Made in Malaysia

On a four-day visit to Paris last month, the Malaysian prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, made a side trip to Cannes to launch MSC Malaysia’s Creating Content for the World initiative at MIPCOM.

Led by the government-backed Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), MSC Malaysia is positioning the country as a content hub. The strategy is two-pronged, according to Kamil Othman, MDeC’s VP. One is to encourage companies around the world to employ Malaysian animation and special-effects companies on a work-for-hire basis, and the other is to provide Malaysian outfits with the tools they need to develop original IP that will travel around the globe. Both sides are crucial to the growth of Malaysia’s content industry, Othman notes.

“The people who are now producing original material have been exposed to world standards from the outsourcing jobs they have been doing in the last four or five years,” he says. “We can bid for all the major jobs around the world, or we can supply the world with content that is already [produced], particularly for the children’s category.”

MSC Malaysia’s highest-profile project so far has been Saladin, which was formally launched to the worldwide market at MIPCOM. Co-produced by MDeC and the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC), the show is a fictionalized tale about the youth of the Islamic hero Salah Ad-din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub (Saladin). Initiated more than two years ago in Malaysia as a CGI feature film, Saladin is now being developed into a series by JCC and MDeC for broadcast in 2010.

Partnerships like the one with JCC are vital for MDeC’s growth strategy, Othman says, and the organization has been working to help Malaysian outfits link up with channels and producers worldwide. MDeC also helps companies get projects off the ground with financial assistance. “We do fund projects, especially from first timers, who often happen to be more original than the people who have been doing it for years! New ideas are being funded under what we call the Intellectual Property Creation series. Winners of this competition are linked to the available government funding.”

Alongside the financial assistance comes an investment in skills, Othman continues. “When we invest in a production, we are investing in the training as well. This industry is more like a master-apprentice situation. You may graduate with first-class honors in 3-D modeling, but you need to get your hands dirty in actual production.”

Some of the productions that will be showcased at ATF include Animasia Studio’s ABC Monsters, Les’ Copaque Production’s 3-D feature-length film Geng: The Adventure Begins and Tripod Entertainment’s War of the Worlds: Goliath.

Othman recognizes that in Asia’s fast-growing media markets, there are plenty of other countries that are working to offer their animation and visual-effects skills to the world, including Singapore, India and China. “They have their strengths, but they also have their weaknesses, like everybody else,” Othman says. “The pie in this industry is large enough for everyone to have a nice little slice. MSC is all about opening up [our content industry] to the world. In the creative industry alone, in this particular sector, almost 35 to 40 percent [of production companies] are actually joint ventures between Malaysians and other parts of the world. I see it not as a dog-eat-dog situation. It’s highly competitive, but everything boils down at the end of the day to the quality and to the deliverables.”     n