Prachya Pinkaew with his Sony Glastron TV glasses and a Bluetooth speaker for his mobile phone

One of the kingdom's leading film directors gets hooked on high tech

We’ve been chatting with director Prachya Pinkaew and he’s still enthusing about the gadgets he’s been collecting for the past 20 years. He’s especially delighted when we can’t figure about how a gizmo works and carefully demonstrates for us, his face alight with pleasure.
“I love showing how this works and then watching the surprise on peoples’ faces,” says the director as he manipulates a small cube called the Mini Sounder, which turns every hard surface into a loudspeaker.
Prachya likes to be surrounded by his gadgets both at home and at work and even those that can’t immediately be pressed into service are eventually adapted to suit his lifestyle.
He uses a PDA instead of notebook, wireless speakers for his outdoor parties and has a unique Bluetooth speaker phone that has everyone looking at him whenever he uses it.
That’s because it’s actually an oldfashioned telephone handset acquired in Hong Kong.
"I used it during the meeting of the Federation of National Film Association of Thailand and all the participants stared at me. That alone was worth the price I paid for it in Hong Kong,” he chortles.”
For work, he’s adapted the Sony Location Free portable LCD TV for the set and uses modified Sony Glastron TV glasses as a mobile monitor when he wants to look at the footage he’s just shot.
“My crew laughed at me at first but they soon realised that it was useful.”
Prachya admits he’s a major fan of Sony and Apple equipment and recently acquired his latest toy – an Iphone 3G – which has replaced his old PDA.
He gets updates about his gadgets from websites, magazines as well as from IT shops, particularly Bangkok’s iStudio shop, where he’s a very special customer.
“I was very proud when they invited me to preside over the opening of a new branch,” he says.


Xtra
Great gizmos
>> His favourite shopping places in Thailand is IT Mall in Fortune Town.
>> He also looks for gadgets in Hong Kong and Tokyo’s Akihabara district.