How The White Lotus Season 3 makes Thailand a main character, explored

Location plays a very important role in every season of The White Lotus. Creator Mike White takes the audience to different branches of the luxury resort in each season, and naturally, the physical setting plays a vital role in the story.

While the previous two seasons were set in Italy and Hawaii, The White Lotus Season 3 took the viewers to Thailand, and the location ended up being one of the key characters of the show.

Talking about how Thailand was to be treated in The White Lotus Season 3, editor John M. Valerio said,

“We made a conscious effort to have it feel very different and honor what Thailand is and how that location speaks to the story and the characters.”

The authenticity of the location was maintained throughout the season, and the greenery and forests with their bugs, birds, and other animals added to the tension that The White Lotus Season 3 gradually built up with each episode.

Thailand plays an active role in The White Lotus Season 3

Given the number of outdoor shots that The White Lotus Season 3 had, which were taking place outside the record, the surrounding sounds became an important storytelling device. Christian Minkler, the recording mixer of the show, noted that in comparison to the previous two seasons, sound played a more important role this season and helped to shape the story.

He further added

“The bugs, jungle sounds, were continuous. We were able to use the bugs and noises as a design element, but also for [transitional vehicles]. That happens throughout almost every episode. That was incredibly useful for artistic and just for practical mixing for the whole season.”

Moreover, as Thailand was extremely hot when the shooting was going on, a lot of scenes had to be shot with the air conditioner running in the background. That added to the background sounds, and as Minkler said,

“The challenge was [creating] natural ambiences, and then on set, the generators and air conditioning.”

Since the setup was in Thailand, besides using its natural resources to help in the storytelling, Mike White also incorporated elements of Thai Boxing in the narrative. There was some second unit footage of a Muay Thai fight, as according to John M. Valerio, that became a crucial element in almost all the scenes that depicted confrontation between various characters, like Rick confronting Jim or Greg offering a proposition to Bellinda.

Explaining the usage of the Muay Thai fight, Valerio said, “Usually with the show, we use the environment as transitional sort of exclamation points to scenes that are evocative of the tone of what we’re seeing” and therefore those Muay Thai footage was intercut so that it can “punctuate and accent every little confrontation that we’re seeing.”

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Therefore, editing and sound design played a crucial role in making Thailand a key character in The White Lotus Season 3, as the behaviors of the characters were always punctuated with something that was authentically local and made the story grounded in the place it was being shot.

The White Lotus can be streamed on Max.

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