As business matching, collaboration explorations, Phuket trotting
was underway during the ACE and VC Forum 2010 organised by the Software
Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization), Ministry of Information
and Communication Technology and the Federation of National Film
Associations of Thailand, Animation Xpress Asia Pacific's
Amrita Valecha and Chaitra Shetty caught up with the local
and international participants to get a dope on their views on the
overall experience and what they thought about the Thai Animation
industry. Here is what they had to say.
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I think that overall it was good, it
was interesting. I met some people who have good talent
and potential. I think that they have a majority of
their creative side in place but they are lacking some
business elements to it. It is just a different state
of mind. They need infrastructure to be able to take
the leap forward and I think some of the companies that
I have met with, have done some good things. But when
you are marketing to just one small territory, you are
facing a lot of limitations. You need to have this state
of mind of trying to reach globally and financially
it will give more interesting results, more internal
investment, it will allow them to be more creative.
I have made some solid contacts with two companies from
Thailand that I am looking forward to do some business
with them. They understand the deal, they know they
need help to move forward. It is not that we are better
than them, more than anything else it is experience.
That is why they brought us here. To expose the Thai
industry… Right? Now having said that, not every
company here will qualify to be at that level. If you
don't have a business structure that will supply your
funding and incentives, you are not going to go anywhere.
So you need to be on the business - creative side of
things, do a creative finance structure, do not only
be creative on the creative side but also the financial
people are extremely important to be able to create
for you a creative financial platform.
- Din Altit, VP of Production & Development at Mirage
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Firstly we can see it’s a new
event so the organization is trying to find its
management, but in general I feel it’s a really
good start for the Thai industry to start to bring
more professionals from the outside, improve conditions
of the local Thai production companies. I found
some really good talent, some really good design
and animation but what I didn’t find is strong
directors and really strong concepts. It seems like
their scripts are really weak and it seems like
they are not ready. So if they work more with international
executives on formal basis the quality will improve,
also they have to search for geniuses inside their
market. Because they have talent, they have ability
but without geniuses they will never have a voice
and they will always be a manufacturing center.
I don’t think content has to
be internationalized or Amercanized but has to be
of the international quality level. For example
‘Shaolin Soccer’ is a Chinese film but
is a great example of an international film. It
was not trying to be international, it was a really
great Chinese film, with a really great lead, a
nice story and a funny concept. That’s what
makes it international. I was trying to tell the
Thai companies to not imitate Hollywood films or
computer graphics films that they have seen, just
be themselves and be so good that the international
market will notice them.
Also I was a little nervous as they
had very heavy ideas like save the planet or this
is the history of Thailand or this is the first princess.
Those kinds of concepts in CG cannot become international..
There is also the danger of preaching your local culture
and people can smell the message being forced on them
and its no longer entertainment, it’s a history
lesson.
- Eric Calderon, President, Wild
Boar Media,
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Few years ago we got connected to Mr
June of SIPA and discovered that Malaysia and Thailand
have really close culture as we have been neighbors
for long time. And then there is the same passion
of growing this business to different horizons that
we share. We feel we have very good talent, we have
a good understanding of cultural elements, the only
thing is that we cant sell. Doing it alone is no longer
viable and hence we believe in co productions. We
have got 9 companies from Malaysia for this event
from the Animation, film and training sector. It has
a blend of old and new companies. We look forward
to working closely with other Asian countries as well
apart from Thailand and together build each others
creative industry.
When it comes to Thailand we click with
the government here, hence we signed a MOU with government
some time last month in Bangkok. We want to join these
two countries, and produce work that we can be proud
of not only for Asian market but also for the global
market.
Under Mdec’s Creative Multimedia
we promote co production initiatives and we have a
co production fund with RM 75 Million allocated since
the last year’s launch and it has to be disbursed
by the end of this year to fund 15 high value projects.
High value not only in terms of export, but also creating
jobs and knowledge exchange.
We already have three projects with
Thai and Malaysian companies working together for
which the MOU and MOA has been signed and production
has started. We have a lot to learn from each other
as both the countries follow different approaches.
