Camera Works!

This morning I headed out to Thailand Canon Service for the second time. I grabbed a number and waited around for about 20 minutes before being called up to the counter. And the same thing that happened before, the customer service representative called out a Thai engineer who spoke better English to help me. And as soon as the engineer turned the camera on, it worked fine.

Far, far, far beyond anger at this point, I explained to the engineer what the camera was doing, that it would work for an hour, then stop working for 2 hours, then work again later. Very annoying. I asked if he could just open it up and check it out. He pointed to the camera and said that even if it was broken, he can’t fix it because it is a NTSC camera, and all of Asia’s camera systems are in the PAL format.

NTSC means that the video is captured in a different way, at 30 frames per second, while PAL cameras capture video at 25 frames per second. The camera parts work differently, and he had no way of fixing it. He suggested I mail it to the nearest country that uses NTSC, which was Japan.

After screaming the f-word at the top of my lungs several times, (not really, I just did this in my mind) I headed back to my hotel. It’s funny, because when you reach a point of anger, it all just fades away. Kind of like when you become so hungry that you just aren’t hungry any more. I may have reached enlightenment through anger instead of meditation!

I decided to just hope that my camera would keep working, and not mail it off for repair. So tonight we headed back to Khao San Road to test the camera out. The camera worked beautifully all night long, and I got several interviews shot, which was nice. The only problem was a dog fight that interrupted one interview.


Dog Fight from Jason D. Boone on Vimeo.
We also stopped into a club on Khao San that I was interested in and got to talk with one of the managers. He was a 20-something French guy named Serge, and he was happy to give us permission to come shoot his club. He recommended that we come on Thursday and Saturday. He told us that Saturday was a costume party, and that it was going to be great for video and interviews. Then he explained that his club has an impressive laser light display, so I was excited about the upcoming weekend shoot. After this I asked him about any clubs that he recommend we cover, and he gave me several mobile numbers of local DJ’s. Good night indeed.

Camera Fails Again

Elisabeth and I decided to head out to Khao San Road today. Khao San is known as a “tourist ghetto,” with cheap accommodations every few steps. It is kind of a jumping off point for backpackers in Southeast Asia. The road is closed off for cars, except for taxis and tuks tuks scattered throughout the area. Despite annoying Thais and Middle Easterners trying to push product on you, strolling down Khao San is quite enjoyable. I love seeing the wide range of nationalities cruising by at all times.

But my trip to Khao San was quickly ruined when my camera ONCE AGAIN decided to stop working. It was bad enough that it stopped working, but now it would just fluctuate between working and not working. I was very tempted to throw my camera on the ground and kick it repeatedly, but I knew no good would come out of this, except for very brief satisfaction. We headed up to a nearby restaurant and ordered some cheeseburgers. Elisabeth tried to make me feel better, but to no avail.

I was supposed to head back to CM2 and Q Bar tonight, and I also wanted to do a short piece on Khao San. But now that my camera was basically a large paperweight, there was nothing I could do. Now I had to wait around until Monday to take it BACK to Thailand Canon Service Center, and see what they could do, if anything.

Clubbin

This morning Elisabeth wanted to check out the big malls in Bangkok, so we jumped on the sky train to go look around. It is pretty cool because there are five big malls all right next to each other, so you can go on an epic-shopping extravaganza if you so desire to. After about an hour of following Elisabeth around the mall, I went back to the hotel to do some club research.

I called up several clubs and got two nods of permission from club owners. Excited about filming the clubs, I suited up that night with all of my equipment and jumped on the metro. Once I got off of the metro, I paid 30 baht for a motorbike taxi to Q Bar Night Club.

Dennis (one of the managers at Q Bar) put me on the list so I got right into the club, no problem. There was a problem though, when I started shooting. I have a light that attaches to my camera with a 50-watt bulb in it. That is extremely bright in a dark dance club. And it was quite embarrassing when I walked out onto the dance floor, turned my bright light on, and nearly half the club stopped dancing immediately and stared at me like deer in headlights. I quickly shut the light off and scrambled to a corner of the club, hoping to blend back in.

After 15 minutes or so of blending, I cranked the iris all the way open on my camera and started shooting wide shots of the crowd, trying not to be seen. This being my first time shooting in a nightclub, I had a lot to get used to. I really hate bringing my shutter down so slow, but I really had no choice with the lighting situation. I gave up trying to get close ups of people, since it looked like crap in the dark. I managed to get several shots of the DJ with the camera light on, since he didn’t mind at all.

I decided to head out without interviews, figuring I could come back on another night when they aren’t so busy. I took a taxi to the second nightclub, CM2. This club was located in the basement of a hotel, and was significantly larger than Q Bar. The woman I had spoken with on the phone was at the front when I walked up, and she waved me over. Her name is Roxy, and she is an extremely nice and very petite Australian. She grabbed one of the Thai security guards and gave me a tour of the club. She suggested that I come back on another night to shoot, since it was already nearly 1:30 in the morning. (King’s orders that all clubs are closed by 1am, but few clubs follow this rule). I happily agreed and headed out to grab a taxi back to the hotel.

Filming Hell is Hell

Each day in Bangkok we learn more. We learn the quickest ways to certain areas, we learn how to get a cheap taxi ride, where to do laundry, where the Internet cafes are located, and which modes of transportation are the cheapest and quickest. We are learning all of the sky train and underground train stops, and how much each of them cost. So exciting!! I personally am thinking of buying a mask for the pollution problem here. Many of the Thais wear white masks to help protect them from the excess exhaust in Bangkok. It is really overbearing.



Tonight I decided that I was going to try and get some work done by finding a club to film in. I can possibly make money by shooting club videos for a network back in California. The producers from the network told me that if I make one or two club profile videos that are any good, then I could be contracted to make many, which means rent and food money. So tonight I decided to head out to a club I had been reading reviews about, called club Lucifer.



