Saturday, June 12, 2004

Sneaking around

Thailand's low costs for film locations has attracted a firm called Red Tiger Films, which plans make low-budget films here, according to a Nation article.

The brains behind the operation is producer-screenwriter Peter Alexander.

“Although we’re a small company,” Alexander says, “we can produce motion pictures here for the world.”

A former managing and creative director at ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, his screenplay for The Animals are Crying once won top prize at the San Francisco Film Festival.

He also penned the screenplay for Double Boy for Thailand's Kantana Group, which is hoping for overseas release of the biopic about the famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng next year.

Budget problems on that film gave him the idea of writing scripts with low budgets in mind, something he thinks is a perfect fit for the Thai industry.

"I have history in Thailand. I know Thai craftsmanship well. I know who are the reliable people," he says. "But the problem is that small Thai companies are limited to big productions, which they can’t do, and they make only Thai-language movies for the Thai market. I believe in the capability of Thai filmmakers, but mostly only the big-name companies have the ability to make films like Suriyothai. But those films haven’t done well in the world market."

Dorn Ratanathatsanee is one of those "reliable people". He will oversee line production on Red Tiger’s first two projects.

"We intend to make low-budget films, and we’re sure we can make a profit,” he says.

Up first is the romance drama Sneaks. It will be shot in Northern Thailand, even though the story is set in New England.

"We can find the locations in Thailand to match that area and show the world that Thailand isn’t only jungle," Alexander says.

Garett Griffin will direct. He's won several awards, mentioned in the article, and has also been a director for America's Most Wanted.

Next will be Voices, a horror fantasy with special effects, which Griffin will also direct.

That will be followed with an erotic thriller, Serpent of Fire.

The fourth, Ava, will be a family film about a Thai man and American woman who help a mother elephant rescue her baby from wildlife exploiters.

Sneaks will come in for around $400,000, Voices around $1.5 million. “We can’t do this in Hollywood,” Alexander says.

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