Philippines

Adrian Tecson,

Director for Post-Production,

Underground Logic

In my opinion, one of the most significant developments in the industry last year didn't come from the advancement of technology, but rather from new and emerging markets in the region. Our neighbouring countries, who were silent before in terms of production, post-production and even advertising, have switched their progress into high gear.

This has made the market more competitive, but at the same time more powerful, such that the Asian region is becoming both a serious market and supplier in the advertising and film industry. Like the recent change of balance in the global economy, I am optimistic that this trend will continue and bring more progress in our direction.

Locally, our biggest challenge is the loss of talent. With the local pool of talents diminishing and migrating to neighbouring countries in search of greener pastures, the Philippines is on a race against itself to be able to provide local talent with enough reason and drive to stay in the motherland.

Working in the Asia-Pacific region has pushed us to be more flexible as an industry. As most of us are still an emerging market, we are more open to experimentation. Also, in the past years, the expat community has steadily grown, giving the region a diversity of ideas from around the globe. This diversity is one of the fuels that allows us to be flexible. As a disadvantage, the Asia-Pacific region has always struggled with lower budgets.

I see more collaboration between countries. The speed of data transmission has risen ten-fold and this has given way to the possibility of doing work between neighbouring countries to harness the best talent. I hope this continues and flourishes to neighbouring continents as well.

Indonesia

Maria Tjhin,

General Manager,

Castle Production

In 2008, the Indonesian government started to pay serious attention to the creative/animation industry. In fact, the Ministry of Trade of Republic of Indonesia launched the Month of Creative Industry in August 2008, whereby all the creative industries held many exhibitions throughout the country.

Also in December 2008, the president of Indonesia proclaimed the year 2009 as the 'Year of Indonesia Creative'.

That said, there will be lots of exhibition agenda and activities taking place this year. Castle Production has also participated in this movement. We are producing a groundbreaking 104 episodes of children's animation series for the local market called Kabayan & Lip Lap - the first local made animation series with international standard.

The year 2009 will not be an easy year - as we all know that the economic crisis has reached Asia Pacific. For us, we will take the year as an 'opportunity year' for us to get stronger in the local market. With the world wide crisis, the buying power for local client will be less for imported content - so we must grab this opportunity to serve local needs.

The advantage of operating in the Asia Pacific region is the chance to learn the market trends from our neighbouring countries.

Also, the countries in this region share similar culture and background, which makes it easier of us to sell our products. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of operating in Asia are minimal, just that the world wide crisis has indeed affected all the nations, so buying power is not as good as it previously was.

Since the crisis has reached Asia, we must be ready for other alternative markets. For us, this would mean developing the local market so as to survive. Fortunately, the Indonesian government is very supportive towards the industry and is willing to help the local market grow.

Hong Kong

Sasha Waseem

Managing Director

Sang Media (HK) Int'l

One of the most significant developments in the industry last year was the launch of new technologies. People were more aware of online businesses, with the increase in interest to get hold of the latest news provided by hi-end communication. The software industry has also grown rapidly in the last few years –

generating the need to provide the best and 'non-delayed' services in all fields like e-commerce and digital media.

We face many challenges in this industry. Asia is a business hub and online entertainment is the next big thing, so the biggest changes and challenges are to those in the internet and broadcast TV industry. Due to competition, it is difficult to survive between legal and illegal issues like copyright/fraud/violation. We have to be the best in our field in order to provide the best of service with minimum risks.

The entertainment and media industry is gaining a lot of importance across the globe. Since a lot of our competitors are planning to setup in this region, we must provide the best service. All sectors of industries are facing financial loss due to the huge world market crash which will takes years to recover.

We see that print media is almost on the border of finishing and the market is captured by hi-end and hi-technology enhanced communication so I think the media and entertainment industry will grow in a big way. Industries like telecom/mobile software/ online gaming will be of future interest.

Singapore

Allen Seet

Founder

Digipost (S) Pte Ltd

• What do you think was the most significant development in the industry last year?

The emergence of 3D productions for film and TV, with successful trials that will accelerate the development of producing and viewing stereoscopic broadcast, bringing the future of 3D even closer.

• What are some of the challenges that you face in your sector of the industry?

