It was something I could never have expected when the brand manager of Mister Potato called me up.
Mister Potato: “Would you like to make a cameo appearance in our latest TV commercial?”
Kenny Sia: “What! Me? You sure? It sounds fun, but… I dunno how to act leh!”
Mister Potato: “Don’t worry about it, it’s just a cameo. Besides, there will be there people telling you what to do.”
Kenny Sia: “Does that mean I have to fly to KL?”
Mister Potato: “No, the shooting will be done in Bangkok!”
And with that I found myself in Bangkok, Thailand for this once in a lifetime opportunity to appear in an ad for Mister Potato.
Okay. I know I am not an actor, I have never acted before and I have zero clue on how the whole thing works.
I was confused, but at the same time honoured that Mister Potato actually has enough faith to handpick me to make an appearance in their TV commercial. Not only that, they flew me all the way to Bangkok to do the shoot!
Not like there’s not enough qualified actors in Thailand. But when such a big corporation like Mister Potato is willing to bend over backwards for me, of course I feel compelled to do a good job for them.
Question is, why of all places, Bangkok?
Well, if there is one thing I know the Thais are good at making (apart from spicy Tom Yum soup), it’s their rib-tickling pants-droppingly hilarious TV commercials.
The best thing is, I didn’t even know until I arrived on set that I would be working with not just one of the best production houses in Thailand, but throughout the whole of Asia as well.
Phenomena is the TV commercial production house responsible for a lot of those funny Thai commercials that you see circulating around the Youtube.
They are really well-known in the advertising industry, and even produced the most awarded TV commercial director in the world. In fact, they have won so many awards, they were even given an award for winning too many awards!
Fake Kenny doesn’t look like actual Kenny
I’ve never done any of these before.
Because I couldn’t attend any of the casting and fitting sessions before the shoot, Phenomena went through quite a bit of trouble for me.
We communicated a lot through e-mail, and when I found out they basically used this random guy to model for the photos for my wardrobe, I LOLed.
Can see from his face that he looked quite tulan lah, as if saying, “Nabeh this Kenny Sia didn’t come early to Bangkok. Made me to the dirty job for you only.”
Sorry, dude!
Then there’s this other thing about the casting process that really tickled my funny bones as well.
Before I flew to Bangkok, I was requested to fill out this casting form.
The FIRST question they asked, immediately after I filled out my name and age, was this:
HAVE YOU EVER MODELLED NUDE?
What!? What kinda question is that?
To me, that was almost like the equivalent of going up to a girl, asking “Hi, what is your name?”
“Now can I see your boobs please?”
I was really excited about doing my first TV commercial. Having slept only just a few hours the night before, I arrived on location bright and early at an ungodly hour of 6 in the morning.
Filming was done in a quaint park located some distance away from central Bangkok. When I arrived, two huge semi-trailers were already parked by the roadside and a team of about 30 workers was busy carrying stuff, clearing rubbish and setting up props to prepare for the shoot.
I was simply astounded by the level of preparation for this shoot and attention to detail for everything. It was pretty impressive. They got props for every little thing I could think of, and virtually every other thing no one could’ve thought of.
They were so attentive that they even prepared English-language signboards to cover up the original Thai ones in the background just in case, and even mini-trampolines so we could jump higher than what we’re capable of.
Actors are treated very well by the production team.
This is the food area, where the crew has very considerately prepared meals and drinks for us.
There’s also a makeshift laundry and clothing line to hang our wet clothes.
We all need to become fitting potatoes in our lives sometimes
I was promptly introduced to the wardrobe department, who already had my outfit ready.
In my opinion, the wardrobe department was the coolest department of the production team. The casting manager was this nice auntie who knew exactly what look she wanted out of me.
All I was asked to do was change into the T-shirt and pants they provided, and then just stand still on the spot while three people simultaneously worked on my hair, my accessories and my clothing.
In no time, I was transformed from Kenny Sia to “Guy In Boat” in the Mister Potato Commercial.
