News from abroad, courtesy The Hollywood Reporter: The studio that Malaysia built over five years at an investment of over $150 million under the consultancy of the iconic British studio, Pinewood, and launched in 2014 in association with the same British facility, is now tottering at the precipice. Pinewood has pulled out, and the Iskandar Malaysia Studios has to now fend for itself. This is more difficult than it sounds. The original business plan was that Pinewood would farm out big-budget movies and TV shows to the fledgling Asian studio to pull it up to its feet. On such assurances, presumably, Pinewood had encouraged the Malaysians to build film stages spread over 1,00,000 square feet, with each stage no less than 15,000 square feet; in addition, also built were two TV studios, each spread about 12,000 square feet. Now, with Pinewood abandoning it, the Malaysian studio is up the creek, as they say, without a paddle.
Perhaps, one should look upon this as just a business decision gone wrong. Malaysia, with an annual film production average of just about 30 films, certainly didn’t need such a vast studio for local consumption. Lured by Pinewood, it saw a good opportunity in creating inexpensive studio facilities in Asia that would entice, with its lower costs, filmmakers from around the world and generate employment for over 10,000 of its citizens. In principle, the idea was sound: it could have worked for the country, despite the heavy investment and low local demand; but in business, it’s rather imprudent to bank on others to generate revenues for you. This is where Iskandar Malaysia Studios went totally wrong. It had no resources of its own to generate business; it was at the mercy of Pinewood. Once the British studio walked out, as it has just done, the Malaysian studio became (almost) like fish out of water… lots and lots of land but not a puddle to dive into…
At the time of its launch, however, the picture was rosier. Then named Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios, it got off to a rousing start with the signing of a deal to cater to The Weinstein Company’s $90 million Netflix series, Marco Polo. But the honeymoon lasted for just about a year or so. Marco Polo didn’t survive beyond two seasons, depriving the Asian studio of a major series, as the long-term shooting commitment was cut short. A couple of big-budget Chinese productions did utilise the facilities but the takings on the ground were low, due to the absence of Hollywood tent-pole productions.
There were a couple of other factors that created the glitches. Malaysia had offered an incentive of 30% cash rebate for production companies shooting at the studio but these were slow in reaching the claimants, causing a serious drain on the cash flows of the production companies. The other aspect that ought to have been considered at the planning stage but wasn’t, returned to bite the studio exactly where it hurts the most: it was located at the country’s Southern tip, almost a four-hour drive away from the capital, which turned out to be a major disincentive. Production companies do not look upon kindly at the loss of any production time, and four hours each way was seen as deprivation of an entire day’s shooting.
So, now, Iskandar Malaysia Studios is like a whale abandoned in a pond. It may survive but the odds are against it. However, it is not just a question of an investment gone wrong as it is an important project for Malaysia and meant to generate jobs for its citizens. The loss of job opportunities would be equally, if not more, shattering.
Of course, there are options: it is quite possible that the Chinese might take it over, rename it, and lure Chinese film production companies to shoot at its facilities. Malaysia could also slash rates and offer higher and more regulated rebates to incentivise Hollywood and other film producing companies. Or, as is never difficult, convert the humungous studio into a residential project.
The idea of such a large studio in Malaysia has not proved to be a good one. However, for a country like India, it would be possible to accommodate and skillfully monetise not just one but a dozen such huge facilities. India has a basic inherent strength in its film production capacity that would provide viability to such large studios. Fortunately, India has multiple film industries and an even larger number of TV production industries, all of which are constantly in search for stable shooting facilities. In Bombay, TV production companies were forced to shift to shooting in bungalows, only because of shortage of studio space. With all other costs equal, it is always so much easier and better to shoot in a studio than in a bungalow by the roadside. Apart from traffic noise, the constant stream of passers-by peeping in for a dekho is a regular source of nuisance. So, a studio that can provide the space at a reasonable cost would never be starved of business in India.
If India created such large studio facilities within the country, it would be able to attract foreign film production companies far more easily than Malaysia was able to do. India already has a vast pool of skilled technicians; the diversity of landscape is a natural advantage, and in terms of costs, it remains among the cheaper options across the world. Besides, as one of the largest English-speaking nations, India offers a natural compatibility to American and British production companies as also a huge market for consumption of the content created. Also, India and Indians are the flavour of the season even in Hollywood. India-based themes as storylines are going to become a lot more popular the world over in the coming years.
