Thailand is still attractive to foreign filmmakers

[snoop1130]

 

BANGKOK (NNT) - Thailand is still attractive to foreign filmmakers as many as 26 foreign films have been made in Thailand in the first three months of 2021 and have generated Bt1.18 billion in revenue.

 

According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Thani Saengrat, the film board is considering another four or five applications from film producers. Though the country is struggling under the new normal, the film industry is still generating income and maybe a strong driving force for economic recovery post-Covid-19.

 

Several reasons for making international films in Thailand include fast permission within five days if all documents are ready. The country also offers plenty of incentives. If a production house invests more than Bt50 million, mostly uses Thai workers and promotes the image of Thailand, it can get cash rebates of up to 20 per cent.

 

Meanwhile, Thai filming crew are skilled and have experience working with world-class filmmakers, especially from Hollywood. Thailand also has good quality studios and props and offers beautiful locations and great infrastructure.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-04-13

 

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[Yorkshire Tea]

19 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

26 foreign films have been made in Thailand in the first three months of 2021

That might all change, now ???? 

[bluesofa]

37 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

The country also offers plenty of incentives.

Monk In A Cave - the sequel, the prequel, the trilogy. Quite a franchise.

[Stargeezr]

Good thing that filming in Thailand is pretty cheap in a lot of aspects.  Maybe there

will be some good tropical themed movies getting made in the future.

Geezer

[mtls2005]

So, does this include "Seaspiracy"?

 

 

26 films in 3 months seems like a lot. Just gettng the personnel in, through quarantine, seems like a challenge.

 

Would love to hear more about these productions.

 

 

 

 

[Dogmatix]

Thailand is a new hub of foreign film making. How many of the foreign films made in Thailand have been posted on Pornhub?

[Dogmatix]

1 hour ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

Good thing that filming in Thailand is pretty cheap in a lot of aspects.  Maybe there

will be some good tropical themed movies getting made in the future.

Geezer

 You might not see tropical films. Thailand is such a great place to make films that they shoot winter movies with artificial snow imported from China here too.

[hotchilli]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Thailand is still attractive to foreign filmmakers as many as 26 foreign films have been made in Thailand in the first three months of 2021 and have generated Bt1.18 billion in revenue.

Not another apocalypse sequel?

[hotchilli]

24 minutes ago, Dogmatix said:

Thailand is a new hub of foreign film making. How many of the foreign films made in Thailand have been posted on Pornhub?

Hard to tell now.

[herfiehandbag]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Thailand is still attractive to foreign filmmakers

 For as long as the market for low budget films about the dysfunctional American military involvement in Vietnam holds up!

[Sydebolle]

Tell the clowns, if they would not insist on censoring scripts and require work permits for all those alien actors from outer space, they would have created a haven for the film industry. 

Connaisseurs of the trade meanwhile realized quite some time ago, that the dream factories are better off and much more welcome in the area like Cambodia, Malaysia or the Philippines. 

Thailand is not at all attractive for the movie makers due to all those ridiculous governmental obstacles ...... go figure! 

[mikebell]

I have a number of Thai based TV shorts but can't find an agent in Thailand.

[ParkerN]

Anyone seen a Thai film made in TL? watch 'The Necromancer'. It's a real treat and will illustrate why the TL government is very eager to see more foreign films made in TL. The last Rambo film was. Sank without a trace IIRC.

 

Thai talents on display.

Edited April 14, 2021 by ParkerN

[Naroge]

What is "cash rebates of up to 20 per cent." Rebates/discounts on what?

[Excel]

1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

Thailand is a new hub of foreign film making. How many of the foreign films made in Thailand have been posted on Pornhub?

And maybe some shots were on location in certain Thong Lor clubs ?

[eeworldwide]

1 hour ago, Sydebolle said:

Tell the clowns, if they would not insist on censoring scripts and require work permits for all those alien actors from outer space, they would have created a haven for the film industry. 

Connaisseurs of the trade meanwhile realized quite some time ago, that the dream factories are better off and much more welcome in the area like Cambodia, Malaysia or the Philippines. 

Thailand is not at all attractive for the movie makers due to all those ridiculous governmental obstacles ...... go figure! 

 You dont know what you're talking about. I've been in the film industry for 25 years and here in Thailand for 12. Marvel studios with Netflix currently filming here. There's a rack of films slated up for filming here over the next year.  Thai film crews are brilliant and serve very well as first or second units. One area that Thailand HAS got right is the film industry and accommodating it. Long may it continue.