Practicing my facial expressions
If you guys had watched the video, you’d know that the ad was actually pretty short. In fact, it was only half a minute long.
How long does it take to shoot a 30 second long video clip? Certainly not one whole day, I presume!
30 seconds isn’t very long and by right, the filming process should finish pretty quickly. At least, that was what I hoped so I could bugger off and enjoy a 3-hour-long Thai spa session.
Despite it being only a 30-second-long TV commercial, in reality we had to shoot multiple scenes because the director wanted to have a wide selection of different footage at his disposal for editing later.
Some scenes even had to be repeated over and over again to achieve the best take. Even if one person accidentally made an error, the ENTIRE scene had to be resetted and then we had to do it all over again.
The whole shooting process was long, gruelling and tiring. For those of us as extras, there’s a lot of idling and waiting in between scenes, which was something I’m not used to since I’ve always been a workaholic doing many things at once.
On the good side, I had some free time to get to know my other cast members better.
Girl on park bench
The Thais are really fantastic people. Almost all of them took the effort to chat up to me eventhough we know we’re gonna have trouble communicating fluently. They asked me about Kuching, and some even wondered if I were some kinda movie star back home because I was specially flown in from Malaysia.
To that, I laughed and laughed and laughed until my left tit fall off.
For once, it was actually pretty refreshing to speak to the local Thais without them trying to sell me souvenirs/give me massage/ride their tuk-tuk.
Girl in boat
This is Yue Hwa. She is my “girlfriend” who I shared a bed boat with in the commercial.
In real life, Yue Hwa is a 19-year-old student whose exotic looks comes from her Italian and Thai parentage. She was the only person I spoke to in fluent Mandarin, which she claimed to have picked up herself after subjecting herself to Mando-pop songs by Fish Leong.
The first scene that Yue Hwa and I had to do was also our most difficult.
What we’re supposed to do is, on the director’s cue, shout out loudly, jump as high as we can from our boat into the river, and then swim as fast as we can towards the bridge.
“Swim like you are a crazy person!” said the director.
Sounds simple? Not quite.
I already made a mistake on my first try.
I was so excited that instead of LEAPING from the boat, I lost my balance and TRIPPED myself into river like a fat elephant.
It was the most awkward-looking jump I had ever done, and the wobbly little boat didn’t make things better.
Obviously I ruined their footage. And obviously I couldn’t do another take right away because I was already drenched in filthy river water.
So how?
The crew helped me out from the murky river and proceeded to blow me dry all over using a HAIRDRYER.
I barely even had time to catch my breath because 10 minutes later, I was put back on the boat and to do a second take.
Then another accident happened.
The director told me to act like a mad man.
But I got into “the zone” so much that as soon as the director yelled “Action!”, I threw away my paddle so hard that the damn thing flew and hit the head of the crew member behind me.
It must be the most excruciating pain ever and he complained to me about it.
Luckily for me, the guy was ok about the incident. Accidents do happen, especially when you’re dealing a noob actor with no prior acting experience.
Some other actor however, wasn’t as fortunate.
Among our cast, there’s this damn impressive stuntwoman whose role it was to run past the main character, jump off from the bridge onto this floating barge that’s supposed to cushion her fall.
Unlike me, Miss Stuntwoman is by no means a noob in acting. She has worked as a theatre actress before on the set of Wild Wild West in A’Famosa Resort, where she had to jump down from buildings and perform other death-defying stunts.
But somehow when Miss Stuntwoman leaped from the bridge onto the barge, she landed awkwardly and sprained her ankle bad.
The girl was in so much pain she had to be sent to the hospital immediately. At that point, I thought we might have to call off the shooting since we’re down by one cast member and there wasn’t anyone to replace her.
By right, the last thing anyone in her situation would think about is to finish the ad.
But instead of heeding doctor’s advice to stay at home and take a break, Miss Stuntwoman limped back to our filming location, bandaged ankles and all.
That, my friend, didn’t just take guts.
It takes BALLS.
The final portion of the ad was when we had to soak ourselves in river water. Ironically, it was the most unpleasant and yet my favourite part of the shoot.
