Reality TV stunt proves deadly

       Investigators are trying to discover how a Pakistani 'challenge-elimination'show on locationin Thailand took such a tragic turn By Erika Fry
       The last few minutes of Saad Khan's life played out like a nightmare, or maybe an absurdly-plotted episode of Crime Scene Investigation . The 32-year-old Pakistani banker and father of four died on Aug 19 while trying to swim across a murky,10-metre pond that had been marked by a "No swimming" sign in the grounds of Bangkok's idyllic Rot Fai Park.
       Moments before he had been carrying a 7-kilogramme backpack and run through lines of fire. He was surrounded by a set of at least three cameramen, more than 30 cast and crew members and a crowd taking their exercise in the early evening.
       Tragically, the cameras only stopped rolling when Khan was dragged from the pond. This was reality TV, and he had drowned.
       It took spectators a few minutes to grasp the reality of events - a police investigator estimates it was several minutes before anyone jumped into the pond to try to save Khan, or even noticed he had disappeared below the surface.
       There were three other competitors performing the challenge at the same time - a four-phase stunt that involved running between lines of fire, swimming across a pond,climbing a ladder into a tree, and manoeuvering through trees on ropes - and the investigator suspects that it became clear that one participant was missing only after the other three successfully emerged on the bank.
       A person who was on the set working with the production team and who requested anonymity estimated that Khan had been underwater for 30 seconds before anyone jumped in."Everything just happened very quickly,"he said, adding that most of the crew was at a distance from the pond. If Khan yelled for help or was visibly struggling, it was not easy to notice.
       Despite the efforts of a handful of people and the swift arrival of a rescue service with diving equipment, it took 30 minutes to recover the body, said the investigator.
       As required by law in all cases of abnormal death, police are now investigating. The Bang Sue police station investigator who worked on the case expects the office to issue a report on the cause of death in the next few weeks,although he acknowledges there were challenges with the investigation due to the lack of co-operation from the foreign film crew.
       The police were not permitted to interview the foreign crew or the Pakistani contestants.Instead they interviewed witnesses from the local film coordinating agency and met with a lawyer and a representative of the foreign crew.
       "The contestant, the crew, the tapes," said the officer, are all "gone with the wind".
       THE ADVENTURE
       Several days before Khan came to Thailand,he told a friend and former colleague, Farrukh Ahmed, that he was going on an "adventure trip" and promised to return with a surprise.
       The adventure was to participate in a Pakistani reality game show that was being filmed in Thailand.
       The show, which channelled Amazing Race ,Survivor , and maybe a little America's Next Top Model , did not stray far from the typical elimination-challenge formula.
       People who worked on the production said contestants lived together in a house on the outskirts of Bangkok, and prior to the incident at Suan Rot Fai, their number had been whittled down in nine episodes of game show stunts which ranged from ATV racing in Saraburi to going on a Bangkok shopping spree.
       Khan had been eliminated in the fourth episode of the show - according to one account for failing to throw a ball in a basket while walking on a block of ice - but he had been invited to participate in the challenge at Rot Fai Park to win a place in the next and final episode, a jungle survival game. In the time between shows, he had been secreted away in a Bangkok hotel.
       More unusual was the impetus for the show's creation.
       The show, which had a working title of Clear Man and has since been cancelled, was sponsored by Unilever and intended as a marketing platform for the company's Clear brand shampoo.
       Unilever Pakistan's spokesperson, Fareshteh Aslam, explained:"The concept was to identify a challenger who would stand for all the values of a typical Clear Man ."The reality show was a "third party production".
       Mindshare Pakistan, the media agency which handled the production and the brand activation,"outsourced various responsibilities to SeeMe Productions, Pakistan, Working Heads, India and Benetone, Thailand for logistics and production," said Ms Aslam.
       Though she denied Unilever's responsibility for the incident, Ms Aslam said the company has been in close touch with Khan's family since and is working to provide compensation for them.
       She also said that Unilever had initiated an internal review of third-party processes to minimise the risk of such tragedies in the future.
       So how did Saad Khan come to be in Thailand? And how did a man die under the gaze of cameras and a sizeable crowd of spectators?
