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However, Michael Chin, formerly operations director in a local production company, said he is hopeful that the issue of grants and funding allowances is different now. In the past, he said, when the EDB dished out grants it did not physically give money but rather converted the grants into tax holidays that were later accounted into final production costs. "It was a counter-productive effort, since small companies had no way to claim their money upfront and were only given tax holidays that were later factored as grants from the EDB," he said.
So it is little surprise that one of the first documentaries made using the EDB and NGCI fund was Hidden Genders, shot in Thailand by a Singapore-based production company called Right Angle. It examines Thai kickboxing and looks at the world of transsexuals and transvestites. It received about US$200,000 in funding, a large amount by local standards.
Now there seems to be a concerted effort by the newly anointed Media Development Authority (MDA) to push Singapore's idea across as a global media city, said Lim Hock Chuan, the chief executive officer of MDA.
"Media 21 is our vision of how we can co-create our future of Singapore as a global media city," Lim said. "It represents a holistic approach to develop the whole media ecosystem, covering the whole range of processes ranging from content production and delivery, the education system, talent development, infrastructure and facilities, and media literacy."
There are also concrete plans to double the media sector's contribution from $2.5 billion or 1.56-3 percent of gross domestic product. According to the latest statistics, the film and video production industry has been growing at 13.5 percent on average each year from 1995 to 2000, and its total output of the industry was estimated at $30.2 million in 2000.
Is all this going to happen? David Yew, the strategy director of Fusion Consulting, based in Singapore and with regional offices in Asia, says having money alone is not a good consideration for boosting the creative side of the business that is needed to drive the media industry.
"The talent industry needs to be nurtured," he said. "Singapore's vision is parochial in nature. It needs to change the way it uses creative talents from overseas while nurturing its own talent base. Also the current attempts at making movies makes it difficult to be a regional success. When there is use of Chinese dialects like Hokkien or Teochew, the majority of even the Chinese may be alienated. It has to look at universal themes instead of cultural themes that may only work in the beginning."
Thus, despite Singapore's bid to catapult itself into Asian media- hubdom, there are some considerations that Marcel Fenez, a media specialist with PricewaterhouseCoopers based in Hong Kong, brought up during one of the recent forum discussions organized by MDA in Singapore. He said Singapore should loosen its censorship laws and deal with its external perception when attracting overseas investors to invest in its media industry.
"Singapore also has to deal with [places] like Hong Kong and Dubai that have adequate protections for intellectual property as well as a regulatory environment which encourages creativity and freedom of _expression," he said.
That would mean financial carrots alone aren't sufficient. Singapore needs to look at its regulatory framework, its talent mix as well as its prohibitive censorship laws that could well be a stumbling block to achieving its dream.
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw03/030924at.htm