Sa Wa Dee Kaa

Hello!

Yesterday was a productive and fun day. My first time out of Bangkok since arriving several days earlier.  The US and Thai crews went on a tech and location scout. 

 US Crew - Production Designer Pete, Director James, DP Seo, Producer Daemon, Producer Rachvin, 1st AD John, Producer Kulthep.

 

 

The main location is a compound of several houses about an hour's drive north of Bangkok in the middle of nowhere. Very beautiful and very HOT.  There are butterflies, lizards, centipedes ants and bugs of every kind everywhere.  Thai custom dictates no shoes inside a house so we will all be barefoot inside a hot set - OY!

 Our main location

 On the compound of our main location.

 Also on the compound and to be used as a second location

 

 Tech Scouting at the main location

 So beautiful!

 These little guys are everywhere

 Making friends with the locals (this is someone's pet - won't be getting this close to the street strays)

 

 

 After spending only a couple of hours at the main compound the US crew was EXHAUSTED from the heat and humidity. How we're going to handle full shooting days with no a/c is a mystery to me.  We all climbed back in our nice air conditioned van and drove about 10 minutes to a resort for lunch. This is the resort where the US crew will be staying for the run of the shoot.  It is more, uh, rustic than our city hotel to be sure. But it is a real thai resort where Thai companies and youngsters go for retreats, so there are all sorts of cool things to do like tennis, badmitton, bicycle rentals, ziplines, etc.  Most of my US crew doesn't really care about this stuff so we'll see if I can find partners in adventure.  More to come on the resort once we check in.

After lunch we encountered a massive rainstorm (it is monsoon season after all) which lasted about 2 hours.  During this time we drove to Ayutthaya and visited a couple other locations including the Ayutthaya train station and the Ayutthaya floating market, which was touristy but actually very cool.

 At the Floating Market in Ayutthaya, which we'll use as a location.

 Me being a tourist at the floating market.

 Love this children's slide

 Floating Market Ayutthaya

 Stray dogs are everywhere in Ayutthaya - they live on scraps and wander loose all over town. Breaks my heart.

 The boats and bridges at the Ayutthaya floating market.

We got back to Bangkok at around 6pm and man I was exhausted.  It was an exhilarating day to be sure.