       Thailand is a regional hub for film production. While the industry has been weakened somewhat in recent years by the unstable political climate - Nicholas Cage famously fled with his family to Korea during production of Bangkok Dangerous when the September 2006 coup happened - Thailand is considered a desirable place to produce films because of the value, the variety of locales and the capable and affordable production crews.
       The Thailand Film Office (TFO), under the Office of TourismDevelopment, has also done much to promote and facilitate foreign filmmaking in Thailand. The TFO monitors foreign productions fairly closely.
       The organisation's website states that foreign filmmakers are required to hire a local coordinator who is officially registered with the TFO.
       Local coordinators represent the filmmaker in obtaining necessary permits and "any matter arising both during and after the completion of shooting in Thailand".
       In applying for a shooting permit, the local coordinator must submit a thorough account of the production which includes, among many other materials, translated-into-Thai copies of intentions, proposed sets, schedules,budgets, scripts and crew member lists. Plans can be amended, but changes must be cleared by the TFO.
       Despite the volume of materials that must be submitted, the TFO approves things fairly quickly - a matter of days for advertisements,several weeks for feature productions. They screen most carefully for content that would dishonour the monarchy or the nation, or might threaten national security.
       Beyond the vetting of productions, the TFO requires that a monitoring officer, at a price of 2,000 baht per day, be present during all filming. As explained on the TFO website:"Filming is not allowed, under any circumstances, without acknowledgement of the monitoring officer."
       The TFO also mandates that local coordinators obtain any additional permits for shooting, such as those needed to film in parks or at historic sites. An agreement to honour these rules is signed by the local coordinator and the foreign producer.
       The local coordinator for the Clear Man reality show was Benetone Films, a full-service production house with offices on Sukhumvit Road. Benetone is one of Thailand's largest local coordinators and a leading coordinator for Indian productions.
       While Benetone had received a three-week shooting permit from the TFO for the reality game show, the show had not been scheduled to film in Rot Fai Park that day. According to the TFO's Ubolwan Sucharitakul, the office had been told that the production would be rehearsing.
       Accordingly, the TFO did not have a monitoring officer on the set.
       Ms Ubolwan says Benetone sent a letter to the TFO following the incident, explaining again that they had merely been rehearsing that day in Suan Rot Fai. The letter also cited Khan's "lack of readiness and rest", as a probable cause for the accident and acknowledged they did not have adequate safety equipment, she said.
       Ms Ubolwan said that in response the TFO sent a warning letter to Benetone, asking them to take more care with regard to safety at future shoots and requiring them to submit safety plans for future productions. She also acknowledged there is an ongoing police investigation into the incident.
       When asked about the filming that had been done at Rot Fai Park, Ms Ubolwan said:"We were told they were rehearsing. We were told there were no tapes."
       While this was Benetone's story to the TFO, few others have been given this version of events. The person involved with the pro-duction did not dispute the fact that they were shooting, and the police investigator says there were at least three cameras filming that day.
       Ms Aslam also acknowledged that Khan died while the show was being filmed. She had been told that police had confiscated the tapes.
       The day before the incident, Benetone also informed Jumpot Sirawateharin, the head groundskeeper at Rot Fai Park, that they planned to film the next day. Mr Jumpot says the company brought equipment into the park at 5am on Aug 19.
       As required by the park, Benetone had applied for a permit to film there and Mr Jumpot said his office had no problem approving the request."There are film shoots here almost every day. It seemed like any other game show," he said.
       In its application, Benetone sought approval to film contestants who "run around and climb ropes. They said they would run laps around the pond - not swim in it", said Mr Jumpot, shaking his head.
       "They did not have a permit to swim in the pond, and we would never allow one. Signs are posted near all of the park's ponds that say no swimming. It's not safe, and it's not allowed - those ponds are there for aesthetic and practical reasons, to water the plants."
       While Mr Jumpot's office approves production requests, it has a staff of only four people, and they assume shoots are being watched by the TFO-provided monitoring officer.
       He has also grown accustomed to the daily traffic of film sets, and says aside from their tendency to smoke and to block the bike paths, he has little trouble with them.
       At 6pm that evening, not long after the incident, he heard that a man had drowned in one of the park's ponds.
