I was like, 'What is that?!' They were like, 'It's the sound 'no.' And I was like, 'But what does it mean?' And they're like, 'It doesn't mean anything. "The Hiragana for 'no' I saw that," he says. He recalls seeing an advertisement for a train that stopped him in his tracks – all because it had one of the Japanese alphabets, Hiragana, on it. Naturally, culture shock smacked him in the face.Įspecially coming from New York – with its filthy subway system – Johanas immediately brings up his impressions of the Japanese public transit system (one of the best in the world). He flew out and stayed with her family in Chiba, right outside of Tokyo. They all said yes.īut it turned out Johanas was the only one who bought a ticket. One year, she floated the idea of everyone visiting her. When she moved back to Japan, their friend group stayed in touch. He got his first chance to see Japan when visiting a friend who had lived in America during their Elementary school years. He was also into video games – specifically Japanese games. I was like, 'Well, I wanna start working on that.'" But still, that's even just a very simple song, but you have to work on it for a long time. And then they finally perfect their craft into something. You wanna immediately write a song like that, but these people have been playing in a crappy band for ten years, writing nothing that gets released. also taught me about that effort that's involved. You realize, 'I could do that as well if I put in the effort to learn it. "Because it almost brings it down to a level that's digestible. "That removed an illusion for me," Johanas says. But he could break it down into simple chords going back and forth – the backbone of songwriting. In his head, he realized the song wasn't all that complex. Even early as a guitar player, Johanas identified the errors in the player's strumming patterns. One day in high school, he was with a friend who was also learning guitar, playing a poor rendition of a Radiohead song. Radiohead was the band that cracked music open for Johanas when he realized it isn't something that just exists. Their standout song, he says, was actually a B-side: "Talk Show Host," originally featured on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet movie. He then played guitar and sang in a Radiohead cover band. After a couple of years, he took his lessons and re-applied them to guitar. That was too hard, so he picked up bass instead. Eventually, he wanted to play a cooler instrument, so he tried guitar. When he was a kid, he played the alto saxophone in his school's symphonic band. Johanas was always interested in music growing up. So, he deleted his work, moved the stems onto a USB – where they'd sit for more than a decade – and moved on. Johanas, a fan, sitting in his dorm at Brandies University, downloaded the files, dropped them into GarageBand, and then learned the hard way that he had no technical ability to do anything with the treasure trove of music he had. That said, nearly a decade into his career as a game director, Johanas finally feels a bit confident in his abilities. He thought the most difficult and challenging thing about directing a film was getting out of the car. Griffith Award when he said (via Far Out Magazine), "I believe Steven summed it up about as profoundly as you can. Johanas is quoting Stanley Kubrick, who was actually quoting Steven Spielberg during his 1997 acceptance speech for the D.W. Flying by the seat of his pants – making, at least from an outsider's perspective, some baffling decisions (that, to be fair, paid off in spades) – he ended up here with no choice but to get out of the car and be a director every single day. He was just a kid on Long Island, New York, who liked Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails that moved when he saw an opportunity. It's worth mentioning that Johanas had no aspirations of becoming a game developer growing up. So yeah, the hardest part of the day is getting out of the metaphorical car to go into his job at Tango Gameworks and lead video games, such as The Evil Within 2 and the well-received Hi-Fi Rush. "I don't know." Nevertheless, no one can be at that level all the time. To be able to do that, to make that switch, Johanas says you need to be a "weird psychopath." Though he likes to think he isn't a weird psychopath. He has to lead teams, micromanage, make tough decisions, and accept making mistakes – all skills he says he learned without clear guidance. But when he goes to work, he has to be an extrovert. But being a director requires turning a switch in his brain. The hardest part of being a director is getting out of the car in the morning, John Johanas says.
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