Ideate Media out to fill a ‘huge gaping hole,’ with the help of Douglas Adams: Page 2 of 3

 
The other pieces

 
But that’s not all Ideate Media does. There are other “streams,” as Zainir puts it.
 
The first is creating English content for the pan-Asian broadcasters that are present in more than one market in the region.
 
“These broadcasters are finding out that their own investments are out-rating the Hollywood shows – one good example is HBO’s Half-Worlds,” he says.
 
“This is very exciting because it is content that we know will travel, and have a footprint outside Malaysia.
 
“And there’s a decent budget that allows us to be more liberal, creatively, in terms of story concepts and setting – you can dive into the slightly retro, or historical pieces, or epic dramas, because of the money,” he says.
 
Another stream is creating content in local languages for other markets – but with a bold twist.
 
“Here, my struggle has been what space to play in – there is no point my doing what other broadcasters are doing. They are doing a fairly good job,” says Zainir. “I struggled for a whole to find the right space for us to focus on.”
 
But find it he did. Ideate Media has also spent the last three years investing in local IPs. Working with Malay-language publisher Karangkraf Media Group – which produces books, a slew of magazines, and the popular daily Sinar Harian – it has bought the rights to Malaysian author Ramlee Awang Murshid who has written more than half a dozen books spanning science fiction and crime-thrillers.
 
Ramlee has created a group of characters who are not quite superheroes, but as with the now-defunct NBC series Heroes, have certain unique abilities that are more science fiction in nature.
 
“These are great ideas that we want to develop into a shared universe or franchise,” says Zainir.
 
“We’ve invested quite a bit of money to work with a Hollywood studio to help us design this universe. Out of this strategy will come a few rollouts.
 
“For example, characters who will appear in feature films in Malaysia; while I’ve been in discussions with writers and producers in Indonesia for a different character and a different story set; and there is another story that we’re discussing with a Japanese company as well – all coming out of this single universe.
 
“So the big vision is rolling out a stream of products – whether feature films, TV shows, animated shows, comics, mobile products – for various markets, stories that will appeal only to that market, but which we can ultimately combine,” he adds.
 
And of course, there will be merchandising opportunities too. “I think different stories lend themselves to different merchandising ideas – this one’s a bit edgier, so no cuddly toys, but definitely merchandising is in there,” says Zainir.
 
The write stuff
 
Of course, this makes it all sound easy in retrospect, but even with the financial muscle of Khazanah and Astro behind it, Ideate Media faced many challenges.
 
Many of these challenges stemmed from the fact that there are still missing pieces in the creative content industry in Malaysia: Lawyers who understood this kind of IP, accountants who can handle large production budgets, and so on – standard jobs in Hollywood, missing in Malaysia.
 
Then there is of course the challenge of finding writers.
 
“When we speak to these broadcasters [in developed markets], they will ask a simple question: Do we have the writers here who can deal with the very technical parts of creative writing?” says Zainir.
 
“People think writing is all about the idea. It is not. It is largely that, but also important are the structure, the evolution of the storyboard and characters, and so on.
 
“That discussion is very technical and very specific, and so do we have enough writers who have that sensibility, and who understand what it takes to complete the development process that appeals to the people you want to sell or pitch your idea to?” he adds.
 
It turns out that there are Malaysians who can do the job. Over the years, many have gone to the right schools and done the right courses in film studies and creative writing. But the problem is, many come back to Malaysia to find that there are no jobs for them.
 
“Because they have to pay the rent, they get absorbed into the ecosystem and they basically get accustomed to one way of doing it,” says Zainir.
 
“So yes, the confession is that it’s been a struggle to find a good bunch of people, but I’m also happy because we have found this good bunch of writers who can deal with expectations, and what we want to do is make sure they are close to us, and from there, we can grow the inner circle,” he says.
 
This goes back to growing the ecosystem, a challenge not just for the Government, but also for the industry players which will need to step up.
 
“There are two ways to do this: Put in a lot of money, as Hong Kong did in the 1970s, and they basically had an industry just about overnight,” says Zainir.
 
“Do we do that, or do we grow organically? I think with a clever collaboration of public money from institutions like Finas and private money from people like us, we can address the specific gaps,” he adds.
 
Next Page: And finally, the big question: Why Dirk Gently?