Mis-En-Scene
(Stunts, Dancers and Animal Cast)
| 5 MIN READ |
Written by Marco Neveu
Key Content
Physical performances: Stunt performers, martial artists and athletes
Performing arts: dancers, theater and musicians
Animal cast
Specialized cast
For many film productions, general casting isn’t enough. Sometimes you need highly skilled professionals with a unique set of skills and talent. For these times where you need specialized cast and extras, our production house has you covered. And we promise you an array of choices in all these three categories to make your shoot a success.
Physical performances: Stunt performers, martial artists and athletes
For pretty much any action scene, there are stunt performers, and thanks to Thailand’s long history in shooting actions films there are many. They aren’t all Thai either. Many of these stunt performers are actually foreigners who have had a good track record acting in TVCs and feature films in Thailand. This gives us more variety to work with.
These stunt performers are also, more often than not, very proficient martial artists. Of course you need to know how to fight to simulate it on camera, but they can do much more than simulate. Thailand is the birthplace of Muay Thai, and home to many Muay Thai and MMA fighters who also spend some time in the ring honing their skills.
And while these are the biggest martial arts associated to Thailand, there are many more practitioners of various martial arts from the whole world in the various gyms and dojos. Maybe you want some karate, judo, kung fu, taekwondo, BJJ. Or maybe even some classic boxing or wrestling. When it comes to martial arts, you have choice which even extends to weapons like fencing or kendo. And if you’d argue that archery is a martial art, there are practitioners in Thailand too, including kyudo.
Many sports need a good amount of skill to appear believable on screen, for music videos, feature films or TVCs. At Umoon Productions we aim to find these people, whatever the sport may be, much like we would for stunt men and martial artists.
Performing arts: dancers, theatre and musicians
Thailand, and especially Bangkok, has a wide array of conservatories, troupes and artistically oriented schools that train and perform regularly. As such we know where to find full philharmonic orchestras or proficient soloists, hip hop dance crews or ballerinas.
On top of the classic western performing arts, there are many performers of various asian arts. The most obvious would be performers of traditional thai plays, puppet shows, instruments and dances. Being a melting pot of a multitude of cultures we can also find a few specialists in other traditional music, theatre presentations and dances. Ask us and we will do the best we can to find it, whether it is Arabic dance, Indian music or Chinese opera.
Animal cast
I’ll be frank, Thailand has a bad track record when it comes to the way animals are treated: especially in the tourism industry. And that’s why at Umoon Productions we’ll get you into contact with animal handlers and wranglers who actually care about the well-being of their charges. We are in contact with a wide variety of trainers. From fully trained and cute “doggos”, monkeys, parrots and elephants to comparatively untrained wild animals like crocodiles or tigers. We will find anything to suit your video production needs, from a simple family dog to wilder animals for an exotic feel.
We would obviously prefer avoiding the use of dangerous or threatened animals. Sometimes we may suggest the use of other solutions. For example on our Lacoste shoot, where an animatronic crocodile was used thanks to talented prop makers.
If you’d like to learn more about our talented art directors and prop makers, another blog post will be up soon exploring those along with costumes and makeup.
If you want to know more about the film industry in Thailand then you must read our Film Industry in Thailand – A Producer’s Guide article.