From: kamol@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Kamol Hengkietisak)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Bangkok Post Dec 14: X movies galore
Date: 15 Dec 1992 20:45:30 +1100
Organization: Mail/News gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au

 
by Bob Halliday
SOME time ago a Taiwanese filmmaker and his entire crew were 
detected here in some very unsavoury activities and promptly 
thrown in jail. It seemed that they were making a pornographic 
film, something which the law strictly forbids. What, people asked 
with great consternation, would happen to Thailand's image if 
films like that started turning up on the screens of the world's 
cinemas?
 
When asked, people automatically deplore pornography. But their 
real thoughts about sexually explicit magazines and movies may not 
be quite so censorious. The market for such material has been 
insatiable as far back into history as we can trace it, and shows 
no signs of flagging in the forseeable future.
 
The advent of the home video player, like printing, photography 
and the movie camera before it, has upped the stakes enormously. 
Anyone with a basic budget, a video camera, and some willing 
performers can make rudimentary films that will satisfy customers 
who are rarely concerned with aesthetic merit or classy production 
values. And the portability and easy reproducibility of the 
finished product make it easy to manoeuvre in markets where 
obscenity laws create obstacles.
 
None of this has gone unremarked here in Thailand, which boasts 
one of Asia's most active, prolific, and fast-growing hard-core 
pornography industries. Yet, although no one can complain that 
Thailand's sex industry has lacked media exposure, this highly 
lucrative branch of it has been largely ignored by the media.
 
Just why this should be so is hard to explain, as the products it 
pours on to the market are often elaborately produced and highly 
visible. Well-printed full-colour magazines, which have every sign 
of having been designed and laid out by moonlighting 
professionals, can be had for the discreet asking at news stands 
all over town, the prices sometimes running to hundreds of baht. 
Many have a cover price of 350 baht. The fact that the highly 
lubricious texts in these volumes are written in Thai indicate 
that the audience for them is a local one.
 
"Not many people pay that much," admitted one dealer who had his 
wares spread out late one evening in one of the busiest parts of 
town. "Tourists and people who have never bought the magazines 
before pay whatever you ask, then grab the magazine and leave. But 
most people know the real value of the books and bargain before 
they buy."
 
He explained that dealers purchase the magazines in lots of 100 at 
100 or 110 baht a copy. They are non-returnable, so vendors are 
stuck with them if they do not sell them. For this reason, most 
will allow buyers to bargain the price down to something under 200 
baht.
 
Who produces and prints the magazines? According to the dealer, 
they are produced by independent photographers who enjoy the 
protection of a "mafia" that is police-proof if certain ground 
rules are observed and certain payments made. 
 
He went on to explain the procedure by which the magazines are put 
together. "Some of the material is shot on 35-millimetre still 
film while videos are being made," he said. "Others are made using 
people hired specially to pose for a magazine. Women are paid 
10,000 baht a session, and men about 8,000 baht.
 
"Usually, three series of pictures are taken at a single session. 
First the girl is photographed in provocative poses wearing a 
swimsuit. Then she poses for nude pictures. Finally, a third lot 
of pictures is taken of her having sex with a man. The producers 
use the pictures to make three different magazines. There are a 
lot of buyers who are not aroused by a magazine if a man appears 
in the pictures. Others prefer photographs of women in bathing 
suits to pictures of nude women. All sell very well."
 
Profits from such publishing ventures must be very high. According 
to the dealer quoted above, heterosexual pornographic magazines 
are published in runs of 10,000 copies. If these are sold to 
dealers at 100 baht a copy, they will gross one million baht. Even 
after the cost of printing, fees paid to performers, film and 
development charges, and other disbursements are deducted, plenty 
will be left over. The dealer claims that some producers make as 
many a three new magazines a month.
 
Videos and movies, too, are often far from haphazard affairs. Any 
highly successful television show or movie will generate 
pornographic imitations or parodies, and they are snapped up, 
according to one underground distributor, by the thousand. How can 
an industry that operates on such a scale, and which markets 
illegal products in such huge quantities, stay so successfully out 
of the courts and out of the limelight? Who makes the films and 
videos? Who are the performers? Where do they come from, and why 
do they agree to do such work? Who pays for it all?
 
"Manoj" is a prolific and very successful director of pornographic 
videos who agreed to talk about his work on the condition that we 
did not use his real name. During the course our conversation he 
showed no uneasiness whatsoever, either about the nature of his 
work or the questionable methods he employs to assemble a cast and 
complete a video. A self-taught filmmaker who considers himself a 
professional director of sexually explicit films, Manoj is well 
informed and highly articulate on the subject of Thailand's porn 
film industry. Asked about pornographic "movies", he quickly set 
the priorities straight.
 
