As the country moves towards the tail end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) and into the next phase, the creative multimedia content industry is starting to gain traction. The government is aware of the importance of developing the industry to help elevate the nation to a high-income society.
But not many realise the development in the creative industry today has its roots in the Eighth Malaysia Plan (8MP), when an animation project called Saladin was approved in 2000.

“The Saladin project had its own budget and encompassed the building up of the creative multimedia industry,” says Kamil Othman, Multimedia Development Corp’s (MDeC) vice-president of creative multimedia strategy and policy.

“Our promise to the government was that we were going to map for it the skills available and the skill gaps and to see how a project like Saladin could be broken up into component parts of the digital content supply chain,” he adds.

At the time, says Kamil, Saladin was not approved as a production but as a vehicle to do three or four important entry points. He says the first entry point was that it had to be a subject matter that would sell to the world, something which had universal appeal.
Secondly, it was to introduce high value elements of concept and R&D into content production. “With Saladin, we had to do R&D to understand the era and conceptual design.”

Kamil says the Saladin project was also about trying to audit the quality and number of Malaysians involved in this industry.
“We could have done a census to find out how many animators there were but we really wouldn’t know until we had a government-backed project and see them show up. These were the three major reasons why Saladin was approved in 2000. It helped establish a baseline against which we hoped to compare in the later years,” he explains.

It has been a long journey. Some nine long years after it was approved and five years in the making, the US$8 million animated TV series made its debut at MIPCOM 2009. How­ever, it will only be ready for broadcasting next year. Saladin is the result of a co-production venture between MDeC and Qatar-based Al Jazeera Children’s Channel.

The production, along with other creations, will address the Islamic market, which consists of almost 1½ billion viewers.
However, Kamil says, the co-production venture with Al Jazeera came in only towards the end of the 8MP. “Co-production takes half the risk off the table and it also brings in outside expertise and technology transfer. If the audit at the time showed that Malaysians were still incapable of doing certain things, two things could happen — bring in expertise from outside or revamp the system here so that private institutions and universities could start producing talent. Or we could do both,” he says.

In the process of doing Saladin, MDeC had a pleasant surprise when it discovered a lot more talented companies and so started going around the world to create an international network.
“Part of our good relationship with the US, Thailand and Korea was the result of that marketing budget that was approved under the 8MP,” Kamil adds.

In addition, the Creative Application and Development Centre (CADC), which later evolved into Malaysian Multimedia Creative Content Centre (MAC3), was launched during the 8MP in 2002. It was the first full-fledged government infrastructure that allowed content creators to use the facilities.

9MP funding justified
According to Kamil, the feedback and fact-gathering following Saladin made it easier for the government to approve a RM150 million e-content fund in the 9MP.

The e-content fund was to facilitate the development and growth of Malaysian-made digital content and Malaysian content creation companies. The fund is managed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti).

Creative multimedia was identified as a growth sector in April 2006 with the launch of the MSC creative multimedia content initiative that has five focuses — IP creation, digital media zone, IP protection, market access and skills development.
According to Kamil, what was put into the 9MP for creative content will flow into the 10MP. “Malaysia can position itself as the preferred co-production partner for some of the Hollywood studios and also to have a distribution network within Hollywood by aligning to companies already with that connection.”

He adds that the country has reached a momentum in the creative content industry and should maximise it lest all past efforts be wasted. Kamil believes the 10MP should focus on establishing stronger networks, co-productions and building of infrastructure such as a digital cinema.
“Having a digital cinema will allow us to do mastering and coding and to make our content available in any format that is required and will help meet the government’s plan to go digital by 2011. This is another phase of the MSC — to expose content creators to do their products in the highest resolution possible so that they can go into the high-definition market.”

What the players want
While the government, in particular MDeC, is doing the necessary to help elevate the industry, the biggest issue still lies with manpower and funding. According to Marvel Entertainment’s president of animation Eric Rollman, although Malaysian creative content players have the necessary skills to carry out animation projects, they may not have sufficient manpower to undertake big projects.

“The animator companies here are still small. Although they are trying to grow, to do a television of our nature requires a lot of manpower,” he adds.
Similarly, the industry players share the same problems of capacity and funding.

“We have the technical skills to produce international quality productions, but we’re sorely lacking in manpower. We need to have a steady supply of graduates trained in animation and multimedia to support this growth. There are a number of institutions of higher learning that now offer animation courses, but the demand still far outstrips supply,” says Young Jump Animation Sdn Bhd’s project manager Steven Lim. Young Jump is one of the companies undertaking the animation work on Saladin.

“We also need to find a way of retaining the talent we have. Many animators who have built up a solid foundation of skills and experience eventually find that they hit a brick wall as far as career advancement goes. They then either leave the country in search of greener pastures or quit the industry altogether. There needs to be some sort of established career path for animators so that we can ensure that our best and brightest talents stay on, and are able to pass their skills down to others. This is important for sustainability,” adds Lim.

He believes the government should introduce some kind of programme into the education system, starting from primary school level, to develop creativity and encourage the arts (especially digital media).
“People need to see that the creative content industry is a viable one in which to build a career. It’s also very encouraging that a lot of institutes of higher learning now offer animation and multimedia courses, but we must continually vet these programmes to ensure they stay relevant and produce graduates who are industry-ready.

“At the same time, I certainly hope that the various funds already in place to assist start-ups, develop projects and so on, can be continued. The key here is not to encourage a subsidy mentality but to provide a boost to help companies compete internationally, on their own merits, quicker,” he says.

BigBeakPictures’ managing director Azlan Pa’wan agrees that a funding mechanism is of utmost importance and has to take into consideration the pre-seed stage, the seed stage, commercialisation and marketing.

“Funding should help develop small and medium but dynamic creative content entrepreneurs who are more eager to prove that Malaysians too can create content for the world,” he says.
Vision New Media Sdn Bhd’s CEO Low Huoi Seong says if companies do not raise their game, they would have no role to play in the international market, which is getting more competitive.

“For example, some countries would not work with you without a co-production treaty in place. This is where the government has to come in,” he adds.

Indeed, the problems plaguing the industry remain more or less the same, but at a different level. Things have already been set in motion and it’s just a matter of making sure they do not lose momentum and go down the drain. The 10MP has to ensure that its incentives and plans for this promising sector are spot on.

This article appeared in netv@lue2.0, the technology section of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 787 Dec 28 - Jan 10 2010