Stuff You Should Know Before You Shoot in Thailand

The people here - they’re generally very polite, very hardworking. Equipment here is not dry hired. It comes with crew. It’s a very different mindset. I was trained in the Hollywood system for 20 years. When I was getting ready to do a movie or a series or a commercial, I’d call the DP and he’d come in with his key grip, his gaffer and his first assistant camera. It doesn’t work that way here. You hire your DP and then you hire your rental house and they send all these people over. And if you’ve been around a while like we have you can request a specific gaffer. 

My first film in Thailand was an American feature. I was in shock (‘What do you mean I don’t get to choose my own crew?”). I remember being up in an area called Kanchanaburi in the jungle at three o’clock in the morning and these guys are running through the jungle carrying track for dollies and working as efficiently as I’d ever seen anybody. 

The difference is that they work as a unit for the same company and train every single day whether they have a job or not. So they’re a solid unit. But the first time you come in it’s unsettling. I’ve had people come in from different countries saying ‘we don’t work that way.’ It’s like: ‘welcome to Thailand. You do now.’

That said, you’ve got to know what you want because the rental houses will, as a general rule, want to make sure that you’ve got enough people and sometimes you don’t want that many people. So you have to work through the system with them. 

A lot of production companies have a them-versus-us mentality. They’ve got to come in and embrace the local production coordinator because a certified local production coordinator is here to make your life better. They are on your side and you’ve got to really embrace each other. If you don’t then it all goes down the toilet. 

I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m really outspoken that it’s not two crews when they get together. It’s one crew. I want everybody to think that way. Some people are fine with the locals going off and eating in their corner. I’ll tell my people to integrate, get in there, meet who you’re working with. It’s more exciting, it’s more entertaining and everybody gets to know each other.

I think the beaches on the islands around Krabi [are the best]. Krabi is where you see all those traditional limestone cliffs coming out of the water. That’s also in Phang Nga Bay, but Krabi is a little less crowded. If you want to go further out you go out to Koh Lipe, which is down south and a couple of hours off the coast - beautiful stuff! 

What we need to do is always figure out the time in the season, if the waters are rough. At certain times of the year if you’re going for underwater stuff the Similan Islands are fantastic. During monsoon season they’re closed and the water can get crazy rough. You need to know the time of season, what you’re going to do.

You also want to make sure that you’re not going to places that are overcrowded. The beach that was used for the movie The Beach is one of the most crowded places. We get requests every month from people saying ‘that’s where we want to shoot.’ You’re never going to get that.

My personal favourites are Chiang Mai and Kanchanaburi. Kanchanaburi you probably haven’t heard of but The Bridge on the River Kwai is there. That’s a real bridge. At any point there are films being shot in Kanchanaburi. The Deer Hunter was shot there. It goes back a long long way. In a lot of ways it’s an idyllic place to shoot. There’s jungle, there’s waterfalls, there’s beautiful stuff there.

Chiang Mai has all that stuff as well. The difference between the two is that Kanchanaburi is, depending on where you go, between two and a half and five hours from Bangkok by car. In Chiang Mai you’re flying for an hour and a quarter. 

It’s important to know because in most cases you’re bringing a lot of crew from Bangkok. So are you gonna stick them in a bunch of vans or stick them on a plane? 

The biggest thing you have to be thinking about in Bangkok is taking traffic into consideration. When I’m not on a shoot I use the sky train and the subway (otherwise known as the BTS and the MRT) and I always say to people as long as you stay above and below traffic you’re fine. But you start getting into traffic and it can really slow down a shoot. 

You can’t take equipment on a subway, but if you’re going to an all-day shoot then you can go in there early in the morning, not a problem - you come back after rush hour. But if you’re in the middle of the day moving locations, it’s not a typical city. Traffic is horrific.

There’s an area in downtown Bangkok that you could call any city in the world, then there are other areas that are more colonial. 

You start going out to Isan, the northeast, and it’s very uniquely Southeast Asian and some real small villages. It’s a very rural area. It’s rice fields, farmland and really beautiful people. It’s just got a different look. So your story’s got to be right for that. You’re not going to find an urban area - maybe a village or a small town. The facilities aren’t there. There are no studios, equipment or crew out there. You’ve got to bring it. It doesn’t have the same five-star hotels in most cases. 

You’ve got to pick the right production service provider. There are a lot of elephant camps here. We only work with a few. I’ve been doing this for so long here. You can tell when you’ve got happy elephants. We’re very caring about that. We’re very focused on making sure that we’re only working with elephants that are well taken care of. It’s important. And sometimes people will pick somebody off the internet and then we’ll say, ‘Really? Do you have to go there?’ This is the one that has a show at noon, at two, at four. That’s not where we’re going.’ You should work with somebody that cares. I’ve gone to some animal camps and said to people, ‘don’t ever bring me here again.’ They’re underfed, chained up, unchained to do whatever the circus crowd wants and then they go back. 

Anywhere you go, you should be respectful of religious customs. Here [the religion is] primarily Buddhism. We get shows here that want to do a make-out scene in a temple. It’s not going to be OK. Or they want to go in a tank top and short shorts or a bikini.You can’t do it. It’s not our rule. But when you work here, with a film permit, you’re going to have a Thailand Film Office officer with you. And they’re there to make sure that you’re going to be respectful. 

Anywhere you go there are a couple of things that are very sensitive. One of them is religion. I don’t care what religion you are or what you’re portraying. Be good to it. People believe with all their heart and soul.

The other is politics. You cannot in any of these [Southeast Asian] countries disrespect royalty, the president, the prime minister, the leaders. That will get you in trouble and the censors will stop you.

If you start talking about corruption in all these places (and, let’s face it, the whole world right now has plenty of it), you’re potentially going to get in trouble. 

Each one of these countries in Southeast Asia has a special charm. And they all have cultural issues that filmmakers should be aware of.  Let me put it this way: you don’t see many films about the Vietnam war shot in Vietnam (where it is called The American War); “Anna and the King” was not filmed in Thailand. You’ve got to be culturally sensitive when you come here. You’ve got to be culturally sensitive when you come here.