"Today let's talk about videos," he insisted. "If we talk about 
movies it will become complicated because the whole set-up is 
different. Videos predominate anyway, because the production costs 
for movies are so high that they don't justify the investment. 
Getting hold of the materials and equipment used to make 
16-millimetre films is difficult. The film is expensive, and most 
of the cameras and processing equipment have long since been sold 
or thrown away. Even if you can find this sort of equipment it's 
generally sub-standard.
 
"Videos are much better. There has been so much development in the 
quality of video cameras that the new ones coming out of Japan are 
really excellent. The fidelity of the pictures is very high. 
They're extremely clear and the colours are bright. You can keep 
the investment low and still get very high quality."
 
Quality high enough, at least, for the existing market, a 
voracious one that makes few demands in terms of sophisticated 
production technique. The standard line fed to performers is that 
the videos are for export only. No need to worry about friends and 
relatives seeing what they shouldn't, the story goes, because it's 
all going abroad. Finished productions are to be sent to Hong 
Kong, where copies are made for shipment to clients all over the 
world. 
 
Actually, quite a few of them stay behind in Thailand, where they 
can be viewed to set the mood in short-time hotels or purchased 
under-the-counter from pirate video vendors.
 
To make a video that will satisfy these markets, according to 
Manoj, a filmmaker has to invest about 100,000 baht, presuming he 
already has his equipment and studio. There are many professionals 
who do have such set-ups, he explains -- so many, in fact, that 
Thai-made porn videos sometimes flood the market, and the price 
plummets.
 
Such risks affect mainly the investors who usually underwrite 
these projects. They deal with the "mafia", a vague term that 
Manoj used to refer to operators who are positioned to shield 
pornographers from police interference. Considering the size of 
the pornography industry in Thailand, arrests of filmmakers are 
exceedingly rare. When asked how it was that the "mafia" were so 
effective in keeping the law at bay, Manoj restricted his comments 
to a loud laugh.
 
In choosing material, investors generally rely on the instincts of 
professionals who know which way the winds of porn fashion are 
blowing.         "Sometimes a filmmaker proposes an idea to a 
potential investor, who asks if there is a buyer for it, and what 
it's going to cost," Manoj explained. "Or in some cases the 
moneyman will approach a director and ask him to make a particular 
film because there is a market demand. He may ask for a X video 
set in the countryside, luk thung style, or something that's come 
temporarily into fashion. A couple of years ago the big thing was 
Khu Kam type stories.
 
Note: "luk thung" means country or rural -- kamol
 
"But generally speaking, directors who make X films have to rely 
on their experience and on the demands of the pornography market. 
These days television films are a very important influence. 
Everybody loves them, from villagers to high society types. In 
Thailand, professional directors of X films copy these TV dramas. 
They are faithful indicators of popular styles and trends."
 
But popular as some of their efforts may be, directors can never 
get rich by making videos of this kind. Since their product is 
illegal in Thailand, it cannot be copyrighted, and they can claim 
no royalties if it happens to catch on and sell well. Directors 
are paid a lump sum to produce a video, and only rarely do they 
receive additional compensation if the result turns out to be 
unusually profitable.
 
Even less likely to get rich are the performers who risk their 
reputations and their lives to make money for the porn tycoons. 
Several of the American porn stars of the 1970s have since died of 
AIDS, and given the prevalence of the virus in Thailand it seems 
almost certain that those who regularly engage in group sex for 
the camera will be exposed to the disease sooner or later.
 
"Paew", a young woman who has performed in more than one film, had 
heard a good deal about AIDS and said that she sometimes worried 
about contracting the disease. On the other hand, however, she 
argued that she had never known anyone who had died from it, and 
felt it did not represent an especially immediate threat. When she 
asked one director about the danger of infection and suggested 
that her co-star should practice safe sex, the filmmaker refused, 
saying that no one would pay to watch a sex film in which the 
performer stops to put on a condom.
 
When the AIDS epidemic is taken into account, the cynicism with 
which the porn filmmakers recruit young and often naive young 
people to perform in their videos is doubly chilling. Manoj 
explained in detail the technique he uses to attract actresses 
onto the set:
 
"I live in Bangkok, so finding them is no problem," he said. "If I 
want to save money, I'll look for a no-name star. There are 
various sources. First, massage parlour girls; second, prostitutes 
available by telephone. In other words, girls who do `night work'. 
But in lining up girls like this, you have to know how to go about 
it. You can't just walk up to her and ask, `Do you want to make a 
sex film for me? I'll pay you.' She'd be shocked, and you'd come 
away empty-handed.
 