There was this scene where we all had to poke our heads out from the murky river water, and then open our mouths wide and show our greedy faces.
Try as we may, this was how pathetic we all looked when we did what we did.
We were asked to hold our facial expressions for as long as we could.
But then our jaws got tired from opening so wide for so long, and we ended up looking a bit stupid like this.
Now, being immersed for three whole hours inside stench-filled disgusting river water wasn’t exactly my idea of fun.
We joked around and tried to take our minds off the odour. The production crew was also nice enough to pass us bottles of ice cold water during every break.
Somehow I couldn’t help but to laugh at myself at the irony of my situation.
While everyone else goes to Thailand to soak themselves for 3 hours in traditional Thai spas, I actually went to Thailand to soak myself for 3 hours inside filthy the river of Bangkok.
As we splashed around, I must have lost count on the number of times I inadvertently swallowed those dirty river water. And let me tell ya, it sure didn’t taste good.
All I could think about at that point in time was a glass of ice cold beer, and two cans of my favourite Tomato-Flavoured Mister Potato chips.
Still, we made the most out of the situation and even went on to shoot multiple endings for the TV commercial. Some of those alternate endings we shot were really quirky and funny, and if we’re lucky, Mister Potato could release those versions online.
After doing many different takes of me jumping from the boat, blowdrying myself, dipping in the dirty river and splashing around like a mad man, at long last the director shouted “Cut!” for the final time and called it a wrap.
There was jubilance in the air as we high-fived each other and congratulated everyone over the hard work we all put in.
Shooting this 30 second TV commercial took close to 12 hours. We arrived at sunrise and finished just before sunset. Honestly, I never felt more relieved to get a job done.
This was only my first acting experience and already I gotta say, I’m developing a whole new level of appreciation for professional actors and actresses.
It’s a 30 second long TV commercial. And of that entire 30 seconds, I only appeared on screen for less than 3 seconds.
And yet, it took some 12 hours and a whole production team just to get that 30 seconds perfect.
No doubt, swimming and drinking brown-coloured river water wasn’t exactly pleasant.
Still, I had fun. LOTS of fun. 🙂
I am always up for trying something new and this is exactly the kind of thrill I seek for. And I love it.
Thanks to Mister Potato, not only did I get a rare opportunity to work with the best production house, I actually learnt something new. If I’m not mistaken, I might be the first Malaysian blogger to score a part in a TV commercial.
It’s simply surreal watching myself on screen in a TV commercial that I am so proud to be part of. I can’t wait for the ad to officially go to air across all the TV channels in Malaysia next week.
Mister Potato is indeed one of my favourite snacks since primary school, and never in a million years would I imagine that I would see myself their TV commercial years later.
If given another chance, I’m sure as heck that I’m gonna do it all over again. 😉
One thing though.
After we all exited from the dirty river, we were directed to have a well-deserved hot shower in the public toilets nearby.
But then something hit my mind.
A public toilet in a park, located next to a murky river? Why do I get such a weird feeling that something might be wrong with this arrangement.
True enough, I walked to the back of the toilets and then I spotted this water pipe.
It’s a pipe that flows directly from toilets…
… right into the murky brown river.
Yes. For the whole 3 hours, I was actually soaking myself inside filthy used toilet water.
But yeah, it was all worth it. 😛
I just spent a lotta ching-ching to zhng my car audio!
Got myself a top-of-the-line Alpine CDA9887 complete with Bluetooth upgrade, and a huge VSL monoblock amp hooked up to a 900W 12″ Pioneer woofer sitting in my boot.
Now my car goes boom boom boom when I drive past. Like an Ah Beng car .
Nice! I’m sure you’re the only one who can have such good time in filthy used toilet water. 🙂
omg yucks
you are look funny in the part you open your mouth lol
Interesting to see the ‘behind the scenes’ of how the Mister Potato as was shot.
