Are you looking for private or group acting workshops for kids in BKK?
We would love to be at your service offering acting workshops for kids!
Acting Workshops for kids in Bkk.
My wife, June, and I are both theatre and acting professionals with industry experience. We are working together as a coaching team. We dedicate ourselves fully to our task and adapt our approach to the needs of your child.
Does your child have an audition for Premiere coming up? Or do you want your kid to gain more confidence? Better public speaking skills?
Acting Workshops for Children in Bangkok
June has taught acting workshops for children ever since she graduated from Bangkok University 5 years ago. She is experienced in setting up her own curriculum and working with both experienced and inexperienced child actors. She has worked with children both in Bangkok and upcountry creating and devising plays, improving their communication skills and level of confidence.
My personal background is in theatre. Then, I moved to film while being in Thailand. I studied directing at Chulalongkorn University. During my studies we had several projects with children and it opened up my eyes and my heart to the younger generation.
Personally, I am an actor, director, language and acting coach. So far I specialized mainly on coaching German movies that are shooting here in Thailand. On our most recent project, MKI, my wife and I coached the two main Thai child actors for a period of 2 months. This was the first time we worked as a coaching team.
We loved the time on set and dedicated ourselves to coaching Faris and Guitar. To our surprise the director asked everyone to give us applause on our last day. This was a very moving moment and reassured us that this is the direction we should take.
June and I are both graduates in Performing Arts. She has a BA in Acting and I have an MA in Directing. We love theatre, we love acting, we love the arts, the creativity and we love children. We now offer group and private acting classes for children in Bangkok.
For more information you can send me an email: schroetermariusrobin@gmail.com
What is the standard minimum rate for models in Thailand? If you are modeling in Thailand you may ask yourself: How much should I get for a cat walk? Is this rate acceptable?
While there is no written law as to what the minimum rate for models in Thailand is, there are best practices.
People tend to get a certain budget for certain jobs and that is what I am going to propose in the following as the standard minimum rate for models in Thailand. I have consulted several models to gather together what they consider the standard minimum rate for models in Thailand.
Different kinds of Photoshoots and the minimum rate for models in Thailand:
Regular Photoshoot
8,000 THB in your hand for a photoshoot day (6-8 hours or so, which is roughly 1,000 then per hour) (10,500-11,000 including agency fee)
Lingerie / Swimwear Shoot
10,000-12,000 THB in your hand for a lingerie/swimwear shoot (or 1,500 – 2,000 thb per hour) (13,000-16,000 including agency fee)
Fashion / Lifestyle / Fitness Shoot
10,000-12,000 THB in your hand would be fair for fashion/lifestyle/fitness shoot, as well as for catalogue/look book with a same amount of clothes, say, not more than 20-25 pieces of clothing. (13,000-16,000 including agency fee)
Promo Photo Campaign
If it’s a promo photo campaign for a brand with prints etc then budgets are more or less comparable to the tvcs, but usually on the cheaper side. And of course that depends on how big the brand is and on which territories the campaign will be held.
Billboard
Also from what I heard if it’s a proper billboard it shouldn’t be less than 30,000 THB in your hand. (40,000 including agency fee)
Nude Shoots – Please Note that Nude Shoots are Illegal in Thailand!
Nude shoots should never be less than 10,000-15,000 THB. (13,000-20,000 including agency fee).
Photography Workshops
Then there are photography workshops, which are literally gang-bangs of a model by 5 to 100 photographers a day and therefore, in my opinion should be payed 10,000 THB up but in Bangkok realities are usually 4,000-5,000 THB. (13,000 including agency fee)
And finally the minimum rate for models in Thailand for Fashion Shows and Promo Jobs
Fashion Show
7,000 thb for a fashion show (1-3 outfits) (10,000 including agency fee)
Promo Jobs
There are also promo jobs. Promo jobs need you to do tasks such as smiling and taking pictures at the events. In my understanding they should be around 6,000-7,000 THB (8,000-9,000 including Agency Fee)
Those are the minimum rates for actors that I have found so far. If you have any other rates, or other jobs that I have forgotten to include, please let me know!
