DON'T mistake it for Dr No, Goldfinger or Blofeld. The Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios is no villain.
Its CEO Michael Lake met up with StarBizWeek to address concerns by some local filmmakers that the state-of-the-art production facility would lead to a talent drain from Kuala Lumpur to Johor and would also force wages up.
The interview took place in a small but cosy air-conditioned room at the National Film Development Corp (Finas) headquarters in Hulu Klang. In the 60s and 70s, this was the site of the pioneering Merdeka Studios that churned out many P. Ramlee films.
The RM400mil Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios, to be completed in May on 20ha, will set a new benchmark for Malaysia and for South-East Asia. The complex, a collaboration between Khazanah Nasional Bhd and Pinewood Shepperton (the British studio known as the home for the James Bond franchise), will be the region's largest independent integrated studio facility.
Pinewood Iskandar is expected to employ more than 1,000 people even in the starting phase, mostly freelancers (the company itself will only maintain a staff of 50 to 60).
Last week, Malaysian Association of Advertising Filmmakers president Khoo Kay Lye expressed concern of a potential talent drain from the TV commercial production industry in the Klang Valley to Johor.
Lake, in Selangor on Tuesday to attend the launch of Finas' Film in Malaysia Incentive, explains Pinewood Iskandar's side of the story.
He stresses that Pinewood Iskandar will not just be taking people from the existing pool. It and the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) will be proactively training new talent via the Iskandar Malaysia Creative Industry Talent Development Programme.
The programme, to start next month, is designed as an intensive eight to 12-week course. Areas of training include wardrobe, hair, make-up, production accounting, set construction, grip department, and electric department.
"We want to train 1,500 people by the end of this year, and that is around the number of people that we need," he says, adding that the figure will grow exponentially as more and more productions come here.
The first intake, comprising 200 people, will attend seven courses. There will be 24 courses throughout the year.
"We're working closely with JPK NOSS (the Department of Skills Development's National Occupational Skills Standard division) so we're taking people who already have the basic skills − who have learned to be carpenters or electricians, or have a diploma/degree in hair-dressing, make-up or accounting − and we are teaching them so that we can cross-skill them into the (film) industry," he says.
The programme is also open to existing people in the industry who want to upskill.
"Our training programmes will benefit everyone because we're taking people from KL to train as well. We're not saying to people that they have to stay in Johor just because they train there," he adds.
It is also training the trainers from NOSS so the programme can continue after the experts brought from Australia go back.
He says master classes will also be run in Kuala Lumpur for the current producers, directors and writers in the second half of the year.
"We (Pinewood Iskandar) will be looking to train, so we will have a pool of talent from day one," he says.
"Yes, there will be some people who come out of KL to Johor, and many of those will be Johoreans who went to KL anywhere because there was no opportunity previously in Johor. We will attract also some expats from other countries. So we are very conscious of that fact (the need to train proactively). We don't want to be seen as the facility that's draining production out of KL."
The Aussie experience
Lake expects about 80% of the productions will come from abroad in the beginning.
"In the first couple of years while we're training, some of these foreign producers will bring a lot of people in, because directors have their key staff like cinematographers," he says.
Lake, an Australian, ran a film production company in Los Angeles before joining Pinewood Iskandar in December 2010.
He helped open a studio in Queensland, Australia, in the 1990s and he thinks what later happened there would also happen in Malaysia.
"The studio, owned by Village Roadshow and Warner Bros, was also a greenfield establishment. We saw people floating backwards and forwards (geographically), and also they would float between working on international production and working on local production," he says.
"And the crews would have two rates. They knew that local productions had lower budgets so they knew the rates that they would get. They knew there was more money in the international production and they could demand a little higher.
"People there also initially said it would ruin the industry, that there would be a drain of the locals working on international production and the wages would be forced up. It didn't happen. Then they opened the Fox studios in Sydney and more studios in Northern Australia, and everyone just grew with it."
Earlier in the day, the Government launched the Film in Malaysia Incentive (FIMI), a 30% cash rebate on minimum production expenditure of RM2.5mil for domestic film production and RM5mil for foreign production. For TV series, the minimum expenditures are RM193,000 per hour for domestic and RM385,000 per hour for for foreign.
