Singapore and its 'Superbrands'
This is the suburban mall experience in Singapore. Walk into
Jurong Point or Junction 8, you are likely to face this. The gleam of shoes
from Charles and Keith, the whiff of coffee from Toast Box, the mist of
purified air from OSIM and the familiar and sometimes ‘too-familiar’ spread of
local food from either Food Junction, Banquet or Kopitiam. How about a local
film at the adjoining Cineplex to complete the entire experience?
The feather on the cap must be the fact that mm2, under the
name of mm2 Asia, got listed as a public company with the Singapore Exchange
(SGX) last year on 9 December 2014, being the first local film producer to do so. The
only other film producer that is already listed on SGX is Spackman, which is a
Korean film company. (Interestingly, Hong Kong”s Media Asia Entertainment Group
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Asia_Entertainment_Group)
was previously listed on SGX but was delisted in 2007). In a year when Ali Baba
put sexy back into getting a public listing, mm2’s listing signaled the start
of a new tempo in the business of filmmaking here, some may liken to an injection of
steroids.
A question begs, is the emergence of a ‘Superbrand’ in
filmmaking like mm2 akin to a coming-of-age of our little film industry in
Singapore?
Just not too long ago in the 2000s, our film industry went through a
teething phase of resurgence with sporadic film festival triumphs, sparks of
inspiration here and there and a basketful of short films. Production houses were springing up and some
people who worked regular office jobs harboured thoughts of heeding their
filmmaking calls and quitting stable careers like engineering or law to get
into the action. But alas, the industry then was still trying to find a stable
footing and there were hits and misses and in some years, fruitless attempts in
film financing.
A convergence of events has changed the game a little. ‘Ah
Boys to Men’ phenomenal success is making companies and entrepreneurs with deep
pockets open up to a new avenue of investments, which are movies. ‘Ilo Ilo’’s
acclaim has potentially opened the door for local filmmakers to foreign
financing. We wonder if regional or international stars have become more
receptive to appearing in a Singapore movie than before, if Hong Kong comedy
veteran Sandra Ng’s appearance in ‘A Fantastic Ghost Wedding’, by a relatively
unknown director Meng Ong, is something to go by.
Now with mm2 Asia’s newly-listed status, it is likely to be
a winner in the game of numbers. Being a publicly-listed company, there will be more opportunities from financiers, it will pull in the heavyweights in both cast and
crew, get the endorsements from the authorities like MDA and find collaboration
partners of bigger stature more easily. With such a recipe for commercial expansion, mm2
stands a tall neck up from the next biggest player. And it comes with some real perks for the
local industry here as well.
Last but not least,
someday Singapore will need to make that multi-million dollar epic and it needs
substantial financing muscle to realize that dream. A look across the industry,
no company comes close to mm2’s capital-raising engine. It is indeed
Singapore’s superbrand for filmmaking.
Like all other
‘Made-In-Singapore’ products, is growing a ‘Superbrand’ the way to go in terms
of helping the industry mature? Yes and no. There is no denying the ‘big
brother’ effects of a ‘Superbrand’ on the industry, in particular, being the
door-opener for the rest and taking all the greenfield risks. But at the same
time, smaller players may find it hard to make their voices heard under the
drone of the existing ‘big brother’.
It could be fair to
say that we want some kind of pluralism in our film community and industry, in
which there is a mixed basket of films speaking out to different wavelengths,
perspectives, humour and moods. For a long period of time, since Eric Khoo’s
spate of HDB-based ghetto-porn films like 12 Storeys and Mee Pok Man, there
seemed to be a long overhang of seemingly depressing independent films. It took
an brave eagle like Royston Tan to give HDB a musical spin like in 881. Jack
Neo’s brand of ‘heartland with a dash of toilet’ humour has also spawned
several works by other directors with the same borrowed formula and humour,
sometimes indistinguishable from the originator. Thankfully, the plethora of
support for filmmakers from different sources is currently varied enough to
ensure even films that will be potentially banned will be made.
As mm2 expands
further, how much will this pluralism be disturbed? Will Singaporeans be so
conditioned by safe commercial films that they lose the patience to appreciate
films in less familiar forms? Will filmmakers, lured by commercial gains and
the promise of commercial opportunities, decide to ‘dumb-down’ their films to
appeal to the lowest denominator among the film-watching crowd? In a small
market like Singapore, where natural monopolies form in certain industries (and
politics), this could be a very real issue. We all know too what having only
one company to run all of Singapore’s terrestrial television channels has done
to the quality of locally-made television programs.
At the end of the
day, it is a free market for all to play in and there is no reason to clip the
wings of frontrunners like mm2. Film
giants in China like Huayi Brothers, possibly a role model for mm2, have played
a part in pushing the envelope of Chinese movies and the industry. It too, was
China’s first ‘movie stock’ and being listed was a springboard to its phenomenal
rise as a regional movie powerhouse. A better question is what we could do to
ignite the growth of other players, filmmakers and talents. The possibilities are endless. But a good starting point could where we began this little debate - the suburban mall experience. To all movie exhibitors, give some airtime to lesser-known filmmakers or films that are a bit more out of the ordinary. Same goes for the obligatory 'Yong Tau Foo' stall in all the food courts, stop sourcing your items from the same wholesaler.
Tags:
mm2 Asia
mm2 Entertainment
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