First of all, I just want to clarify here that this is a standard minimum rate for dancers. Some productions may offer you way more than this. By accepting budgets that are below this you are hurting all other talents in the industry by undercutting already low budgets.
Second of all, many clients see dancers as extras, while they should be treated similar to stunt men. Both dancers and stunt men require training and experience. Tori Lao-Lee, one of the most experienced Western dancers in the field, noted that the rate used to be 10,000 Baht in normal clothes and 12,000 Baht in bikini, similar to that of stunt men, and has dropped down ever since.
The standard minimum rate for dancers is quite straightforward as there are two main job categories: TVC / Movie jobs and Events.
The budgets below are what you, as dancer, should be getting into your hand. In brackets (…) behind that is the budget including agency fee.
Standard Minimum Rate for Dancers in Music Videos
5.000 baht in your hand for normal clothes/costumes. (6,500-7,000 Baht including agency fee)
6.000 baht in your hand for bikini/sexy samba costumes. (7,500 – 8,000 Including agency fee)
Standard Minimum Rate for Dancers in MOVIES
5.000 – 7,000 baht in your hand for normal clothes/costumes. (6,500-9,000 Baht including agency fee)
6.000 – 7,000 baht in your hand for bikini/sexy samba costumes. (7,500 – 9,000 Including agency fee)
Standard Minimum Rate for Dancers in TVCs
7,500 baht in your hand. (10,000 Baht including agency fee)
As mentioned above, this is the minimum rate. The budget you may be getting can be much higher.
The rates above are standard for most jobs and acceptable to most clients. (Source: Tori Lao-Lee)
For TVCs and Movies it is only one dance, 3-5 minutes
For Rehearsals:
In case rehearsals are required, you differentiate between half day and full day rehearsals:
A half day rehearsal should be 50% of the budget (2-4 hours rehearsal per day)
A full day rehearsal – the same budget as for one full shooting day
The Standard Minimum Rate for Dancers at Events Is Different.
The standard minimum rate for dancers at events depends on the following factors:
the number dances
the length of each dance is
the amount of dancers at each entry
In general you can say, that 1 dance or entry should be budgeted in your hands with 5.000 baht (6,500 – 7000 Baht including agency fee)
But sometimes you encounter 3 entries / performances with a budget of 8.000-9.000 baht in your hands. (11,000-12,000 Baht including agency fee)
*Please note that this rate is for trained dancers with experience.
I hope this can help newcomers to get an easy overview of what the budget situation is like for dance jobs.
Do you want to know how to become an actor / model in Thailand? Check out this video or this article How To Become an Actor in Thailand:
This is a list of most modeling agencies in Thailand
There are literally dozens of talent agents in Thailand. New agents are springing up almost every month, while others go out of business. This is a list of the most current contacts of talent agents in Thailand.
I have been working with modeling agents in Thailand for the last 10 years. I have been trying to collect their emails and other contact information for myself as well as for others.
MasterClass Studio
We get all kind of work from commercials to movies. We work all around. As agency, doing castings, casting directors and we also have our own productions. You can send us your profile to:
In recent years there has been some shifts. Initially, people were asked to send their details by email. Then things moved to Facebook. So you just had to send your profile by pm to them. Now the latest trend is sending everything by Line App. So If you want to know about jobs, it is not only important to follow the posts on Facebook, but you should also join a few line groups.
Line does not allow direct access to the id’s or to Line groups…So…I am posting the Line Id’s of talent agencies here. If you want to join the Line groups…you need to have a friend that is already member of one or the other Line Group.
I have written two articles about whether to write to all talent agents or only just work with one. I am still torn up which one is the better approach. You can Read the articles here:
As I mentioned before, Line becomes more and more important as method of communication between artists and their talent agencies in Thailand. These are the current Line Id’s of agents that I have.