We are very thankful to the Thai government for initiating
such kind of an event the only thing is that it should
be focused and more structured.
We are also looking forward to Thai
companies visiting Malaysia. There is also the plan
for the minister of Thailand to visit Prime Minister
of Malaysia to further strengthen our working relations.
- Yang Mee Eng , Multimedia Development
Corporation
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It was ice breaking session between
all local and foreign visitors, so that everybody
knows each other before the official matching session
take place, longer business matching period, like
45mins and stretch the whole day from 10am-8pm would
be a better idea. I would suggest SIPA to have a post
modem after 6 months of the events, where invitations
to all invited guests to be at BKK (if possible) to
present what has been achieved and able to be measured
upon. If not, due to geographical reason and each
others' schedules, then Animationxpress.com will be
the official media to update the government agencies,
participants and all other parties involved over the
tangible and measurable progress made, then SIPA will
know as to how "successful" this event can
be further extended for next year. The 2nd DMA session
in 2011, SIPA should consider to re-invite selected
foreigners as "re-visited guests" as their
sharing and comments will further accelerate the local
Thai's industry players that the invited guests are
keen and sincerely interested to co-growth with them
in a long run manner, not just a "hit and run"
session per say.
- Ho Lee Chong, Fatcheez
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First couple of days of the event
for me went in figuring out who is here, what they
have done. Once I got to know all that, I saw a
lot of potential in what is being developed here,
there is a bridge between the worldwide content
and Thai content. Perhaps if the government gets
more involved with incentives for the production
companies like they could hire western consultants,
some kind of management to break out in to a worldwide
market place. I think this event was probably the
first step in many steps that are needed to be taken
and the first step is always the hardest and one
you get that out of the way you make much faster
strides and I am looking forward to seeing them
move forward quickly.
- Kevin Summerfield, Producer/Director,
Scorpio Studios
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This event was conducted by the Federation
of National Film Associations of Thailand and TACGA
as one of the members at the committee has worked
together to invite all the delegates and participants.
We are honored to have these people in Thailand; especially
we tried to differentiate this business matching and
VC forum to our ACGA and TC&A Expo. Here we tried
to get consultants and VCs and co-pro partners. We
have got guest from Australia, America and not restricted
to only Asia. This is the second time we are organizing
business matching in Phuket. Most of the Thai companies
feel that this year there is more potential than last
year.
- Lak Taechawanchai, Director, TACGA
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Overall experience wise this forum
has been an eye opener to better understand how
the Thai market is operating. Companies are growing
and couple of them are very old players who have
been in the industry for more than a decade. But
there are a lot many new players and there is lot
of scope for improvement in this market and as far
as this conference has been arranged and as far
as the hospitality is concerned, the Thai hospitality
has no match and it's been superb.
On the organizing front, they could
have planned more and they could have shared a lot
of information about the participants. It could
have been easier for matchmaking, rather than we
coming down here and trying to understand the first
15 minutes goes in explaining who we are.
I have been associated with the Thai
industry since 2000, because I used to do a lot
of post - production here. So am completely aware
that this industry has a lot of creativity in it,
but they are still in their growing stage, like
what India was probably 10 - 12 years back, that's
the same stage these people are in right now.
- Anand Kannan, SixInch Space,
Singapore
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Matching sessions have been really
fantastic for me. I have been able to have extremely
good creative discussions with a number of different
production companies, both in live entertainment and
animation. It is really interesting to discover the
different cultural differences going on, the backgrounds,
the audiences, the way television networks work over
here in Thailand and in Asia. It is good to learn
how the variations on how pre - sales work, how sales
work, how the development process works. There are
some really exciting opportunities to be had.
It is really exciting to discuss the
opportunities between an Australian producer who has
expectations from his market and a Thai producer who
has expectations from a Thai audience point of view
in the way of developing projects that can marry those
two expectations and actually come up with something
that is unique and special and exotic and that's what
the audience wants in the end. They want something
new and fresh. So it has been a very positive and
a very rewarding experience for me.