The club is located directly in the heart of the red light district of Thailand. This area is situated on two streets; Patpong 1 and Patpong 2. A market has taken over the area and sells overpriced products to tourists. In fact I personally bought a pair of fake Adidas and a t-shirt for far too much money. Haha.



It took me a while to find the club, and the whole time I was being hassled by Thais trying to lure me into go-go bars or sex shows. Men on the streets approach you with a list of things women will do for you, or they hand you small pictures of women who will provide you with a “body to body” massage. Some just have a small piece of paper that says “SEX DVD” on it. Luckily I didn’t bring Elisabeth with me here, because she probably would have already knocked one of these guys lights out. Hmmmm, actually maybe I should bring her along next time……..



Not long before reaching the club my camera decided to stop working again. Curses!!! What kind of luck is this? Angry and sweating from the heat, I turned around to head back to the underground train to go home and sleep. I walked about a mile back to the underground train and bought a ticket.


My camera must really hate me, because just before I boarded the train, it started working again! VERY angry and VERY sweaty at this point, I turned back around and walked another mile back to club Lucifer, back through the dirty men trying to sell me sex.

Once I arrived at the club, I was happy when I was given permission to film, but very disappointed when no one in the club was dancing. The main footage I need is of people dancing. In fact no one was even on the second floor where the dance floor is located. There was only a performance by an Elvis impersonator, who was actually very entertaining. I grabbed some shots of the devil pictures on the wall and the demon masks all around. I decided not to even try to interview anyone, since it seemed to be a lost cause. When I got a “condescending asshole” vibe from the club manager, I decided to get the hell out of there, no pun intended.

Can’t wait to check out some more clubs and hopefully find a good one. And hopefully my camera will decide to stop acting up.

Dirty and Hot

(Elisabeth took all of these Bangkok pictures)

Bangkok is dirty and hot. It is not hard to spot cockroaches on the sidewalk, and the exhaust will suffocate you in mere minutes. The majority of sidewalks we walk down are half finished, and stray dogs are littered throughout the city. In fact Elisabeth and I use one stray dog in particular as a landmark to our street. The dog is severely overweight, and is always lying down on the corner. I call him the elephant seal dog, since he closely resembles an elephant seal.




Today we ventured out from our hotel trying to make our way to the Canon Service Center. I stopped at one of the many, many food booths on the sidewalk to buy a Pepsi to sip on. About half way through my soda, I didn’t like the taste, so I decided to throw it away. After ditching my Pepsi, I walked up to an ATM that Elisabeth was standing at. She was staring over my shoulder with her mouth wide open, with a look of surprise on her face. I turned to see a man sucking down a Pepsi, the same Pepsi I just set down into the disgusting garbage can. Elisabeth and I stood quiet and watched in amazement as the man drank it down. After he finished my Pepsi (with backwash included) he started rooting through the rest of the garbage.

After Elisabeth got her money and we watched the homeless man drink my Pepsi, we caught a taxi to Bangkok City Tower; the building we were told has the Canon Service Center in it. Come to find out my warranty isn’t covered in Thailand; it is only covered in the United States. So either I ship my camera home, or pay to have it serviced here. I decided to go ahead and pay to have it serviced here in Thailand, so I told the Thai woman at the service desk what was wrong with the camera. She couldn’t understand me fully, so she went and got an engineer to come out and talk with me. When the engineer asked me what was wrong, I turned on my camera to show him. But for some reason my camera was working fine!! I thanked him and left the service center quite happy, yet confused. I just flew to Bangkok for no reason! Stupid camera.



After this we headed out to Bangkok’s sky train. There are so many options for public transportation in Thailand. I love it. You have taxis, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, buses, underground train and sky train. All are very cheap as well. So we took the sky train out to MBK, one of the malls out here. Elisabeth got a Blizzard from Dairy Queen, and I doubt in America they sell Blizzard’s this size!



MBK is eight floors of product. And the eighth floor is a movie theater, where Elisabeth and I caught a showing of Spiderman 3. Damn that movie is good. What a good day.

Ronan the Barbarian

Today we packed up and tried to figure out the best way to get to Bangkok. Since we have a ridiculous amount of luggage, we figured flying would be best. The bus ride up there is around 12 hours, and that just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me. I got two tickets and minibus airport transfers for a reasonable price.

At the airport I was surprised by the woman at the check in desk when she told me I owed her 2000 baht ($60) for overweight bags. After the check in fiasco, we headed out to our gate, where we had about 2 hours to wait around. Luckily we met a really nice Irishman named Ronan. I enjoyed listening to him talk in his strong Irish accent about how he gets “pissed” after 15 pints of Guiness each day.

We were lucky again when we found out Ronan was sitting right in front of us on the flight. The flight was a short one - about an hour. I was a little nervous about arriving in Bangkok without a hotel reservation, worrying that a taxi or someone else was going to royally try to rip us off. The nice guy that Ronan is, he helped us to find a hotel, and even let us share a taxi with him all the way to our hotel.



It was night when we arrived at our hotel in Bangkok Once in the room, Elisabeth was bouncing off the walls with excitement since this hotel was much nicer than the last prostitute-ridden hotel we stayed at. The view of the city wasn’t that bad from our window, and we were both excited to explore Bangkok the next day. I was most anxious to get my camera in the repair shop so I could get some videos shot.

Food Poisoning Delays Bangkok

Very sick all day today. Must have eaten something bad, but I can’t figure out what. Luckily today we switched into a different room in our guesthouse, a room with an AC that works properly. We were supposed to checkout this afternoon and leave for Bangkok to fix my camera, but we are going to have to wait until tomorrow and see if I feel better. Man talk about bad luck.............