"Filmmakers who specialise in pornographic videos and films have 
friends in the night world who act as their `talk men'. You can 
walk up to somebody like that and say, `Hey, I'm making a porno 
film and I need a girl. Do you know anyone young who has the looks 
and would do it?' He'll say, `Yeah, there's such and such a girl 
at the Atami or the Mona Lisa.' Then you say, `Well, introduce 
me,' and he says `How much are you paying?' and things are on 
their way. For a girl you locate this way, if you film with her 
for three days, assuming you go out of town, you'll wind up paying 
her something over 10,000 baht. She'll ask for a lot more, but you 
talk her down.
 
"Maybe 10 per cent say no. Ninety per cent accept. They aren't all 
massage parlour girls; you can get callgirls, too. After all, 
they're under the illusion that they can get reputations in the 
field and become famous. They think they can follow up on it as a 
career and go far. Most of them come from poor families. They work 
for money. They don't have grace or dignity. They don't care. They 
survive by living from day to day. They're always on the lookout 
for something they can do to support their families. They don't 
care what. But if you're going to land one you have to use some 
psychology. You say, `Nong, I'm making an X film and if you take a 
part it could mean a good future for you. Somebody might see you 
in it and want you for his minor wife. Or maybe you'll get offers 
to act in other films.' But of course there's not much of a chance 
anything like that can really happen. Thai pornography doesn't 
have real `stars' because the Thais get bored with performers 
quickly. They always want to see new faces."
 
Manoj said that when the films are made in the provinces, the 
women in the cast are picked up locally, usually by hiring them 
from their parents.
 
"The first consideration is to save money," he explained. "Also, 
you want to find a woman who really looks innocent. You find them 
wherever the film is being made. If you're making a film in 
Saraburi you find a Saraburi girl. And it's very important that 
the girl comes from a poor family. Girls from impoverished 
families don't have any education, and they're always on the 
lookout for ways to help their families.
 
"If you decide to approach her you have to do it through someone 
who is her friend or who is familiar to her and whom she trusts 
(phak phuak). This person will act an an `interpreter', and will 
say to her, `Nong, these people are filmmakers' -- it has to be 
put very simply -- `and if you let them make a movie of you, 
you'll earn income for your family. The movie will only be shown 
abroad, in Hong Kong and Singapore. Thailand won't be involved.' 
That's the approach we use, because these types don't know 
anything about the law. We just promise them a certain percentage 
and pay her some money."
 
Parents are almost invariably cooperative, he said, but you should 
not be too tight-fisted: "The person who approaches the parents 
has to use a psychological approach. The parents' decision depends 
on what the girl wants. In my experience, if we pay enough, not 
many people refuse. We have something that everybody wants -- 
money. Do you understand what I mean? We scratch each other's 
backs.
 
"We give the money to her parents, or we pay the girl, and the 
whole thing is over in three or five days. Films made on location 
take only three to five days to put together, that's all. But when 
we approach her to make a film, we can't be too direct. Don't 
forget, these are village girls who don't have much education. 
They think that taking off their clothes is a shameful thing, even 
if the only ones to see it are the ghosts and spirits they all 
believe in.
 
"Everything depends on the type of girl you walk up to, on her 
family and her ancestry. On heredity. Sometimes a highly honorable 
family produces a daughter who's a slut (dawk thawng). The 
explanation has to do with biology, with genetics. The tendencies 
are transmitted through heredity. Look at the northern girls, who 
are happy to do it for money. If you're looking for a girl to act 
in an X film and you go north, you won't be disappointed. Why? 
Most northern families are poor. Look for yourself: the masseuses, 
whores, call girls, they all come from the North. You know why? 
Because they all come from poor families. They want to help their 
families. But they don't have any education.
 
"You see, they have no choice. Their families plant and harvest 
their crops once a year and that doesn't earn them enough money 
for fertiliser, for maintenance of their land. They borrow 5,000 
baht each year, and they earn 7,000 baht from the farm, but the 
fertiliser costs 3,000 baht. By they time they've harvested the 
crop, they're already in debt again. The girl figures that she's 
single and she wants to help her parents. In her view, when she 
sells herself, she's doing it for her parents. Her fellow 
northerners don't hold it against her. But people in Bangkok are 
likely look down on her, to think, "These northern girls are all 
sluts." They don't understand her family situation or the 
environment she comes from. 
 
"But the northerners aren't disappointed when their daughter acts 
in a pornographic film. They think letting her make a film like 
this is better at least than selling her outright. After all, once 
she's been sold, she's gone for good. If we approach them and tell 
them frankly that we want her to act in a sex film, the results 
depend on using psychology to get them to agree, and also to bring 
down the price." 
 
Male performers usually earn less, but have far more say in the 
matter of what they like and don't like. Often they are allowed to 
select the actress they prefer from a number of candidates. "Ott", 
a 19-year-old who already has several films to his credit, 
explained that he is sometimes shown a few potential costars and 
asked to choose the one he finds the most attractive. More 
frequently, though, he first met his costar, preselected by the 
director, only five minutes or so before the cameras began to 
roll.
 
