An instant hit on social networks, Roo Su! Flood (Know & Beat the Flood) was the first clear explanation of Thailand’s floods to gain a mass audience, making its point with scores of big blue whales dropping on Thailand—and Bangkok. Soon, government media was broadcasting the clips, too, and the series grew to six episodes (as of now). Here, we speak to the clips makers, Kriangkrai “Ping” Wachirathamporn, and Tawatchai “Au” Sangthammachai, both 26.
An instant hit on social networks, Roo Su! Flood (Know & Beat the Flood) was the first clear explanation of Thailand’s floods to gain a mass audience, making its point with scores of big blue whales dropping on Thailand—and Bangkok. Soon, government media was broadcasting the clips, too, and the series grew to six episodes (as of now). Here, we speak to the clips makers, Kriangkrai “Ping” Wachirathamporn, and Tawatchai “Au” Sangthammachai, both 26.
BK: So who are you guys?
Ping: I am a film director—I directed Puen Mai Gao—and a freelancer in all kind of video production works. Au: I have long been in the fields of non-governmental organizations but I recently opened an advertising agency doing commercial for social campaign.
BK: Why did you create the clip?
Ping: We went out to volunteer like making sandbags or packing stuff but I wondered, “Can’t we do something more than this?” We studied communication arts, we have potential help people who are drowning in a flood of information. Au: I helped the TPBS TV channel with the citizen news center for the floods. They said they had problems about the flood of information. They wanted to take this information and digest it for people to understand all the info easily but they had no time to do it. After I told Ping and my friends, we were really eager to volunteer our time to do this so we start working on our first episode on Oct 21, and released it on Oct 25.
BK: What was the biggest challenge?
Ping: Time. We have to work against time so we gathered more volunteers (about 20 by now) who can do animation to help us make more episodes. We planned to cover five points: make people understand flood situation, explain how to take care yourself, how to live with water, how to give to others and what is the effect from the floods. The clip actually came out quite late but we did our best. We stopped working when the water reached our headquarters in Ladprao. Au: Other important thing is to present the correct information with no bias. We only present facts to make people understand the whole situation in 5 minutes. People don’t have the patience to watch something longer than that.
BK: Why chose a whale as the symbol of water?
Au: It’s really hard to get people to see a clear picture of how much water is flooding us right now. Experts keep saying that it is 10,000 cubic meters, which is tremendous, but people don’t know how big that is. We saw this clip about the nuclear disaster in Japan where they used little turds. But we need something very big, like the Titanic or mammoths, but whales are the cutest—and it’s the biggest animal in the world. Ping: I thought of my mom, she doesn’t know what 10,000 cubic meters water. But the whale made her see it clearly. We didn’t expect that the whale would be so famous. At first, we just thought it’s a character to support the main character.
BK: You say, “Don’t follow social media too closely or you’ll get information overload.” But your clip spread thanks to social media.
Ping: We don’t want to bar its use. We’re just saying, please use it carefully. Don’t share something baseless, for example. Social networks are great but you have to use them properly. Au: Social media is like a knife. If you cut yourself, it hurts. If you use it the right way, you will get the right information.