For Gug from By Us he uses his phone number for his Line account: 086777836
086777836
s.gubgamzii
next_film
Fmodeling
traboo
nadda007, popmee
asiamo
ModelsCafe
kkmodeling
cherryagency
Bemodelbk
cutemodel201
paulmodeling
jaevich
plukpluem99
@kkgroup
sportgirl999
thanyasa1982
Touchiiez
marco-model
Goodluckjas
starmodels
Shalomclub
Starsearch
hopeorigin
@mgm6529y
@theyourmodel
thanyasa1982
farfarawayz
Marco-model
Aamirharri
amuayzeed
aebetterman
golfartistt
Kookai307
@gchicagency
boombank84
titus.model
artzcasting
Modeling Agents in Thailand that like to be contacted through Facebook
While there is already a huge number of agents that can be contacted through Line and should give you access to a wide market, there are also agents that like to be contacted through Facebook. Here is a list of those that I have:
If you know any other agent that likes to be contacted through Facebook, drop me a line @ robin_schroeter@hotmail.com or Line ID robinschroeter
Last but not least: agents in Thailand with Email Accounts
If that was not enough…you still have agents in Thailand that like to be contacted through ‘traditional’ means such as good old email. Here is a list of those agents:
As you can see this list is quite extensive. Please excuse me if one or the other contact is not working anymore. Since there are so many agents the pool of agents is always in a flux. This list was last updated on 26.01.2018
If you find any contact that is not working anymore or would like to recommend a new agency, let me know @ robin_schroeter@hotmail.com or Line ID robinschroeter
Do you want to know how to become an actor / model in Thailand? Check out this video or this article How To Become an Actor in Thailand:
Now I have a little boy, I am interested to find out which agents for children there are out there.
I found that there are much less agents for children than agents for adults. And they have divided the market among them. Most of them are reachable either through Facebook or through line. Only few have a website or even email; yes, we are moving on to a new era!
What are you looking for in an agent for children?
Especially when trusting an agent with your kid, you want them to be caring, supportive and nurturing. Your little one is your one and only, so I think it is very important to work with an agency that you can trust and not just ‘anyone’. Most parents have a similar
While there are 3 dozens of agencies for grown ups in Bangkok, there are only 5 main agents for children (and a few smaller ones that were suggested to me, but which I didn’tknow, but put here in the list). Here are the ones that I found:
Candy Modeling
I like Candy Modeling. I have worked with them before, since they also represent grown-ups; alas to a much lesser extent. They are professional in their approach and attitude. They ask you to come in and have your pictures taken at their studio, so they have original pictures of you, not some that you edited yourself. They are very problem-solving oriented. Any time I had a problem Khun Jiab would always make it go away without ever getting personal – or feeling personally offended.
I have been with Gamdang for a long time, but have never worked with them. They have always been friendly to me and they look professional. They have a website, too, which I appreciate. They also reply in a timely manner.
Similar to Gamdang, I have never worked with Banrukdek, simply because they only specialize on children. I have seen them on Facebook for some time, so I have been aware of them. Thus, I know they are among the biggest 3 agencies for children (Candy and Gamdang being the other two in the top 3)
An Idiot’s Guide to the Fix the broken system of the Thai Film Industry
Budgets are going down. Talents don’t have any loyalty to any agent, and production has trouble finding the talent they need and that are best for the job as some agents just sent anybody to the job.
On top of that new agencies are appearing out of thin air on an almost daily basis. That means, the competition for the agencies is high. If you don’t do it for that budget, another agent will and you’re losing out of money. And since talents just go with anybody the incentive to keep the budget up becomes one of ethics and not one of strength. (‘I won’t do it for that low budget’, instead of ‘if the budget is that low you won’t get my talents’)
How to fix it?