 

[Excel]

4 minutes ago, eeworldwide said:

 You dont know what you're talking about. I've been in the film industry for 25 years and here in Thailand for 12. Marvel studios with Netflix currently filming here. There's a rack of films slated up for filming here over the next year.  Thai film crews are brilliant and serve very well as first or second units. One area that Thailand HAS got right is the film industry and accommodating it. Long may it continue.

 

Does being in the film industry included selling of the movie's tickets ? ????????

[josephbloggs]

19 minutes ago, eeworldwide said:

 You dont know what you're talking about. I've been in the film industry for 25 years and here in Thailand for 12. Marvel studios with Netflix currently filming here. There's a rack of films slated up for filming here over the next year.  Thai film crews are brilliant and serve very well as first or second units. One area that Thailand HAS got right is the film industry and accommodating it. Long may it continue.

 

You beat me to it - I was just about to reply to the same poster in much the same way.  I have also been working in the TV and film industry here for 25+ years and Thailand is easily the regional leader and is an easy place for foreign productions to come and shoot.  I've worked on everything from local, regional, and global TVCs to Thai movies, regional movies and Hollywood movies.

We had a regional TVC shoot here last month where they flew the celebrity here rather than shoot in one of that poster's "better off" countries, complete with the talent doing 14 day quarantine as that is how much they value the quality of Thai production.  We have another shoot this week with foreign celebrity talent having travelled to Thailand and done quarantine rather than shoot in their own country.

The industry here is world class.

Edited April 14, 2021 by josephbloggs

[Somtamnication]

Yeah, tons of porno stuff online.

[Misterwhisper]

3 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

So, does this include "Seaspiracy"?

 

 

26 films in 3 months seems like a lot. Just gettng the personnel in, through quarantine, seems like a challenge.

 

Would love to hear more about these productions.

 

 

 

 

 

It's not all cinematic feature films, but primarily music videos, commercials and corporate promotional videos. 

[John Drake]

34 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

Thailand is easily the regional leader and is an easy place for foreign productions to come and shoot. 

 

I don't know where you've been staying. But the bigger production houses for film and TV are in Singapore. You want to make a deal, you go to Singapore. Beach House alone does more than Living Films and A Grand Elephant combined. People  bring work into Thailand, yes, but a lot of it is piece work. Workpoint has a lot outsourced to it. And a lot of the foreigners doing work here are sleazeballs. Not talking about you, of course. They're all penny pinchers and cut every corner they can. There is only one reputable middle company level guy I know who even has a nurse on set. 

[Sydebolle]

1 hour ago, eeworldwide said:

 You dont know what you're talking about. I've been in the film industry for 25 years and here in Thailand for 12. Marvel studios with Netflix currently filming here. There's a rack of films slated up for filming here over the next year.  Thai film crews are brilliant and serve very well as first or second units. One area that Thailand HAS got right is the film industry and accommodating it. Long may it continue.

 

Noted; I was in logistics moving filming equipment into and from Thailand to the States and Europe. My comments were not towards the Thai film crews; they execute most brilliant work once the bureaucratic trail has been dealt with. I referred to the latter ..... 

[Excel]

2 hours ago, John Drake said:

 

I don't know where you've been staying. But the bigger production houses for film and TV are in Singapore. You want to make a deal, you go to Singapore. Beach House alone does more than Living Films and A Grand Elephant combined. People  bring work into Thailand, yes, but a lot of it is piece work. Workpoint has a lot outsourced to it. And a lot of the foreigners doing work here are sleazeballs. Not talking about you, of course. They're all penny pinchers and cut every corner they can. There is only one reputable middle company level guy I know who even has a nurse on set. 

A nurse on a movie set ah, think I can picture that, 5" heels as well perhaps ????????

[Bradmeister]

International Film Companies....not foreginers.

 

 

Specifically Who? Which companies and who has the stack of receipts showing anyone who challenges the claim? 

 

More superfluous Non Sense.

[josephbloggs]

8 hours ago, John Drake said:

 

I don't know where you've been staying. But the bigger production houses for film and TV are in Singapore. You want to make a deal, you go to Singapore. Beach House alone does more than Living Films and A Grand Elephant combined. People  bring work into Thailand, yes, but a lot of it is piece work. Workpoint has a lot outsourced to it. And a lot of the foreigners doing work here are sleazeballs. Not talking about you, of course. They're all penny pinchers and cut every corner they can. There is only one reputable middle company level guy I know who even has a nurse on set. 

