If art imitates life, it better be perfect

Don’t ask soap-opera producer Warayut “Kai” Militajinda about his current period-drama series “Kaen Saneha” on Channel 3. You’ll be there all day.
In a large nutshell, he fell in love with the novel and asked the author if he could buy the television rights. Having secured those, he had to wait two years for the script to be completed. You don’t rush the scriptwriter known as Daeng Salaya, whose many hit series include “Dok Som Si Thong”.
“She wrote it so beautifully that it put me under even more pressure to make sure the story got the good production it deserved,” Kai says. By “good” he means “great” – the cast and crew soon learned he wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection. Kai admits he’s a hands-on producer, taking charge of casting, costuming, location scouting – and keeping an eye on the director.
With a series packed with top stars like Chatchai Plengpanich, Lalita Panyopas, Thanya Sopon and Jintara Sukkapat, Kai felt he was raising his own already high standards. His pursuit of excellence is so intense that people just had to make jokes about it. The episodes took 11 months to shoot, partly because everything had to be just so. Kai ordered 30 scenes re-shot because he thought they were below par.
Young half-Thai actresses Patricia Good and Ticha Tantiprasuk were barred from talking to each other in English and got extra training in acting as well as Thai pronunciation. Not a detail escaped Kai’s eye. Lalita was asked to redo one scene – not because she’d flubbed a line but because her underwear didn’t match her blouse.
Kai’s demanding vision extended to asking Daeng Salaya to write a new ending – he wanted a wedding scene. Cast members were amazed at how real the set looked. It took three days to shoot. “It was as if he wanted it to be his own wedding,” says actor Yuk “Son” Songpaisan.

A bit too crude
TV news host Sorrayuth Suthassanajinda is a little greasy following his not-too-close encounter with the PTT oil spill in the Gulf – not because he fell in but because he was too slick for the slick.
People on the social media, who had praised Sorrayuth for rushing to flooded neighbourhoods last year, were cynical this time about his and co-host Somchai “Kohtee Aramboy” Onlamai’s reports from Koh Samet. The gist of their journalism was “it’s not as bad as you think” and they showed pictures of beautiful Wong Duen and Sai Kaew beaches to prove it.
Maybe Sorrayuth wasn’t personally to blame for a script that repeatedly cited the oil spillers as the source of his cheery news, but his appraisal of the online reaction was, “They are so mean.” He said he wasn’t surprised that people expected him to take the oil firm’s side. For his part, Kohtee said he wasn’t trying to “help” PTT – he just wanted to help Thai tourism!