Breakthrough move to protect interests in the advertising film production industry

The Malaysian Association of Commercial Film Producers (PPFIM) Working Committee, headed by Khoo Kay Lye, finally made a breakthrough for the survival of PPFIM members and the advertising film production industry.

National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS), in a letter to the association, advised that as of Feb 1, 2015, they will implement an additional guideline in the declaration for the Made in Malaysia (MIM) TV commercials.

The additional guideline would read: "Any producer of a TV commercial production house applying for a MIM certificate must be a member of the PPFIM".

This will be a new beginning for the industry which has been languishing in the doldrums for over a decade, faced with varied challenges from significant drop in work contracts, dwindling membership, poor employment opportunities to emerging unprofessional practices such as severe price undercutting and piracy.

In various meetings with the authorities, PPFIM has been calling for action to protect local talents and interests, regulate the industry with a mandatory affiliation to a relevant body in the film advertising industry and the use of production contracts in dealings with clients and advertising agencies.

Production contracts will spell out very clearly the obligations between clients and production house and some of the salient points are issuance of purchase order with minimum of 50 percent down payment before shoot, additional payments for crew when overtime is incurred, contingency costs due to unfavourable weather and other related reasons.

Currently, production houses are disadvantaged by having to bear extra costs from the agreed total with clients and very often making it an unprofitable project at the end in the absence of a production contract.

The pursuit for excellence also calls for better working hours that shall be regulated soon with the introduction of a maximum of 14-hour workdays. Hearing the plight of the industry, the compulsory issuance of insurance coverage during production hours will commence once production contracts are enforced by March 1, 2015.

"The ball is in our court now. We in the industry must unite and come together for the good of the industry, if not we are literally throwing our rice bowl away," said Khoo. "As members of PPFIM, we need to work closely to revive this dying industry."

"Success is no accident, it’s very hard work, perseverance, sacrifice, continuous learning and improvement but most of all, taking pride in what we do best. It’s a great beginning which allows us to work on setting a proper infrastructure by which we are to operate in fairness, professionalism, proper work ethics and excellence in our field," he added.

Over the next few months, the PPFIM committee will be actively working to put all necessary paperwork in place after which would require the presence and cooperation of all in the film advertising industry to adopt and launch the practices according to the said guideline.

Khoo is grateful to FINAS and all its supportive members in PPFIM in helping to achieve this milestone together and to this end, he said, "We can now look forward to a renewed year ahead."