From the bustling streets of Bangkok to the rural village of the Karen Tribe, Mark goes on an adventure to experience the best food in the country. After living in Thailand for 15 years, Mark is confident that he can show us the best places for good eats. The main goal of this show was to show the autthenticity of Thai locals and what they love to eat. Mark wanted to highlight dishes that locals get excited about an to make the videos high energy, showcasing the culture, and a thrilling adventure of food for the senses.
Mark Wiens carefully considered the regions of Thai food he wanted to showcase, especially highlighting lesser-known dishes for visitors. Since it was a 24-hour food tour in Bangkok, timing was a key factor—what do Thais eat early in the morning at the market or late at night? From there, he selected specific locations with welcoming owners. With lots of teamwork between Mark and the National Geographic team, this show came together seamlessly. Despite the amazing end result Mark did face challenges. The entire series was filmed in a fast-paced, run-and-gun style, making it a fun yet challenging process to ensure all the necessary shots were captured to tell the story. Ultimately, an additional day of shooting was needed, during which Mark Wiens and Jon ran around Bangkok filming pick-up shots. Post-production proved to be the most challenging phase, with many moving parts requiring constant editing, reviewing, and re-editing to achieve the excitement and energy they had envisioned for the series.
With the first video, the goal was to showcase a 24-hour journey of eating Bangkok street food, highlighting a wide variety of dishes and the times of day they are traditionally eaten. Throughout filming and editing, Mark Wiens and the team remained focused on maintaining the theme and overall vision to ensure everything aligned. For the second video, they traveled to the remote mountains of northern Thailand during the rainy season. The plan was to go night fishing, but as they were filming, a sudden downpour caught them unprepared. However, they managed to turn the unexpected challenge into an adventure. The series as a whole was to showcase the incredible culture of Thailand and bring it to new audiences, and for National Geographic definitely succeeded with over a million viewers over two videos, which excelled benchmarks for that content type.
