Photo: Actor Will Yun Lee (AKKARAT) with Charlie Ruedpokanon (VICTOR) shooting in Pattaya, Thailand on set of She Has A Name.
Walking street. A bustling, sleepless, lit-up sensory overload.
It’s like Vegas but on the set of Good Morning Vietnam. Karaoke and Go-Go Bars abound. A sampling of the signs:
- Crazy Russian Girls
- Living Dolls
- Don’t Tell Mama
- Lucifer Disco
Photo: Actresses Eugenia Yuan (MAMMA) and Teresa Ting (NUMBER 18) on set in Pattaya, outside the location for The Pearl.
Day 6 of our film shoot was one of our more complicated shooting scenarios. We shot in the busy tourist hub of Pattaya, taking over a side street with our gear vans, trailers and base camp. We ran two units to cover as much of the script as possible.
Photo: Actor Giovanni Mocibob (JASON) looks over a take with Director Daniel Kooman on the streets of Pattaya.
This was the same area that the Russian government recently warned Thai counterparts about a security threat to Russian tourists in the region who could be targets for ISIS. Just another day in the life in this crazy world!
Gratefully, our afternoon was interrupted only by a torrential downpour. And yes, the rain kept falling!
We had to adjust a key shot to factor in the rain, since our time on location was so limited. The sun starts to set just before 6 pm so we had a narrow window to get our exterior day shots before the streets got jammed packed with people.
Photo: Director Matthew Kooman with Lisa Jean Richard and Colin Meyer from the Camera crew and the Art Department’s Ross Bodenmann, changing a shot as the rain starts to fall.
Our night shots were borderline crazy. It was an exciting challenge to pull off each set up among the swarms of people and traffic passing through the busy cobblestoned street.
It was truly all hands on deck as our Thai and Canadian crew—anyone not on set in front or behind camera—formed a human chain to block curious passersby from getting in our shots.
Photo: Producers Shari Aspinall and Donna Abraham form part of a human wall to block tourists and passersby from a shot.
Between takes we did our best to funnel tour groups from mainland China past our curious set up. Who can blame them for stopping in their tracks to watch a movie being filmed! We did our best to keep them from staring into our actors’ eye lines as they did their close up work.
It’s here where the centre of the film’s investigation into the the world’s booming sex tourism industry comes alive.
As busloads of men from around the world filled the streets for a night of partying and purchasing flesh, art certainly did seem to reflect life.