Haha! That was seriously an entertaining post. It’s SO funny!!!! Way to go for cheering me up before my exams. Thanks Kenny. Eh, how much you earnt lah, that’s the most important question! Or did you get a lifetime supply of chips?
ewwww
Eeeeeeee like syok oh but eww… the river must be damn blah! Hope u dont get penyakit wei!
EEEeee..u muz hav drunk a lot of ….
Nice experience!!!
WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!! Soaked in sai chwee for 3 hours!
Kenny write this entry at 625am?!!?!
Great ad man…
Though i dun eat mister potato..i would like to give it a try now. haha!! (Used to eat Jack & Jill ones in primary) get a health check Ken..
Too bad I’m not in Bangkok!
I know where the shooting took though.
Wow, that must be a very nice experience for u Kenny! Hope that I can involve in such thing in the future. ^^
*ehem* directors…
Poo water! A whole river of poo water.. ewwww.
Glad to see you enjoying yourself Kenny dude! It’s been ages since Curtin. Don’t be a stranger Mr Big Shot 😀
haha … cool stuff man
yuck kenny!!! They should have chosen a better place than a river which had continous poo and pee going into it!! you guys could actually claim something if you guys got sick..yuck..i can just feel the taste in my mouth now
anyways great post! it was nice to see the behind-the-scenes
hahahahahaaaa! you are so lucky!
Hmm, at least you said the water didn’t taste good. Everyone will be worried if you said it does LOL
nice post of sharing all the behind the scenes. that ad is so funny and so do the whole process… even with that river water.
great stuff.. they sure know how to usee bloggers to publicize hehehe 😀
hahaha it’s great to experience something like that in life
eewwww… but hey.. the ad’s damn funny.. then right.. i wonder who took all the photos for you?
wow, a great recap to a great experience 🙂
LOL at the 1 of the statements after the ‘Have you modeled nude’ question – Not sure. How can you not be sure if you’ve modeled for someone without your clothes on?
Holy shit….that is the most disgusting blog ever.
What a way to end it all, with a twist.
Ladies & Gentleman, the next M.Night Shaylaman.
Beer can’t compare to Coke man…errr Sprite. Yeah Sprite…
nice Kenny, you’ve done the bloggers proud!
Wah lau! You not scared your car will get broken into again ah?
lol! water from public toilet right away huh? but u get the vicious cycle on going dont cha?:P
malaysia got balls !
Very funny post!!!!!I haven taken my breakfast and I read Kenny’s blog first…haha….
yucks. kenny soaked himself in toilet water for 3 whole hour + even tasted it. wahahaha…
can’t wait to see it on tv.
good job kenny. 🙂
Ewww you soaked in filthy water. Hahaha.
omg. disgusting omg.
*salute kenny*
now you know the effort production team and cast put in for a 30secs tvc, so don’t go running for the loo during commercial breaks 😛
got any SAI floating by the river or not ah?
one good post man…
i ROLFMAO so loud in my office!
all da best!
Nice post! I laffed out loud especially at that “Michael Jackson” part…
But erm, why no pics of you jumping on the trampoline?
about the short talk… i thought your car was broke in long ago in kuching? and now u changed ur audio sy
LOL… the michael jackson REALLY cracked me up!!!! can’t stop laughing… wheez wheez
haha, soaking in river fulled with “sai”, damn shuang leh
Kenny,
Interesting insights unto the ad production. =)
No doubt the Thai ad’s are the funniest ones around; thts the reason they needed u .. *lol .
it sure takes balls to soak urself in such unpleasant water
Lol thats one hell of an experience for you Kenny =)
HAHA! xD
haha, what a privilege man!!
anyway you could hook me up to do an ad, kenny? haha
How much were you got paid to do that commercial?
lol, kenny your tits looks funnyy.. its really black and round and big.
STUNT WOMEN HAS BALLLLSSSSSZZ.
OMG !! So gross for the last picture. @.@
thanks for sharing the behind scene pictures with us. We’ll never know what it is like if you didn’t put them for us to see. 🙂
Hey the commercial is up at http://www.misterpotato.com.my! Go watch, blew my mind off! Super mindless but damn enjoyable!
