Work Point Studios

One of the classes Steve and I are taking this semester is Media and Society. On friday we took a fieldtrip with that class to Work Point Studios. Work Point Studios is the company here in Thailand that produces 80% of the prime time television. Its about an hour away from our campus, near the campus that i did the Rice Harvesting festival at.

Workpoint is a very modern looking building. We meet our tour guide, who is an old friend of our Ajan, and studied in Texas and lived in the states for a few years. He explained to us about how big of a market share Work point has, and showed us around the studio. We first went to see the loading docks and sound stages. There were some big sets up on some of them. One was of a train station, one was of a bus stop (there were others but those stood out to me). It was really neat to see that the construction techniques were the same or similar to what we do at school. It was also really neat to stand on a set again.

We were also there to watch the filming of a TV show. The title of the show would be translated as 'Oh My God' and has won numerous awards. It is a variety show and it showcases different Thai artists. Most episodes start with a interview of an artist such as a painter or architect, or even someone who is just influential in the community, and then a performance of some kind of classical Thai art. Often if it is a musical performance they will first have the classical thai, and then they will mix it with some kind of western music to. While we waited for the show to start in the the studios very nice green room (It had windows overlooking the stages, plus aerobic machines, a badminton court and a ping pong table.) they put in DVDs of last season for us to watch. It was really neat.

When it was time to film the segment we were going to watch, we filed into the studio and sat down. One of the hosts of the show is American, and has been living in Thailand for many years. He explained that todays show was part of a series of shows honoring the 9 artists that were chosen this year to recive awards from Thailand. (nine is an auspicious number in Buddhism). We were to witness a Khon dance. The Khon dance, a highly regimented and stylized style, is made to tell the story of the Ramakien, which is an epic story that is akin to the Iliad and Odessy of western culture. Because of the length of the story, we were only going to see an episode of it. (in fact, most 'full length' performances only show a small part of the story) We would be seeing the battle between the Monkey-Gods and the Giants. The performers (there were about 30-40 of them) were all students of the master who was being honored, who themselves went on to become teachers of the dance themselves.

While the performers did a few runthroughs of their dance, the master offered to show us how it was done and asked for a couple of volunteers. Of course Steve and I, who had been salivating at the thought of performance since we entered the studio volunteered and were shown the positions, with the Master repositioning us. It was not the day to have worn bluejeans. The positions were much like advanced ballet positions, requiring both strength and flexibility. Being inflexible as I am he made the comment that i had 'buffalo legs' but if i studied under him he could fix it.

We sat down for them to do another runthrough, this time with cameras. Afterwards the American asked for volunteers to be brought on stage during the actual filming. Steve, Johnny and I were chosen. They said they would bring us on stage, teach us a little of the dance and then ask us do show something that we were good at to the audience, so we were quickly put on the spot to come up with something that all 3 of us were good at. The decided upon talent was that I would beatbox and Steve and Johnny would dance.
The cameras started rolling and we were seated off to the side. The dancers danced, and then the master was brought onstage for an interview. After that 4 students of his students were brought on and they did a small sample of dance. Then we were brought on and taught the students dance. We did our best. :D One of the hosts is considered to be Thailands best commedian, and ran us through our paces, having us do our best imitations of the different characters in the Ramakein dance. They then asked us what we had to share, and gave me a microphone. This part I had feared because all of the microphones used in the show were direct feed, no monitors. Which works fine for just speaking, but i was worried about not knowing what the mic was picking up from the beatbox. Luickly they gave me a mic that was pumping through the speakers so i had no problems. Steve and Johnny danced and then the hosts started joining in also.

The episode will be showing on Channel 9, at 3pm Bangkok Time, on either the 20th or the 27th.
And needless to say, I left two copies of my headshot with different people during the tour.