How Netflix series Midnight Asia’s producer peeled back the layers of nightlife around the region, even during the coronavirus pandemic
- Using local producers in each city, Joe Evans managed to finish the streaming series despite the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns
- With no large-scale events happening, Evans focused on personal tales and local perspectives, resulting in more intimate stories
Joe Evans managed to do something quite remarkable. He made a TV show about after-hours nightlife around Asia at a time when most Asian nightlife was shut down.
“One of the things that has always struck me when travelling and filming around this region is how vibrant the cities are at night,” says Evans, executive producer of Midnight Asia, which is debuting on Netflix.
“On the surface, there’s all the evening hustle of huge urban populations. But there’s also deeper social layers – the incredible street food, late-night eateries, hidden cocktail bars, underground events – so you see a mix of community, escapism, tradition, modernity, all playing out together nightly.”
The six-part docuseries not only explores the usual late-night clubs and dusk-to-dawn subculture you’d expect, but Evans and his team also go deeper than a typical travelogue, distilling the fascinating stories of urban outsiders who don’t fit the nine-to-five mould.
“We could have done a show just on the guy hanging out in his car driving across Tokyo at night, or the graffiti artists in Taipei, or the Bangkok theatre troupe [doing traditional performances in Marvel superhero costumes], but as we developed the concept, we realised we’d hit on something quite special.