Impressive JUMP Kenny!!
It’s a funny ad, I watched it 🙂 You guys depicted very well like hungry dolphins when you were opening all your mouths wide in the river! 🙂
you’re blogger idols, man….
But acting is kinda tiring~ right?
OMG ! YUCKS ! But i appreciate what you have done .. I just bought a can of Mister Potato a few days ago 😀
did anyone ate soak potato….
Haha, good thing the shower was after, and not before or during the shoot!
The last part was unexpected.
Great job Kenny!
thats quite disturbing…
well, yah you deserve it!…
you kno what i mean right?
err.. got pick to shoot in potato ad…
not the soak in toilet water incident…
thats fun and good experience!
did they sponsor all your expenses?
Thanks that was interesting, definitely commercials are very carefully planned.
But how come these guys in Thailand knew about you in the first place?
talk about being paid to do “shitty” job 😀
Now I know you have hairs on your chest and both your tits are intact!!
Awesome one, Kenny. You had me LOLing.
Omg…how many gallons u drank in?
Hahaha
you stinks ^^
But good experience though !
kenny: could you please share your car latest sound system with us? post some photos and let us see lar… :p
urgh! i feel like puking after reading the last part! *vomit*
oooh i like e tomato flavoured ones too~!
hahahaha. i like this blog man!
hell yeah, dat was extremely disgusting abt the murky water. but it sounds fun just by reading it…!! good work kenny!
nice post, i enjoyed reading it =)
Hey Dude, great punch line. Awesome intro and ended with a bang.
Cool! Sounds like a lot of fun 🙂
Errr… But did you get any diarrhea after drinking the teh tarik (river water)? 😛
never knew i’ll be addicted to entries of a rounder man. its a compliment! haha!
i’ll be going to tioman this weekend, thanks for the update=)
its worth it after all that to be on air in TV!! glamour lah u.. =)
You’ve got a very sexy hairy chest Kenny!
yay! this is a great post. funny enough!=D
wah damn sad case man. kena toilet water, sumore soaked there for like 3hours. ahha.
good to see you on tv commercial, good luck kenny!
So glad to see how it is like behind the scenes. Tough work, but you did a great job Kenny. And the whole commercial is damn hilarious
hahahaha nice greedy faces!
now you have the new kennysia fragrance!
TOILET ODOUR~~~~~
OMG! WAHAHAHAHAHA
u noe d first thing dat poped into my mind when i saw d mruky river?
shit n piss
lol!
in came true in d end when u took dat pic of d pipe!
ahahaha! dat is super hilarious!
omg someone was bound to have peed in the shower or smth right ?
Hi Kenny, I laugh till I cried reading your post..so funny, especially the part when you said one of the guy look like Michael Jackson ! Anyway, good for you..might be a start to something big.
why do i have this feeling that u didnot heed my advice and ask for more money for this?
and i wld think u r the only blogger who gets asked to do a TVC bcoz u r a blogger. but there’re plenty of ppl who did TVCs b4 with blogs ard the net.
12 hrs is very efficient ald lor!! try doing for 20! GAWD
Farny la ur blog. . .
so disgusting la.but at least better than kl’s river..AAHAH
Good one there Kenny. FIrst time commenting despite reading yr blog for some time now. Next times u r in BKK, lemme know so that I’ll be there cheering 4u, OK? Take Care.
so disgusting
Oooh! kenny’s a tv star! haha.. btw did u drink some pee along the way? hahaa.
gosh..this is freaking hilarious ..lol..especially the last part..ugh..lol..Wah Kenny is getting famous.
congrats! 🙂
Haha, thanks for giving us an interesting account ‘behind the scenes’…Hope you didn’t develop diarrhoea or skin rash after the commercial shoot! 😉
dude….
cute chicks, toilet filled river water in your mouth and 3 seconds of fame…. hahaha… way to go man….
should have did the commercial back at kch at the matang river or something…. hahaha…. at least not much poop there…. hehe….
anyways, congrats on the 3 second fame and making bloggers proud….:) from kch somemore….
eww, sewage water…
I thought the faces in the river were photoshopped in!
what a waste of time and film. your face would probably be all blurry or out of focus, if anyone cares to look.
