Thailand has emerged as a popular destination for overseas filmmakers, with its diverse landscape, beautiful scenery, and unique culture offering a plethora of potential locations for film shoots. However, there are still numerous challenges that overseas filmmakers face when shooting in the country. This research explores the problems and opportunities for film location shooting in Thailand and provide insights into how these challenges can be addressed. The qualitative research employs an in-depth Interviews with a purposive sample of 30 key informants including filmmakers, location scouts, international distributors, government officials and film critics/experts, followed by a focus group. While location shooting is regarded as part of a media industrial sector to promote the country's creative economy, the findings suggest that lack of reliable database regarding creative labors and administration from the Thai governments are among major hurdles. Another irony is the scale of the location-shooting businesses is limited to only a handful of private companies, which makes it difficult to be developed as an outstanding industrial sector. Furthermore, many experts raise a big question whether location shooting should be regarded as a part of the ecology of film industry, as its main functions are to serve as laborious workforce for overseas filmmakers, and revenue return do not contribute to the growth of the local film industry. The results can be used to inform policies and regulations to improve the conditions for film location shooting in Thailand, and contribute to more strategic planning for creative economy and cultural promotion.

Authors:
Alongkorn Parivudhiphongs, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Alongkorn Parivudhiphongs is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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