"If I like the woman, the director lets me continue to have sex 
with her alone after the filming is finished. They usually let me 
do that," explained Ott. But he went on to admit that the women 
were sometimes cold and unfriendly afterwards, and that they 
rarely saw each other again.
 
A few questions revealed that, like Paew, Ott knew quite a lot 
about AIDS and how it is transmitted. He claimed to be worried 
about it, but evidently did not let his fears get in his way, as 
he supplemented his income working as a male prostitute catering 
to women tourists. His main complaint about the work had more to 
do with money than any indignity or health risk it might involve. 
"I was promised 10,000 baht to do a film that required travelling 
all the way to Wang Takrai [in Nakhon Nayok Province]," he said. 
"All they every paid me was 1,500 baht. What could I do about it, 
report it to the police? Sometimes they take advantage of the 
performers, especially the men."
 
Manoj acknowledged that cheating of this sort sometimes happens, 
but insists that it is not too common. His own method is to 
bargain the actor's fee down  as low as possible before the film 
is made, but then to pay up when the project is done.
 
Asked to give an example of the bargaining procedure between a 
director and a prospective male performer, Manoj and Ott 
improvised the following:
 
Manoj: "`Boon, next week I'm going to be making a film, are you 
free?"'
 
Ott: "`I'll have to see. Where are you making the film?"'
 
Manoj: "`In Saraburi, for about three days. Can you get ready, if 
you're able to make it?  I'll get in touch with you tomorrow for 
your answer.' (Then he'll ask me about money, because he has to 
make a certain amount for it to be worth his while. Boon, you do 
the talking. `Boon, how much do you want or three days?"' Ott: 
"`How much are you paying?' He has to pay me enough. For a 
four-day shooting session he has to pay 4,000 baht, or at least no 
less than 3,000 per day, so that comes to at least 12,000 baht." 
Manoj: "`Boon, this is a project between friends. Give me a break, 
and we'll make another film together soon. Help me out a little. 
What do  you say to this: I'll pay travelling expenses and 
accommodation, and give you 6,000 on top of it. And we'll do 
another one together soon. There's some risk for me this time with 
the money man' -- this is the `psychology' part -- `there's no 
telling how it's going to turn out. Help me out just this once, 
o.k.? Six thousand. What do you say, Boon?"'  Ott, of course, 
agrees to the deal, and Manoj clinches it with an assurance that 
the women he'll be performing with will be well worth his time and 
-- since the video is being made in the provinces -- possibly even 
virgins.
 
Are there any special qualities required of a pornographic 
filmmaker besides highly-cultivated bargaining skills and 
proficiency with a video camera? Does he or she have to have the 
ability to participate emotionally in the film if it is to have an 
erotic effect on the viewer?
 
"It isn't the director's job to have feelings or not to have 
feelings in making these films," Manoj maintained. "The director's 
responsibility is to make the performers have these feelings and 
perform these actions. Before the director hires a woman to 
perform he has to `test' her. I don't mean he has to have sex with 
her. I mean he has to study her for a day or two. Directors are 
good judges of character. You have to interview her, talk to her, 
observe her appearance, her personality, her character, to see if 
she is suitable to act in a given film. The same thing applied 
when hiring male performers."
 
He also stressed the importance of versatility, of being able to 
take on any kind of assignment. When asked if, as a heterosexual, 
he could make a gay film, her said that the sexual orientation of 
the film was no obstacle to a competent director.
 
"I can direct anything," he said. "It's part of being a 
professional. I could certainly direct a gay film. I am part of a 
certain kind of society and that means I am exposed to everything. 
In an environment like that you get to know what's what. But as 
for lesbian and gay films, most people would't dare to make them 
because they'd be afraid they'd lose money. Society in general 
likes things that are natural, and in terms of pornography that 
means sex between men and women. Only a small community of people 
want homosexual films. So a director is unlikely to set out to 
make a film of that type unless an order is placed for it. Then 
the finished video will move directly into the gay or lesbian or 
whatever circle that wants it."
 
But the infinite diversity of human sexual curiosity guarantees 
that there will be a waiting market for almost any kind of 
pornography that people like Manoj can come up with. As the 
industry that makes his work possible continues to flourish, more 
and more performers will be needed to sustain it, and the videos 
and magazines it produces will become an increasingly visible part 
of the popular culture landscape. 
 
Despite this trend, Manoj is convinced that pornography will never 
be legal in Thailand, as in now is in so many western countries. 
 
"Thailand is a Buddhist country," he concluded. "But Thais adore 
pronography. It sells like crazy and there will always be plenty 
of it available. But all that will change will be fashions and 
tastes in films and books of this type, not its legality."