amount of work!

I also find it fascinating that all of the scripts for the series are pretty much locked before the show even starts filming. That provides a strong road map for the series, but also limits the ability to change character relationships and plots based on unexpected chemistry between actors. Though, when we're talking about upwards of 50 episodes a year, it's probably safer to have the story's direction firmly established.

You mention OOOs as an example of a series where a writer was forced to use a character they had no interest in. Which character/element is that?

For the filming aspects, I never considered that the in-suit action would be shot at a different time than the out-of-suit stuff -- but it makes a lot of sense. One benefit is that it allows the out-of-suit actors to see how the stunt-actors established the physicality of their characters, giving them the oppportunity to integrate those ticks into their performances.

Thanks for the insight, Aoi. :buttrock: I'd love to read that Double Guidebook you mentioned -- though I doubt it's been translated.