      "'PRE-TESTED FOR SAFETY"
       There are varying accounts of Khan's drowning, and how well prepared the production companies were for such an incident. According to the person working on the pro-duction, life jackets had been prepared for the shoot and there was an ambulance on the set.
       The police investigator says no one wore life vests as it was a rule of the challenge, set by the Indian production company which was responsible for generating all content and developing the stunts.
       Ms Aslam says the challenge was pre-tested for safety by crew members who were wearing 12kg backpacks. Though it was widely reported Khan was wearing a 7kg backpack in the water, witnesses dispute this and say he only ran with the pack.
       While Khan's death was certainly the most significant safety lapse on set, it was not the only one. According to the person working on the production, one contestant suffered a shoulder injury while riding in an ATV for a challenge shot in Saraburi, while three members of the cast and crew were treated at hospitals on Aug 19- two after falling out of trees and one after fainting from the stress of the drowning.
       When asked who is usually responsible for providing safety, Ms Ubolwan said "the local coordinator. Before we issue a permit, there is an agreement signed. There is an understanding. While safety provisions are not explicit, there is a general idea - they know".She added that had a monitoring officer been present, they would have required more safety provisions.
       The Thai producers - each seasoned in producing reality game shows for international networks and large companies - expressed a sense of shared disbelief at the Clear Man incident.
       Pom Pongsapipatt, an independent producer who has produced reality game shows in Thailand for American networks, remembers seeing a news report on television and thinking that was her "worst nightmare".
       At the same time, reflecting on the many safety precautions she takes on her shows,she found it hard to fathom that such an accident could happen. She said contestants are never allowed near water, let alone in it without life vests.
       "You never say no to a safety budget. You cut budgets on food." She said her own sets typically have a doctor, a nurse and ambulance on standby, and additional provisions as suited to the locations, such as snake serum or professional divers.
       She added that foreign companies often bring their own safety team, whose responsibility is to be thinking ahead and looking ahead for things that could be issues.
       When asked if there is a set policy on stopping the shooting for the sake of saving a contestant that may be in trouble, she said no, because as long as you have good preproduction, it will never come to that.
       Tom Waller, whose company served as the local coordinating agency for Survivor Philippines , also spoke of the meticulous planning and abundant safety precautions involved in such shows.
       He recalled that he once had to evacuate a group from a camp in Koh Tao because the snakes and scorpions in the area posed too much of a risk.
       Both he and Ms Pom spoke of the fine balance that needs be met in order to provide both safe and compelling television.
       "The idea is that you put these contestants in harms way to a certain extent, but obviously there's a level of safety to which you must adhere."
       He also said the incident does not reflect the safety standards of the film industry in Thailand .
       "Obviously, the stunt went very wrong.Safety standards are always being challenged by time and money," said Mr Waller.
       Cautioning that he does not know the circumstances in this case, Mr Waller also spoke of the pressure for local coordinators and crews to deliver what their clients want.
       "Crews know their job is on the line, they can't destroy the shot. Their job is to listen to the director. In this case, they were going to lose the shot or the guy.
       "Unfortunately, the director didn't call it right here."
       Indeed, money may have been an issue.Those that I spoke with who worked on the production talked of the foreign producer's desire to cut costs whenever and however possible.
       Ms Pom also spoke of the potential challenge for local coordinators - they are hired by foreign companies to coordinate and support them, but at the same time the local coordinators technically employ the foreign producers because they obtain their work permits and become legally responsible for them.
       Those involved with the Clear Man fiasco seem to have learned from it.
       "This was a big lesson for us. We thought we had enough safety equipment, we didn't think there were risks that day - we were wrong," said the person who had worked on the show.
       Ms Ubolwan said the TFO may look more closely at future safety plans, though she says most foreign productions are well prepared.
       Whether they'll go after those who violate safety standards, as zealously as they pursue those who tarnish the national image, will be something to watch in the future.
       Two weeks ago, the TFO announced plans to prosecute Black Sheep Productions, the local coordinator which produced Big Trouble in Thailand , a reality series chronicling Thai tourism scams for a British television channel.
       A representative from the TFO explained the company had broken various film laws by sending film out of the country without proper screening and by tarnishing the reputation of Thailand.
       They're probably not alone.Benetone Films declined to comment for this story.