I am talking about the view of the talent here. There is only one way of fixing it:
Go exclusive!
Yes, going exclusive with one agent of your choice is the only way to give that agent leverage to negotiate for you.
Don’t respond just to any post of ‘agencies’ that you don’t know on Facebook.
To be perfectly honest, sending your profile just to anybody who doesn’t have a transparent profile is madness. Who is Rocko Vivaldi Modeling? Who was Ant Modeling? Who is Mountain Models? Who is Brendan Gallagher? Who are all those Pakistani and Iranian ‘agents’ that are springing up?
Who are these people?
They don’t even have a profile picture. They don’t publish their names. There is no phone number. No address. NOTHING!
Why do you expect that they will pay you?
2 years ago the situation was similar. Agents sprung up out of nowhere. There was Ant Modelling. Ant Modelling got a big job of more than 200+ extras with one production company. If the budget in hand is 2500, what the agent is getting is 4000 of which they give you 2500. So for this job Ant made roughly 1,000,000 Baht. And that is just regular extras. There were featured and mains as well.
Guess what happened?
She disappeared. She closed her Facebook profile and was never to be heard of again.
There were others as well. Some have resurfaced, but not working as agents anymore.
Sending your profile to somebody you don’t know entails just this risk. You don’t know that person. You don’t know who it is and you don’t know if they will ever pay you. Especially with payment terms of 1-2 months for some jobs, there is a good chance that you will be left waiting forever for the money that you earned.
What are my benefits of going exclusive?
Your benefits are: Going exclusive forces the production to redesign their practices. Right now, each production has 1 or 2 agents that they are friends with and that are being contacted for each job. Since most talents go with all agents there is no need for production to contact other agencies for the job.
In turn this means that the agent will and has to do anything to please the production. In fact the agents become and extension of the production, but are being paid out of the talent’s budget.
Many agents have rightly asked me: “But what can I do?” or “How can I stand up to the production?” This makes it clear who their real client is – the production.
They have more incentive to ditch you as a unruly or disruptive talent than to stand up to the one who is paying them in the end.
So my recommendation to fix this broken system is:
Go exclusive – choose one, or maximum two agencies and work exclusively with them
Don’t send your profile just to anybody
Yes, it will take some balls to do that and yes, you will miss out on some jobs, but this is the only way that I see that can bring change – and that we as talents can influence. All other ways you have to put your trust to somebody that does not have your best interest in mind – but their own.
If you don’t go exclusive you leave your agent weak and without leverage to negotiate, because if he or she is seen as unruly (standing up for their talent) they will not be contacted by any production anymore. You can ask Kaprice Kea from Fluid about this.
In my next article I will publish a list of agencies that have been working in Thailand a long time and that are reputable and that I can recommend working with.
Do you want to know how to become an actor / model in Thailand? Check out this video or this article How To Become an Actor in Thailand:
Initially I wanted to write about the budget and compensation for actors in their different position. Now I find another trend that is even more worrisome – the issue about working time.
What regular working time used to be:
When I first started working here in Thailand, regular working time was 12 hours including lunch and anything else. Working time would start from the call time – the time that production wants you to be on set – and ended when you could go home. You were always looking at the clock and hoping that 12 hours would be over and the 13th hour would start. The 13th hour meant overtime.
What is happening to regular working time now:
In recent years that has begun to change. Somehow the productions decided that the 1 hour for lunch should not be on their time. So they said 12 hours plus 1 hour lunch. Making it in fact 13 hours of working time. And many times you would not have ‘1 hour’ for lunch, but would be rushed to continue to shoot.
Guess what, it didn’t stop there. The latest posts on this and other pages have asked talent to work for the same budget as before but now for 18-20 hours. This means the production is getting half a day of work from you for free. And because the conditions are known prior to the shoot, you have no means to complain, ‘You agreed to the conditions before’.
