JR Lipartito
Director
JR arrived in Japan in 2001, initially teaching English until he fell in with a gang of independent film hobbyists who inspired him to write and direct his own first film, MRA: The Monster Removal Agency. Shot in 2005 and completed in 2007, the experience of overseeing MRA from conception to final cut led JR to at pursue a filmmaking career.
JR obtained a second Bachelor’s Degree in Commications and Theater from Temple University, Japan Campus in 2009, and immediately started working as an assistant producer, cameraman and editor for ACTV, the production company originally responsible for the hit entertainment news show, FOX BACKSTAGE PASS. In 2010 he moved to FOX International Channels Japan to continue producing BSP segments as well as FOX programming promos and commercials.
JR left FOX in July of 2011, to focus on narrative film production, documentaries, and other creative contents. JR is currently the creative director of the "CHO Japan" YouTube Channel. He also teaches Editing, TV Production, and Content Management courses at Temple University, Japan Campus.
As of today, 1 Japanese Yen equals 0.0083 US Dollar, so 1,000,000 yen amounts to little more than 8,000 USD. Not a bad deal, but not quite as earth shattering as this article makes it out to be!
My apologies, this article is actually has most of the info right and I was just reading through the numbers too fast. The only detail Micah seems to have missed is that in addition to 500,000 yen for being a finalist, 1 million yen for best pitch and a 100 million yen budget, the winner will get yet another 1.5 million yen prize "after confirmation that the pitch will be realized as a short film." In other words, and unless I'm still missing something, the winner receives roughly $25,000 in prize money AND an $800K budget for their film.