What this fool believes: Only a fool believes, on any given Sunday.

[snoop1130]

New incentives boost income from foreign films shot in Thailand 

By The Nation

 

 

Thailand earned more than Bt900 million from international film productions in the first quarter of the year, thanks to a new set of incentives offered to movie producers, the Tourism Department said on Monday.

 

Given this positive trend, it is estimated that the country will make Bt3 billion to Bt4 billion from foreign film productions by the end of this year, as targeted, said Wanasiri Morakul, director-general of the department.

 

Some 239 foreign films were shot in Thailand from January to March, with Hollywood the country’s top customer, generating Bt161 million from movie productions, she said.

 

Following close behind was the United Kingdom, whose productions generated Bt160 million during the quarter.

 

Under the new incentives programme, which came into effect in January, the government offers a 15-per-cent cash rebate for foreign films produced in the Kingdom with local spending of over Bt100 million. 

 

“The new incentive measure has been very successful,” Wanasiri said, adding, “We’re confident that the total income from foreign film productions in Thailand this year will be higher than in previous years.”

 

During the first quarter, one film – a UK movie called “Close” – received the cash rebate for its Bt100-million local expenditure.

 

“In May, we will consider the applications for the cash rebate for the second quarter, and it is expected that at least two movie productions will be qualified for the rebate with a combined investment of over Bt620 million,” said the director-general.

 

The cash rebate for these second-quarter productions may therefore amount to Bt93 million, she added.

 

In addition to the new incentive measure, the department is launching marketing and promotional campaigns in a bid to attract more foreign film-makers to use Thailand as the location for their productions, Wanasiri said.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/business/EconomyAndTourism/30313213

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-4-24

[ksamuiguy]

Involved in one program shot here in "The Kingdom".

Never again, monitoring by "officials" was like being a prisoner on parole.

Continual interference caused many delays.

Result talking to director "never agian"!

 

[johng]

The new film "hub" of South East Asia. Bigger than Hollywood and Bollywood combined.[emoji15]

[yellowboat]

12 minutes ago, ksamuiguy said:

Involved in one program shot here in "The Kingdom".

Never again, monitoring by "officials" was like being a prisoner on parole.

Continual interference caused many delays.

Result talking to director "never agian"!

 

Can imagine different parts of Thailand can be better or worse for filming.  Angolina Jolie shot something in Siem Reap.  Wonder how that went as apposed to doing something in Thailand.  Wonder if there more or less hassles. 

[Misterwhisper]

What a misleading article.

 

It says 239 foreign "films" were shot in Thailand in the first quarter. That is not to be confused with "cinematic movies." In fact the figure would include everything from short TV ads and music videos to corporate videos and brief scenes in TV series episodes. Probably only a tiny handful were "real" cinematic movies. And even among those, the vast majority would've used Thailand as a backdrop in some of their scenes,  while a few others were perhaps primarily shot in Thailand, mostly cheap Bollywood productions and even cheaper Chinese dramas and slapstick comedies.

 

If the figure of 900 million Baht is correct and one UK production alone already spent 100 million in Thailand, that would leave the remaining 800 million to be split up between the other 238 "films," meaning that on average each of these productions spent a measly 3.36 million Baht (approx. $91,000) in the country. Even the undisclosed number of Hollywood productions only generated a combined total of 161 million Baht ($4.7 million). Hardly could've been big-budget blockbusters, could they?

 

And since out of 239 productions only ONE foreign film (from the UK) was eligible for the much-touted cash rebate incentive (which stipulates that a production must spend at least 100 million Baht in Thailand to receive up to 15% cash-back, although it actually starts at only 5%,) how can this scheme be considered a success?

 

The other 238 foreign films apparently did NOT qualify for that rebate as their budgets earmarked for Thailand were too small. It must thus be presumed that their producers didn't choose Thailand as a shooting location because of the offered cash incentive. They would've come regardless.

 

And as another poster already pointed out, now that they have experienced the stringent monitoring and meddling by Thai officials, as well as the insane paper work involved, some of them might not return. It's much less of a hassle to shoot in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines - with production and post-production services there being just as good as in Thailand.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Misterwhisper
corrections

[pentap]

That's all they mainly think about here.

Money! Money! Money!

And where will the money, they are loudly bragging about, filter to?

[ujayujay]

31 minutes ago, pentap said:

That's all they mainly think about here.

Money! Money! Money!

And where will the money, they are loudly bragging about, filter to?

Oh yes....in your Homecountry this is off course totally different