The Bangkok boys' club
Four Hollywood figures with impressive CVs have set up shop in Thailand. They talk about the future of Asia-Pacific entertainment with Jason Gagliardi
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was a game that captured the popular imagination for a time. The universal law that underpinned it was that you could link any celebrity back to Kevin Bacon in six moves or fewer, illustrating the incestuous and tangled web that connects the entertainment world, or perhaps just the ubiquity of the star.
But among the four men recently gathered in Bangkok's Friese-Greene Club, a private cinema club, one or perhaps two moves would do the trick.
Collectively, the fellows sipping iced water and exchanging the latest showbiz banter have done just about every conceivable job in the film, television and theatrical worlds in the course of four very different but equally colourful careers. They have mixed with the best of Hollywood and European cinema, but choose to base themselves in Bangkok, at least when their peripatetic work schedules allow.
The story here [in Thailand] is what's going on in the region, what's in development, why producers come here and where the industry is going
All are true believers that the Asian century upon us marks this part of the world as the place to be for opportunities, challenges and buzz, bullish that the best is yet to come for the silver screen in the Land of Smiles. And each has a well-stocked supply of anecdotes about his life in entertainment that would enthrall the most casual cinephile for hours.
Greenlight Films boss Les Nordhauser, SoHo Films owner Mark Hammond, special effects (SFX) wizard Kevin "Big Nuts" Chisnall and production designer, published author and self-professed "blues shouter" Jim Newport have the easy camaraderie of men who have been in the trenches together.
Because they have. The careers of the four intersect and entwine, but only on one notable occasion were they all on the same set: a 2011 horror film titled , shot in Thailand and starring William Hurt and Cary Elwes. The tale of a demon-plagued car crash victim was widely regarded by critics as a good idea that, when executed, wasn't scary enough - although it won the award for best film at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival and best horror film at the Fantasy Horror Awards in Italy in 2012.
The growing coterie of international film and television experts living and working in Thailand is accelerating the learning curve for the already excellent Thai production crews and post-production houses, says Nordhauser, which have already carved out a global reputation as cost-effective and as good as their American, British or European counterparts.