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Published on March 24, 2008

"Our ambition is to be the number one in the post-production industry, not only in Thailand, but Southeast Asia," she said. "So we recruited the best talents in the field of post-production and have used only the best equipment."

She said that among the best hands in her company are Richard Downing and Ben Conkey, who she noted are the region's top digital artist and colourist respectively, from Australia. Another is Kumpee Waiyavutti, regarded as the top colourist in Thailand.

Suchada, 47, said The Post Bangkok offers the best post-production equipment and employs the most skilled people. Her company has a 60-per-cent market share in local post-production work for TV commercials, she said. It started providing post-production services for feature films a year ago.

Suchada set up The Post Bangkok in 1997 with the ambition to turn Thailand into a regional post-production hub, beating Singapore and Hong Kong. At that time there were just a few local competitors, including Oriental Post of Kantana, The Fame, SoHo and Illoura.

The Post Bangkok has 105 employees who are from many countries - Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia. This compares with only 11 staff at the beginning. The company has about 10 key staff as colourists and digital artists.

"For me, both customers and staff are gods and the most important assets in the company. We've treated our staff the same we treat our customers. We've treated our Thai staff the same way we've treated our foreign staff," she added.

Suchada said the company gives the most significance to the development of its people and the continual upgrading of its post-production equipment. Nearly Bt1 billion has been invested in its office and state-of-the-art equipment.

The company was the first local post-production agency to receive full support from the Board of Investment.

Enrolled in the Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Suchada achieved her wish to be a radio DJ when she was 18 and in her first year at university.

After her graduation in 1985, Suchada diversified her career into the making of music videos. She and her partner Narin Visitsak set up her company Fast Time for the production of music videos.

"I'm among the pioneers who created music videos in Thailand," she said. "I made music videos for many well-known singers and bands at that time, such as Grand X, 'Jae' Danupol Kaewkan, Ploy, and Puen."

Suchada was involved in the music-video business for about two years, during which time she created as many as 300 videos. Later she was approached by advertising agency Lintas to produce a TV commercial.

The first TV commercial made by Suchada was for Caltex in 1987. After that, many other jobs flew in. She created between two and four TV commercials a month.

"I earned Bt180,000 from my first commercial work," she said. "However the second commercial developed for Kubota gave me about Bt450,000. At that time, I was executive producer with only 10 members on my team. I was also interested in the post-production business. There were very few post-production agencies in Thailand at that time, and local movie producers needed to travel abroad for post-production work in Hong Kong and Singapore."

After achieving her goal of making The Post Bangkok a leading regional post-production house, Suchada now plans early retirement in order to spend time on her much-loved pastimes of painting and physical fitness.

After she leaves, Suchada says she has nothing to worry about with the company, since it stands on a firm foundation.

"Currently I assume the role of supervisor. I spend only two hours a day in the office to meet with the staff," she said.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation