Director: Toby MacDonald
Production Company: Partizan Films
Client: Phileas Fogg
Locations: Vietnam
When One Country After Another Falls Apart
By 2008 I was still balancing television commercials with feature films. I hadn’t completely crossed over into films and, to be honest, I loved the variety. Commercials were fast-paced, creative and often took me somewhere new for a couple of weeks, while feature films could dominate your life for months.
A television commercial for Phileas Fogg’s Sea Salt & Indonesian Black Peppercorn crisps.
The original plan was simple enough.
We were heading to Indonesia.
Indonesia… Then Thailand… Then India…
As I began researching Indonesia, everything was coming together nicely. Local service companies had been contacted, budgets prepared and the scout was almost ready to begin.
Then circumstances beyond anyone’s control changed everything.
With security concerns escalating across Indonesia at the time, production decided it was no longer the right place to film.
Thailand quickly became our next option.
I knew the country well and started looking at pepper farms there instead, but before long Bangkok Airport was occupied by protesters, bringing another change of plan.
India became the next favourite.
It offered excellent pepper-growing regions, but almost immediately the Mumbai terrorist attacks changed the situation yet again.
By now it felt as though every country we chose encountered a major obstacle.
So it was back to the drawing board for a fourth time.
Vietnam Becomes Home
Fortunately, Vietnam was somewhere I already knew well.
Although pepper farms aren’t as common as in Indonesia, I eventually found an excellent location outside Ho Chi Minh City that delivered exactly the look we were after.
The production also required a traditional Malaysian-style timber house.
There was one small problem.
Those houses don’t really exist in rural Vietnam.
Instead, we sourced a suitable site close to the pepper farm and built one specifically for the commercial, ensuring it remained practical for construction, crew access and transport logistics.
The Scout
One of the pleasures of location scouting is discovering places you would probably never visit otherwise.
The Vietnamese countryside was stunning, and working with the local crews was an absolute pleasure. Everyone was resourceful, welcoming and determined to find solutions rather than problems.
As always, the challenge wasn’t simply finding beautiful locations—it was making sure they worked practically for production, with suitable access, accommodation, parking, construction space and enough flexibility to accommodate the director’s vision.
Looking Back
What started as a straightforward commercial eventually took us through four different countries before a single frame was filmed.
Indonesia became Thailand.
Thailand became India.
India became Vietnam.
It’s a perfect example of how quickly international productions can change and why flexibility is such an important part of location management. Sometimes the locations you end up using are very different from the ones you first imagined, but with the right planning and a willingness to adapt, those unexpected changes often lead to the best results.
The finished commercial may only have lasted a few moments on screen, but behind it lay weeks of research, international scouting and problem-solving—something audiences rarely get to see.