- John Hipwell, Hipwell International,
Australia
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I was pleasantly surprised by the quality
of animation. I did not expect to see any animation
that was either ready or has already been international
but certainly 3 or 4 studios had work which was just
spectacular and in fact all of the studios that we
met with are all well on their way to becoming important
animation houses and we were very pleasantly surprised
by that.
It is a great event and I believe that
Thailand is one of the last countries in South - East
Asia to really get involved into animation in a big
way and bringing the government in and that's not
such a bad thing, because everybody else has kind
of made their mark or is making their mark. So now
Thailand is starting to make its mark. I think they
are doing a fine job.
- Bill Dennis, International Animation
Consulting Group, USA
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The international guests here are
interested in either co - productions or interested
in working with Thai companies in some way. We have
had a couple of people who are interested in the
investment and a couple of people that are potential
clients of Thai studios. I myself am not Thai, but
I work with Thai studios, am a freelance director
here, working with Anya Animation and I love Thailand.
I want to see that studio succeed and I want to
bring big projects here. It looks like there are
some quite promising potential projects that we
want to pursue, and so now that means, we have to
do a lot of following up. There is a lot of proposed
budgeting to be done, these sort of things need
to be done before a job is contracted and awarded.
So it will take a lot of phone calls, lot of skype
calls, a lot of emails to get that up and running.
But this has been a great way to get that started.
- David J Smith, Anya Animation,
Thailand
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This is a very successful event and
we met a lot of experienced and interesting people
from Asia, USA and Australia. We had a similar event
here last year but most of the participants were Korea
and Japan. A lot of people are interested in our industry
and looking on how to venture into the market. It
was a 4 days event and the business matching was for
2 days. I hope there could be more business matching
because there is so many participants and we would
like to interact with all of them.
- Umparin Boonsinsuk, Marketing Director,
Byte in a cup, Thailand
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As a member of the industry I really
appreciate the interest that this sector has garnered
which some years back was not even considered an industry
or a profession. Events like these give an opportunity
to meet people face to face and it is very important
to share ideologies for the companies working together
and event like these give an opportunity to know that.
- Moon K Chan, MD, MFX, Malaysia
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The business matching was very useful.
It is like other co production markets that I have
attended. You get to meet a lot of people in a short
amount of time. We got a sense of the animation business
in Thailand which was generally a very good quality.
I am looking to make a lot more relationships for
future projects who want to consider bank financing.
Over all it was a very good event. A lot of the business
in Thailand, revolve around the government here and
having a government representative to talk with all
of us more would be a very good thing.
- Adrian Ward, Sr VP Entertainment,
Sports and Media Development, National Bank Of California
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The quality of the animation here
has been absolutely staggering. If the Thai companies
are left with the creative control of the script and
product, then the Thai environment will remain very
Thai – centric, which is why we try to do co
– production with companies in the west who have
a very good understanding of what they know and can
globalize. The second stage would be for Thai companies
themselves to have full creative control, and have
the minor part given to the western companies. For
example China is able to do a full Chinese language
product and sell it to the west. I do think that Thailand
has a bring future in this industry if dealt with
the right people.
- Sidney Yankson, Director, Gladstone Morgan
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Based on my personal opinion, we liked
how well organized the ACE event was, and we got to
meet many interesting people with different perspectives.
Our expectations for this event was low at the beginning
due to past experiences. However the business matching
sessions has provided us an opportunity to talk with
different organizations in related fields and gain
first hand insights to interesting trends and more
indepth information on those areas which would be
useful for our studio. it is unfortunate that our
studio is not a direct match. In hindsight we feel
that some of our other developer studios who could
not attend may be missing out. Regarding our comments
about support for the digital content industry from
the government we would like to thank them for their
focus on this industry. There many short term plans
that were implemented which are good and we need that
these activities which are a part of a long and coherent
plan for the future of digital content in Thailand.
- Pisal Setthawong, Technical Director,
Flying Pig Game Studio
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