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I think we are looking at different angles.  Beach House make a lot of great content internationally, yes, but my point was Thailand is a regional hub (there, that word) in that productions from overseas choose to come here to shoot.  90% of the regional TVC work that's handed out by the regional agencies in Singapore is shot here, never in Singapore (unless unavoidable).  If it can be done in Bangkok they will come to Bangkok - even as I said to the extent they will let celebrity talent go through the torture of 14 day quarantine.  

We had a big Toyota shoot (5 day shoot) from Australia coming here last year (got pulled when Covid hit when cast and crew were already here).   No-one would choose to go and shoot in Singapore unless they needed footage of Singapore or is was a Singapore production.  But agree there are definitely big professional outfits there just as there are here.  Personally I have never shot in Singapore so I can't testify to how the crews compare but I think Thai crews are pretty hard to beat.

Anyway, yeah, lots of sleazeballs at the lower end of the market, especially on the programatic/episodic side.  However there are tons of extremely professional, extremely well run foreign owned (and local) production companies here.    I have been on 6 TVC shoots recently - two for car brands, four for beauty brands - and all of them had nurses on set.   Four of those shoots with foreign owned houses, two with local, all superb.

[NancyL]

Just watched The Serpent on Netflix.  It was largely shot in Thailand in early 2020.  Very good quality and fun to take you back to the "good old days" of the hippie trail of the mid 1970s.

[clivebaxter]

9 minutes ago, NancyL said:

Just watched The Serpent on Netflix.  It was largely shot in Thailand in early 2020.  Very good quality and fun to take you back to the "good old days" of the hippie trail of the mid 1970s.

The Kanit house they used was in Suk soi 4, now demolished. The original was in Saladeang, that was pulled down in the 90's

[SiSePuede419]

Thailand: The Hub of Hangover and Ghost movies.

[John Drake]

14 hours ago, NancyL said:

Just watched The Serpent on Netflix.  It was largely shot in Thailand in early 2020.  Very good quality and fun to take you back to the "good old days" of the hippie trail of the mid 1970s.

 

Well, It's good that you enjoyed it. That's all that really matters, when you get down to it. But--and here's my "But"--go back and see how many recycled shots were used. I think the same guy walking out of the police "HQ" was used four or five times. Twice in one ep! I did see they at least went with a  different angle a bit later on. But really limited number of sets and a lot of talking. They used a multi perspective story to hide a lot of the storytelling's shortcomings. And either enhanced Super 8 for the 70s "feel" stock footage or some effects from Premiere Pro to make it look like it intentionally. Rashomon is still an influential film, especially when combined with the urgency of a tight budget. Would like to see someone take a bit better storytelling from something like James Carlos Blake's PIstolero and really make use of the style.

[John Drake]

14 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I think we are looking at different angles.  Beach House make a lot of great content internationally, yes, but my point was Thailand is a regional hub (there, that word) in that productions from overseas choose to come here to shoot.  90% of the regional TVC work that's handed out by the regional agencies in Singapore is shot here, never in Singapore (unless unavoidable).  If it can be done in Bangkok they will come to Bangkok - even as I said to the extent they will let celebrity talent go through the torture of 14 day quarantine.  

We had a big Toyota shoot (5 day shoot) from Australia coming here last year (got pulled when Covid hit when cast and crew were already here).   No-one would choose to go and shoot in Singapore unless they needed footage of Singapore or is was a Singapore production.  But agree there are definitely big professional outfits there just as there are here.  Personally I have never shot in Singapore so I can't testify to how the crews compare but I think Thai crews are pretty hard to beat.

Anyway, yeah, lots of sleazeballs at the lower end of the market, especially on the programatic/episodic side.  However there are tons of extremely professional, extremely well run foreign owned (and local) production companies here.    I have been on 6 TVC shoots recently - two for car brands, four for beauty brands - and all of them had nurses on set.   Four of those shoots with foreign owned houses, two with local, all superb.

 

I agree with you that the Thai crews have great skill. Cinematographers here are pretty good. Sound is the drawback. And they work efficiently and sometimes unsparingly. But I've seen some crews on set in flip flops, too. I would never let anyone on set without work boots. And the chances they take working with fire, water, and stunts are frightening. The tragedy with Thai filmmaking is that the directors must depend on making commercial spots to survive. And they often lack creative control.