Besides to attract foreign film producers, FIMI is aimed at encouraging Malaysian film producers to produce high quality creative content for both domestic and international markets.
"The Government has been very supportive in pushing us," Lake says. "The incentive is very important not only to grow the industry in Malaysia but for our success. We benchmarked different countries around the world as to what they offer."
The entry level for the rebates appears out of reach for most local production firms. The average production cost for a Malaysian feature film last year was RM1.65mil, according to the Finas website. The average 30-second TV commercial, meanwhile, won't even breach the half a million mark.
He says representatives from the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia have expressed concern that the entry level for local production, at RM2.5mil, will be difficult to reach in the TV commercial field.
According to Lake, the Government doesn't want to set the threshold too low, as it wants to build the industry and bring producers into a bigger area of production whereby there would be more potential for them to export their films.
"Most countries don't allow commercials in their incentives, focusing just on feature films or TV shows. In fact, the UK has only in the last year introduced an incentive for TV (production)," Lake says.
According to the Finas website, the number of local feature films rose 55% to 76 last year. (Gross takings, however, fell 22% to RM97.3mil and average ticket collection was below average production cost.) Based on the number of films released, Lake says Malaysia has a "very strong" industry internally. Last year local films represented about 20% of total box office gross takings in Malaysia,
"Australia only commands about 5% of the local box office. From that point of view, the Malaysian film industry is successful. But those films have been very locally-focused; none has really been designed to travel outside of Malaysia. And to build an industry here − a real international industry − it's about how you can produce locally and get those films sold outside the country," he says.
Johor will benefit much from Pinewood Iskandar. "Our projection is, by 2020 we would've attracted something like RM1.9bil in expenditure into the state because of film production. It's a big export earner. We're working with Matrade in our promotions overseas. We're working with Finas and Tourism Malaysia because there's a big offshoot for tourism from films as well."
In fact, he says, the entire country benefits. "People may come and film in Johor at the studios, but they may want to do their exterior filming in Sarawak, for example. And the good thing about Malaysia is that it has a great diversity of locations."
Ensuring success
Lake is well aware of the failed RM3bil E-Village (Entertainment Village) project near Dengkil, and he is making sure that Pinewood Iskandar will not suffer the same fate.
"When I was first interviewed for this job, I said this to (Khazanah managing director) Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar. You can't have a build-it-and-they-will-come mentality. You have to market and promote what you're doing," he says.
"It's not just marketing and promoting the studios. It's marketing and promoting Malaysia as a film-friendly destination.
And we've been doing it for the last 18 months − before we're even open. We've spent a lot of time going to markets around the world.
"We've been to America and to almost every continent in the world marketing it. Next month we'll be in Mumbai, then Hong Kong.
"In April we'll be in Cannes for the big television market (MIPTV, a tradeshow which attracts over 1,000 production companies)."
Asked on the advantage of having the "Pinewood" brand name, Lake says: "That was very smart of Khazanah. In the early days they went to Pinewood to get the latter's name attached to it. You get a brand identity straight away."
He says the Film in Malaysia Incentive has attracted a lot of interest. "Although it was approved by the economic council in March last year, everyone wanted certainty on the guidelines and terms and conditions."
Pinewood Iskandar is now talking to nine companies, including from Australia, the US, Europe and Thailand.
"No one is really committed as yet. They're putting their numbers together. Everyone is waiting also to see what the guidelines are for the incentive.
"I believe in the next month, we'll start to see higher commitments coming. By the time we open in May, we'll have committed companies," he says.
The University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts, one of the world's top film schools, and Multimedia University (MMU) will introduce a school of cinematic arts at MMU's new campus in EduCity, Johor, next year.
"This will be more to train the top-end people like producers, directors, writers and cinematographers.
"It is 10 minutes' away from the studios so we will work very closely with them in terms of courses and offering internships for their students," Lake says. "So there is a holistic approach to this. E-Village was a narrow approach. This is more of a cross-government, cross-sectoral approach."
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