Another trick is what they call เหมา (Mau) which means paying a lump sum including everything. This lump sum leaves it up to the production to decide how many hours you may have to work – be it 24 hours, or maybe more in future – since you ‘agreed’ to that condition.
All of this is for one reason only: to save costs for the production so that the production can make more money.
What regular working time is elsewhere:
Like Damian Mavis described so elaborately in his article in Canada, regular working time is 8 hours. Everything after that is overtime, which is paid 1.5 times the regular pay per hour.
In Thailand regular working time is 12 hours; already 4 hours more than elsewhere. We have allowed this to become 13 hours in some cases. Production can now argue ‘this is standard’ for their production.
What happens if we do nothing:
If you accept to work under these conditions, it will only get worse. In future we will have more and more posts of 18 hours regular working time until 18 hours of regular working time has become ‘the standard’.
What we are doing:
As such, we at the AAT have concluded to only accept posts in which the working day is 12 hours including a one-hour lunch break. We hope talent and productions will help uphold this standard. And hope that other groups will help us in this cause for the betterment of industry standards for the talents.
Do you want to know how to become an actor / model in Thailand? Check out this video or this article How To Become an Actor in Thailand:
That’s what I thought when I first came to Thailand. You see all the skyscrapers and the big billboards. Millions of people on public transportation. Another million in cars and taxis. And unlike in Europe where arts and culture are always present. You know where the theatres are, there are billboards with the latest shows, galleries promote their art very visible, it is all more hidden in Bangkok.
It takes time to find out where things are happening.
Where to go, where is what taking place? Concerts? Theatre? Art exhibitions? Why isn’t there a website? Where are arts and culture happening in Bangkok? How to get this kind of information!
Jack Gitting’s Newsletter
One of the easiest overviews of artistic events happening in Bangkok is by subscribing to Jack Gittings’s bi-weekly newsletter. Just drop jack an email at: jackgittings12@gmail.com and ask him to subscribe you to his newsletter. Every two weeks you will get a comprehensive update on artistic events in your mailbox.
All the information from his newsletter can also be found on this (not that beautiful, but very functional) google calendar also provided by Jack:
https://sites.google.com/site/bkkmacaldetails/
I have had two or three rare occasions to bump into Jack when watching a play and he is a really nice and decent guy. He has been keeping his newsletter up for many years and is one of the Bangkok legends.
Subscribing to Jack’s Newsletter is definitely a good way to keep up to date on Arts and Culture in Bangkok.
Bangkok Theatre Calendar
Personally, I am also trying to keep up with the latest theatre events in Bangkok. On this very website namely here: http://actors-thailand.com/bangkok-theatre-calendar/
You can see at what time and what day the plays are happening and if you click on it you can see more details about the event. I take the information from Facebook events that people create. Most of the Thai plays are posted on this Facebook Group Theatre Shows and Workshops in Bangkok So join it if you want to keep up to date – a lot of postings are in Thai, though. 🙂
Bangkok Post + The Nation
Both, the Bangkok Post and the Nation always have a section about arts and culture. The Bangkok Post calls it Lifestyle, while the Nation calls it Life. So it’s still handy to fall back on a paper version of either newspaper if you are looking for artistic and cultural events for the evening.
Their online versions take a bit of time wrestling with to find the information you are looking for. You can still try:
What can be done to improve the situation for talents, production companies and agents in Thailand? We need more Transparency!
A lot of actors and models complain about the agents, a lot of agents complain about actors and models. A lot of actors and models complain about the production companies and their standards, a lot of production companies complain about the non-professional talents. There is way too little transparency of what is going on.
There is a lot of misunderstanding going on on all sites. Some of it comes from cultural differences, difficulty to communicate in one language or another, a different outlook on the world, what is ethical and what is not.
Ignorance is a bliss – or not.
Some issues come up because people ‘just don’t know’. This counts for either side. Actors and models don’t know what the agents and production companies expect of them. Agents don’t know what their talent expects of them, and production companies don’t know what the talent expects. A lot of misunderstandings happen.
