Interview with Team Farang

Team Farang is a diverse group of motivated and passionate individuals with a thirst for adventure. They are not a team like any other, it’s not a group of people who live close to one another and train together. This is not a team formed on the basis of skill or performance, Team Farang was formed simply by attendance, its honorary title bestowed upon whoever simply turned up.

Team Farang Tour – The Temple

How long has Team Farang been together and how did it all start?

It probably all started back in 2007 when Shaun visited me (Anan) in Bangkok for the first time. Hooked on the charm and cheap food, Shaun ended up coming back more regularly for longer and longer durations, and each time bringing more friends with him. At one point during the summer of 2010 I had 16 traucers from around the world crash my modest 2 bed room apartment. As a large group it was hard not to draw attention to ourselves when we were out training. Farang, being the generic slur for foreigners in Thailand, was over heard being used quite a bit. The guys lovingly accepted the name.

How do you find your inspiration to create new content?

Inspiration usual comes to us when we are up late just chatting shit, and we’d be flooded with crazy little ideas of what we think would be cool to shoot. Having people to bounce ideas off really makes for a creative atmosphere for us.

Tell us a little about the making of ‘Team Farang Tour 2011 – The City’

The video from the previous year we shot in 5 days, so this time round we wanted to see what we could put together if we spent a bit more time planning and shooting for our 2011 tour video. We actually went out and scouted locations, noted the best time of day for lighting, planned what stunts we wanted to shoot and how we wanted to shoot them. Most of the time it almost never turned out as we planned (problems with security, unexpected injuries, and the occasional location getting bulldozed before we shot). But the whole thing was a huge learning experience for us and we ended up with a video we were proud of. We used two Canon 7Ds, a 550D, a fake steady cam rig, and a rusty tripod. We have a tendency to be ballin on a budget. We make the most of what we got.

Team Farang Tour 2011 – The City

What have been the most amazing projects you have worked on?

Art of Motion Kuwait was a huge event that we all got to enjoy. It was the first video competition so we were all pretty excited to see what we could make. We couldn’t have had a better location for it as well. Failaka island was full of great lines to run and beautiful to shoot, and we had an amazing time watching each others work afterwards.

What is your main message to your audience?

Message? We are not entirely sure we have one. We just try to have as much fun as we can while making videos that we hope everyone will enjoy. If anything that would be our message. Have fun, get the most out of life as you can, live the dream.

From a cinematography perspective, where do you want to take your work and what are you looking to achieve?

All of us feel strongly about not being satisfied with where we are now. Progression across the the board is the goal for us, whether its Freerunning or film making. I think we just wanna be better then we were yesterday, for as long as we can. We love being able to entertain so with each big project we give to ourselves we try to up our standards and make it as perfectly as we can. Sometimes this works against us, sitting on footage for months cause we just aint quite happy with it (we promise we’ll release The Beach >< ).

What new projects are you working on?

Jason’s been scribbling away at the sketch book working on some designs for Farang clothing. We’ll have those made and available online as soon as possible. As for videos, we don’t wanna give to much away to soon so you’ll just have to keep your eyes on the channel.

What is your ultimate dream project?

Build a free running Island and invite all our friends over for the end of the world party. But seriously we’d love to find a way to take the Farang Tours to even more ridiculous locations around the world. Gunkajima – http://www.farang-mag.com/?p=488 – for example is one of our dream destinations. We wanna complete the Battle Royal Trilogy.