U are lucky kenny to have a lot pretty girl and cute girl around u. The girl on the park beach is very very cute
Yucks! brown river …
Anyway, i like the ads …. watch it in your previous entry… way to go dude!
dude, i wish i can put those chips in my mouth right now
welcome to the TV Commercial production…
well u we’re working for 12 hours…
wait til u try out 18 hours of shoot for a 30 sec commercial… lol…
this is what really happened behind the scene of all TVC u is in your TV everyday.
many hours of sweat & blood are shed to produce these babies… (exclude Pre-Production)
hope now, when u watch TV Commercials, you will appreciate more of than & not juz FF them or change TV Channels…
do hope to see u appearing more in TV… but i can see your great effort & you’re enjoying it even tho it’s shit water u’re deeping in it… lol…
yee. damn disgusting wei..
30 seconder shot in 12 hours? quite ok.
This remind me of LOST…In the series, Oceanic Airlines pays millions of dollars to the survivor to cover the whole plane crash and the other survivors on the island…..so i was wondering…How much did Mr.Potato pays you for dipping yourself into the brown muddy (no explanation needed from where the color came from and what makes it muddy) water.
I dipped myself in Sq Kedah before..my kampung…when i came out of the muddy water…. i had a perfect shaped turd in my shirt pocket…thought to be mud/sand…i took it out with my hand and squeeze it out…. i didn’t realize the thinggy until i hand wash the shirt…and pull out the remains…its like durian….u know…pulling 1 ulas from another….damn.
i can’t seem to be able to view some if not most of the pics posted in kennysia.
IS it just me or are there others?
maybe u can to ask them to do commercials in klang river after this.
…. the last part freaked me out. hahahaha. diu.
nice behind the scenes post.. mind you doing a review of ur car sound system?
I guess this is an eye-opening experience for you, Kenny. Your mouth really make you looked like a shark in the sea lah….
Never pollute river with junk food and human wastes with bodies attached.
Hot Dang! You just can’t buy publicity like this.
OMG u stinky boy….haha
I have the outdated CDA-9855, but its still really good stuff, these top of the range Alpines.
LOL…funny post Kenny but anyway, CONGRATULATIONS! =)
Your post just managed to brighten up my gloomy Monday! 😉
OMG , seriously i cant imagine you gulp that water *vomit*
ewwwww!
gulp gulpppp~
fat fish ~~~
hahahhaa~~
u are so cute wei
ooooohh.. lucky you didn’t get cholera or something. Interesting post btw. =)
That is a gross ending!!!
oh so gross. glad you had fun though.
kenny ate shit!! HAHA!
hey kenny..
i finally saw this Mr Potato Ad on 8TV today!
its even funnier seeing it on TV..LoL
havent seen a funny ad on malaysian tv for awhile and this one is really hilarious!
Saw the ads awhile ago. Kenny looks like a Japanese crap waiting for feeding >(*O*)
I had read ur entry about the advertisement in yesterday afternoon. To my surprise, i saw it live on tv last nite. Funny, though.
haha.
i saw the advertisement last nite on tv.
funny 1.
added the fact that you had to soak in the river for 3 whole hour. good job kenny.
Saw the ad on 8tv too. Wah! You did the “dolphine caught a fish” stunt.
I mean dolphin. 😀
not a good ad.. cld hv been better…
hi Kenny…
m new to your blog…in fact never even read any blogs until recently after d election with all d hoo haa on the bloggers…
ya…wonder where d hell & what world am i living in…
u have such amazing ability to co-relate most of yr blog to those hamsap stuff perfectly…
great work…keep it up…
kenny.. this is super! yea.. keep it up 😉
OMG LOL XDXD
eh the girl on the bench quite cute le..
oh disgusting… i mean the river..
I find it really disturbing. It is almost similar to the stories I read at the website – http://www.asiaghosts.com