In emerging markets such as Vietnam and Cambodia, local conditions and mindset have to be carefully handled with patience and understanding. Maintaining high creative standards and efficient workflows are a constant challenge particularly with local clients. This will clearly improve over time with the market development and with more exposure to higher standards being set in the industry for film and television.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of operating in the Asia Pacific industry?

While the region offers good growth potential, there is a pressure on keeping very competitive rates and keeping costs in check. Overall, budgets are low and expectations high. There is a shortage of talent and nurturing and keeping good talent is a difficult task.

• What are some of the developments in the industry we can look forward to in the next five-years?

Higher adoption rate of digital media over analogue.

Singapore

Scott Craig

Managing Director

FilmLight Singapore

• Significant developments

The most significant was the release in 2008 of commodity hardware with performance that exceeds the capabilities of proprietary hardware used to provide real time interactivity and performance.

PC graphics cards that became available in 2008 deliver processing power for several layers of grading, defocus, scaling and rotation. Products that utilise proprietary hardware for some or all of these functions are expensive and require support from a single source. Software based solutions running on commodity hardware provide enhanced functionality at lower cost.

There is a similar trend with storage. Baselight systems available today include commonly available SATA disk drives, can provide multiple streams of 4k images, allow a colorist to, for example, dissolve between two separately graded 4k images and record back to disk all in real time, without post rendering.

• Challenges

Color grading is a crowded market, and some of our competitors have already been affected by the turmoil in the financial markets. With more than one competitor fighting for survival, we have been asked to match some pretty desperate offers. Then again, a great deal doesn't look so good if you stand to lose your deposit, so we have won a few deals for the same reasons.

Film scanning has been similarly affected with at least one competitor withdrawing from the market, and high senior staff turnover at another. Our Northlight scanners continue to dominate the market for high quality scanning, and the feature film business has proven resilient to past economic downturns, so we expect our market share to remain steady or even increase slightly over the next couple of years.

Currency fluctuations have proved even more of a challenge than usual in 2008. The decline in the British Pound against most of the Asian currencies has made FilmLight products more affordable, but it is only a matter of time before we will need to raise our prices to cover the increased expense of operating a global business.

Asian customers sometimes view manufacturers as primarily interested in selling boxes so the relationship can seem adversarial. The post-production industry is too small for such short term thinking by either party. Given the relatively small numbers of both customers and manufacturers, we should be working together as partners with a long term interest in each other's success. Customers get stable, continuously improving products with professional support upon which to grow their businesses; with this growth comes increased demand for more and better products - a win-win situation.

• Asia-Pacific industry

Both the advantages and disadvantages have to do with the wide variety of post facilities across Asia. For example, in some markets miniDV to film is acceptable, but in nearby countries, only 4k will do.

This wide spectrum of requirements helps FilmLight where only the best is acceptable, but sometimes we are considered too 'high end' by smaller Asian clients who may be reluctant to discuss more modest requirements.

In many countries, the lack of local industry associations means business owners are too reliant on manufacturer's advertising and 'independent consultants'.

Maintaining professional support throughout Asia has always been more difficult here. Moving spare parts and equipment across the many Asia-Pacific borders is more challenging than in Europe or the US. FilmLight has recently tripled our support staff in the region, and we have been fortunate enough to recruit senior personnel from our competitors.

We do strive to enhance our support offerings with feature upgrades and training assistance, and have been fortunate to be able to spread the costs of support over our rapidly growing installed base around the Asia Pacific region.

The growth of post production markets across Asia is probably the greatest incentive for FilmLight to operate here. Some of the post industry players in Asia are building facilities that are the best in the world, so there is a definite advantage in building up our presence in Asia.

Major industry players in the region have recently completed acquisitions of post facilities in Europe and the US. Decisions that were once made in Los Angeles or London are now taken in Asia. This trend looks likely to continue, so it is certainly to our advantage to build up our Asia Pacific operations.

• Developments in the industry

I think the migration to software solutions based on commodity hardware will continue to displace solutions that rely on proprietary hardware. Performance increases will continue, as will the flexibility required to deal efficiently with any of the newly available workflows.

We will see continued growth in the availability of digital origination - the HD capabilities of the latest generation of DSR cameras being an early indicator of much more exciting developments that lie ahead.

I think we will continue to see the 'center of gravity' of the global post industry shifting east. Certainly there will be more acquisitions by Asian based companies.

I also expect more global trends originating from within the Asia Pacific region for global consumption.

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