Misunderstandings where neither side is willing to give in and admit that they just didn’t know can lead to conflict. And once you’re in a conflict it’s not that easy to get out in a way that makes either side happy. Most likely you’ll end up saying you never want to work with this or that person again.
How to prevent this?
Communication, obviously, but an important part that needs to happen – and happens much too seldom – is: More Transparency.
Transparency from all sides. About the jobs, about what is expected, about what either side needs.
What can you do?
A friend of mine started this industry wide survey and I would like to ask you to participate in it.
He asks both sides about their opinions. What they expect, what they need and what their grievances are. This way we can open up a channel of communication to improve the situation for everybody.
The results of the survey will be published and distributed among talents, agents as well as production companies.
This may not be a lot, but it is a first step to improve the communication between the production and the talents. And I think it is an important step to take.
So if you can spare 5 minutes of your time, please take this survey.
Have you ever done any voice over jobs in Bangkok?
Voice over jobs can be a nice way to supplement your income in Bangkok.
Voice over companies are always looking for new talent. The population in Bangkok is always fluctuating and voice over companies are always looking for new voices to present to their clients.
Do they need my language?
I literally have seen job postings for all kinds of languages from all around the world. English with different accents (British, American, Canadian, Australian), Dutch, German, Hindi, Persian, Indonesian, Arabic, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai….You name it, they need it.
If you think that you have a pleasant voice that people like to listen to, this might just be a job for you.
Voice over jobs pay by the hour.
Usually they pay anything between 800-1500 per hour’s work and a session will last for 1-6 hours. Sometimes they pay even more, if you agreed to a specific amount and you can finish the job faster than expetected.
Voice over work is more tiring than you’d expect.
In every day life you may not notice the little sludges and and slurries that enter your speech patterns. You think that you pronounce words clearly. With voice over work your voice is on the spot. People can’t look at your mouth to help them understand what you’re saying. Usually they allow you to take a 5 minute break after each 1 hour session. Believe me, you will want to take a break and it will help you to get back in focus.
Which companies are doing voice over jobs in Bangkok?
Andovar is one of the biggest Voice over companies in Bangkok. They are located on Sukhumvit, close to Phrom Pong BTS (and have offices in India, Singapore and the US as well).
I have done both work as talent as well as language monitor for EQHO. They are professional and friendly. There is always free drinks and mints ready for you. EQHO is located close to BTS Surasak.
Keith has his studio in a beautiful building close to Huay Kwang MRT station. I did a regular gig for Keith. We had a lot of fun doing that job and I made some good friends in the process.
Those are probably the biggest companies for voice over work. I have worked with all four of them and can recommend working with any of these.
Doing some research for this article I found 4 other companies that apparently offer to do voice over work in Bangkok. You’d have to contact them yourself and see how working for them is; and maybe tell me about it afterwards:
Just follow the links to their websites, go to their contact us section, send them a message and tell them that you’re available. They will probably ask you to come in and take a recording of your voice. It is kind of your audition. When a job comes up they will present your voice sample to their client.
In a dark room, with head phones on…voice over jobs 🙂
What kind of jobs can they offer you?
There are actually two kinds of jobs that they may offer you:
The actual voice over job
The language monitor
The voice over job is obvious. You’ll have to read the script and they will record your voice while doing it.
All of the bigger companies employ a language monitor. The language monitor gets paid around half of what the voice over talent gets paid.
Not a full-time job, but a nice way to make some extra money
Voice over jobs may not fill your coffers to pay your rent, but they can pose a nice way to supplement your income and make some extra cash on the side. And while you are waiting for your film and commercial work to draw in, you can do some voice over work and hone your skills.
Remember: The voice is one of your main instruments as an actor 😉
Do you want to know how to become an actor / model in Thailand? Check out this video or this article How To Become an Actor in Thailand:
