Final Week of Prep

The final week of prep started off with an all day production meeting with all department heads. where we went through the schedule in order of the shoot and asked/answered a ton of questions.  Nothing terribly exciting or out of the ordinary about this except for the fact that we had a large contingent of both the Thai and US crews, and we had one US crew member on via SKYPE, so keeping everyone understanding what was going on was a bit tricky. It lasted all day, then the producers and I had a budget meeting that night until about 11:30pm. 

Thai UPM, Storyboard Aerist, Casting, Makeup Departments

Thai 1st AD Geng presenting birthday cake to US 1st AD John

Can't forget the snacks

Tuesday I worked in the office all day and by then had developed a pretty bad cold.  At night I took myself on the BTS (Skytrain) to the Siam complex, where they have a huge (ginormous) shopping mall and cinema complex.  I didn't know what was playing and when so I just sort of showed up and hoped for the best.  I ended up watching The Bling Ring, which was terrible.  However, the theater was the fanciest movie theater I have ever been to. The seats were like business class plane seats, soft and leathery and wide.  There were no trash cans anywhere in sight - and no trash strewn around. I have no idea what happens to all the trash. I had to go to the restroom after the movie to find a place to throw away my popcorn. I'm telling you, this place would put Disneyland or the Grove to SHAME.

 

I was feeling progressively worse through the evening and night and didn't sleep at all that night.  The next morning we had scheduled a 2nd unit shoot in Ayutthaya with a helicam.  I wanted to go but couldn't stomach the ride and was feeling so shitty that I didn't go.  Apparently it went well until a huge rain came in the afternoon causing the crew to lose an important establishing shot. We'll try to get it later on.  I took some cold  medicine and slept all day.

 

I felt better by the next morning and worked in the office doing prep stuff.  2 of our 3 lead actresses also flew in that day so I met them at their hotel and helped them settle in and meet the crew.  We sent them to get a massage at a spa on Soi 8 called Baan Dalah.  By that night I decided that I wanted a massage, too, so I walked the few blocks in the rain to the place and got a thai massage at 11pm.  I loved the atmosphere of the place but I have to say the massage itself was not great.  At one point she was literally standing on my back for about 5 minutes and all I could think of was "will this ever end?"  Normally I love massages so much but for whatever reason as much as I tried to enjoy this one it just wasn't relaxing.  Luckily it only cost 350 Baht (about $11) :-)

 

Friday our 3rd lead actress came in so I settled her in as well. Then we had an actor's read through of the whole script, which went really well.  All of our actors did a great job.  That night we had yet another location scout looking for a bar. We finally found one (for some reason this has been our most difficult location to get, because most Thai bars are "open air" bars and since we'll be shooting Day for Night we need something enclosed).  The one we found is really cool and unique and will work well I hope. 

 

 

 Our leading ladies!!!

 

Saturday we did fittings all day and makeup tests in the evening.  That was a long and chaotic process.  Nobody's fault, just the nature of the beast.  Our 3 leads were so jet lagged, I felt really bad for them making them try on all these outfits and stay focused. They were troopers though. 

 



 Wardrobe fittings. A slow and steady process.

 

 

 

 

Saturday night was packing and we got up early Sunday morning to check out and head to the main location, where a Thai ceremony was prepared as is tradition for all Thai films to bring luck upon the film.  The ceremony started promptly at 8:29am (very precise!) and it was absolutely beautiful.  There was an offering table with foods of all kinds, incense, flowers and lots of color. 

 

 

 The ceremony was held next to the table, which is on the side of the house.  Slowly during the course of the ceremony the water from the nearby river started to rise and seep up into our feet. By the end of the morning the area was unwalkable.

 Beautiful fruits, candies and offerings of all kinds.

 

 

 



 Dragonfruit

 I've never seen so many butterflies in my life. They are everywhere and are so pretty, it's hard to describe the feeling.

 After the ceremony a few of us stayed to walk through the house and talk production.  As the minutes turned to hours, the water kept rising to the point where we realized we wouldn't be able to shoot exteriors as planned on our first day, and not only that, we would have to disassemble the sets we had started to build below the houses.  We discovered there is a reason the Thai houses are built on stilts!!!

 Workers literally carrying a piece of the set through the driveway we walked down to get to the prayer ceremony just hours earlier. 

 We had planned to stage makeup and wardrobe in this set of rooms next to the main house, but now you can't even get to the building.

 Later that afternoon, once we had made some significant changes to the schedule to accommodate the rising waters, we checked into the hotel, a Thai resort called The Pine Resort.  It is like Thai summer camp.  Very rustic, almost no internet (the production bought me a dongle so I have access on my computer), no cable tv, bugs everywhere, but so lush and beautiful that I really love it.  Honestly I'm really happy to be out of Bangkok.

My room at the Pine Resort.

Some of our crew had toads and ants and giant spiders waiting for them.  All I had was a leaky air conditioner.  Hey, at least I HAVE an air conditioner, I feel lucky!

That night we took a trip to the local Tesco to stock up on supplies.  This Tesco is like KMart on steroids.  It seriously blew my mind.  Downstairs was a bunch of random stores and restaurants (like Swensens, KFC, and a couple banks and other merchant stores), and upstairs was the biggest Wal-Mart like structure, with loud Thai music and all sorts of random stores on the periphery selling wares like gold, cameras, electronics, etc.  My new friend Yasha, our on location editor who flew in yesterday from India, took this panoramic photo on her iphone:

 It seems like there's not much (if anything) between small 7-11s and huge Tescos here.  Which is cool by me, I love both!

 Random gold jewelry store in front of the cash registers.

 

 

More fittings that night, then off to be around 10pm. Get ready, get set, GO!!!!