Indian film industries, in fact, should replicate the facilities of Iskandar Malaysia Studios here as soon as possible. It can only do the industry and the country a lot of good. It is well-known that the entertainment industry generates a disproportionately high number of jobs, directly and in ancillary industries, in ratio to investment, and that the business is expected to grow exponentially over the next few decades or so. India is under-served in the entertainment industry infrastructure, that is, cinemas and studios. A concerted movement by the country to add muscle to its shooting facilities and a push for proliferation of cinemas would give a fillip not only to TV and film businesses but also employment. Fortunately, the present central government is focussed on building infrastructure across the country and it is fervently hoped that the film industries would not miss its attention.
So many Hollywood studios have invaded India and taken over so much of local production, with or without local partners, that it would not be difficult to lure them into investing in studio spaces. The only hitch is that in India, the government is expected to make available the land, which is always a thorny issue. However, there are some ways to get around that, the foremost being to offer the displaced population a share in the business that takes over their land.
Malaysia is dealing with the problem of having created facilities in Iskandar Malaysia Studios that it can’t use effectively on its own because of lack of demand. India is facing the exact opposite: a huge demand for facilities like in Iskandar Malaysia Studios but poor supply. If only Iskandar Malaysia Studios could be transported overnight to India, both countries would heave a sigh of relief.
Kangana’s Choice
Viewed from the outside, there are two sides to the Kangana coin: heads – she’s a modern woman, who is finally in a position of power and doesn’t need to take crap from any one. So, it’s her time to give it back. It’s not been easy but she has fought her way to the top, without much support; in fact, she’s a star today despite a host of men (and possibly women too) trying to retard her growth. She’s opinionated but in a positive sense – how would a woman be successful without opinions of her own? Tails – she’s lost it. Fame has gone to her head and she’s now obsessive about commenting on anything and everything, as if the globe would slip off its orbit if her opinions didn’t reach out to millions to keep it stable. She has also made it her birthright to bad-mouth whoever she has set her eyes upon because she knows, nobody can stoop to her level and use the language she uses.
Heads or tails?
Actually, Kangana’s well-earned fame and status should give her the good sense to strike a balance between the two and pick her battles with greater care. Energies are finite and ought not to be dissipated indiscriminately.
Rights Of Differently Abled
Cinema is such a powerful medium that it can make not just communities but even countries vanish. Cinema projects a world view that is overwhelming, in what it shows and what it ignores. For instance, right from inception till a few decades back, black people, the African-Americans, were not seen in Hollywood films except in roles of lowly-paid, ill-educated loyal servants or as depraved criminals. The entire black community had almost zero representation in ‘respectable’ roles; no one saw a black doctor or successful entrepreneur or even a rich man. The perception of the community, in America and all across the world where Hollywood films were screened, was tarred by a brush blacker than the one used by the God above. So, when blacks were spotted in countries like India, China, New Zealand, much of Europe, the local populace looked at them with curiosity and fear, tinged with contempt. Hollywood had shaped the perceptions of blacks across the world, and it stayed that way for decades. It is only recently, just a few decades back, that blacks have been portrayed with a sense of equality.
However, blacks were at least seen on screen. Persons of disabilities, rather universally, have been ostracised by the performing arts. So, when Ali Stroker, wheelchair-bound, won the Tony Award for best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical, there was triumph in her acceptance speech as well as deep satisfaction: “This award is for every kid who is watching tonight, who has a disability, who has a limitation, or a challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena. You are.”
As there are characters with disabilities portrayed on screen and in theatre, few people notice that these are invariably played by non-disabled actors, none by an actor actually disabled. So, Al Pacino and Hrithik Roshan play blind men on screen but a real blind person would never get offered that role. The same goes for all other disabilities. In that sense, cinema and theatre have been closed to persons of disabilities. As Stroker pointed out, she is probably the first time disabled persons were seeing one of them triumphing in media which has more or less abandoned them.
It might seem a minor issue to many but the fact is that if characters on screen are shown to be disabled, filmmakers should get actual disabled persons to play them. This follows the same logic with which the LGBT community has been insisting that the roles of gay characters should be allotted to actors who are gay in reality and not to non-gay actors.
