News and Notes: 28 November 2007

What’s brewing at the Asia Media Festival? Here’s a roundup of Tuesday’s events.

The Media Financing Forum, now into its fourth year, put yet another impressive slate of experienced film industry insiders to the fore on Tuesday.

Esteemed guests, collectively bullish about the prospects of film industries and markets in Asia, spoke to about 200 participants, including producers, directors, and writers in the international film and TV industry.

Among the current market trends discussed, Mr Ashok Amritraj (Chairman and CEO, Hyde Park Entertainment) said that some financiers today were looking to invest in slates of films, rather than a single film.

Seasoned producer Edward R. Pressman, whose film credits include Badlands and Wall Street, focused on the emerging importance of markets outside of America for Hollywood films, and cited a study stating that the Asian film industry is expected to overtake the US industry by 2025.

Other panel discussions that day centered on the challenges of the regional industry in terms of content development, production, distribution and financing, and how film content is viewed by financiers.

Dr Christopher Chia, CEO, Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), who kicked off the proceedings that day, noted that film financing in Asia was growing more sophisticated. He cited the example of John Woo’s upcoming US$70 million blockbuster, Red Cliff, which is co-financed by Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese investors.

He also added that Singapore was recently ranked in a study as the least risky Asian country in which to make a film investment, and that its strong track record as a financial hub enables it to be a key deal-making hub for such financial collaborations.

The Media Financing Forum, held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, is part of the Asia Media Festival 2007. For more information about the forum, go to www.asiatvforum.com/media.asp

Asia Factual Forum – Day 2

Having gone through the finer points of pitching and co-production, the final afternoon of the inaugural Asia Factual Forum looked at distribution.

Ms Rita Carbone Fleury (Content Consultant, Carbone Fleury Media) and Mr Ganesh Rajaram (Vice President, Asia, Fremantle International Distribution) shared with participants some of the thinking that informs their decisions as distributors.

Contrary to popular opinion, they revealed that distributors need producers as much as producers need them - so “you can ask things of your distributor”, and gave advice on how to select a distributor.

In Close Up with Ruby Yang, Mr Craig Thompson (President & Executive Producer, Ballinran Productions) interviewed the Oscar-winning director on her personal journey from art studies to documentary filmmaking.

Ms Yang showed clips of three of her films, including the Oscar-winning The Blood of Yingzhou District, and answered questions about how to deal with bureaucratic red tape (If it’s a small movie, the filmmaker might want to “just go in with your DV camera”). While there is no formula for success, Ms Yang’s top tip was to look for issues, stories and characters.

Mr Tony Chow (President, Association of Independent Television Production Companies Singapore) closed the afternoon with one final tip of his own: 3R equals 2R – the Right Partner, the Right Story and the Right Business Model give you Relationships and Revenues.

Singapore and Philippines Sign MOU on Media Cooperation

Singapore and the Philippines on Tuesday entered into a media cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to spur greater collaborations between the two countries in the fields of media policy and information exchange, training and human resource development, co-production and mutual exchanges.

The agreement was signed by Dr Tan Chin Nam, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts and Chairman, MDA, and Mr Ignacio R. Bunye, Press Secretary, Philippines Office of the Press Secretary. The signing took place on the sidelines of the Asia Media Festival 2007.

The media cooperation MOU comes at a time when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries are forging closer economic, political and community ties.

A number of companies from both countries have indicated interest to collaborate in the areas of TV, film, games and animation. Recently, Singapore’s game studio Boomzap and Manila-based studio Flipside Games successfully launched a PC-based casual game Hoyle's Enchanted Puzzles.

Asian Festival of 1st Films Kicks Off

Tuesday night also saw media professionals gather for the opening screening of the Asian Festival of 1st Films – a Mongolian language film called Khadak, written and directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth.

Throughout the next week, movies made by first-time film talents such as directors, producers and screenwriters in Asia will be aired in cinemas, culminating in an awards night on 4 December.

In his welcome remarks at the event held at GV Max in Vivo City mall, Dr Tan Chin Nam, Chairman, MDA, talked about how the media industry was currently undergoing profound change and how Asia was leading the growth in the global media and entertainment market.

“For Singapore, our strategic location, excellent infrastructure and trusted intellectual property rights laws put us in good stead to become a trusted global media capital for collaborations between international companies and Asian production houses, producing content inspired by Asian themes and ideas for a global audience. We call this ‘New Asia Media’,” he said.

For more information about the Asian Festival of 1st Films, go to www.asianfirstfilms.com

For more information about the Asia Media Festival, go to www.asiamediafestival.com

To read archives, please click here.