Thailand’s first “TMF MEDIA FORUM 2022: World Collaboration”, was a webinar on story development, entertainment production, international innovations, technologies, and distribution of media industry to the global market.  The event was hosted by the Thai Media Fund on June 16^th – 17^th, 2022.  The project’s concept of World Collaboration implied and signaled the beginning of greater synergy and coordination between Thailand’s media industry and global leaders such as those in Hollywood.  With the aim to elevate Thai media industry to a global platform, the forum invited both Hollywood and international experts to share in-depth experience, latest production and special effect techniques, insights into new business opportunities, as well as approaches to optimize Thai media distribution to global value chain. The attention for this webinar had exceeded our expectation and we’re greatly appreciated the participation from all parts of local member industry.

The opening ceremony on June 16^th, 2022, at the Swissotel Bangkok Ratchada, was presided by H.E. Mr. Itthiphol Kunplome, Minister of Culture and Vice-Chairperson of the Committee of the Thai Media Fund.  Dhanakorn Srisooksai, Ph.D., CEO of Thai Media Fund who gave the keynote speech welcoming speakers and members of the press.

The two-day webinar provided thorough insights, case studies, and references on the global perspective of media production process: pre-production, production, and post-production shared by experts with hand-on experience. Here was the synopsis of the content:

1. Tailoring Thai Cultural Intellectual Property for the World

Thomas Polson, Executive Post and VFX Producer, suggested that Thai producers, not only should study from other successful cases in Asia, but also should create their own intellectual property by leveraging the country’s outstanding content features, such as horror genre, martial arts, food, family values, and local folklores as a narrative. The key was to impress audiences through universal storytelling that successfully delivered plots that everyone can understand and enjoy. Well-structured content is a key to well-developed media and story writers should avoid crowding too many ideas into one story.

2. Financing, Development, Production and Distribution. Perspectives from current Hollywood practices.

Michael Peyser was movie producer, media educator and innovator of digital craft and power of storytelling.  He informed the audiences that the real drivers behind content production was the understanding of audiences’ preferences and the scope of that audience market ranging from mass markets to more specific niche markets. The development of AI technology had enabled the professionals to accurately forecast the size of target audiences, as well as perform financial analysis and budget planning.  For fundraising, there are plenty of resources, ranging from government funding to investments by banks, large studios, equity fund, and wealthy private investors, as long as producers were able to present attractive ideas and stories.

3. Preparing for production, movie producer’s roles and responsibilities in the 21st century digital age.

Nicholas Simon, Founding & Managing Partner of Indochina Productions, shared his thoughts on the potential of Thai content despite the increasing popularity of Korean entertainment, Thai content had been also gaining more, well-deserved attention. It was recommended to begin media production with the stories that could really impress the producers and themselves, as well as capture interest from local audiences and capture international recognition.

4. Paradigm shift “The evolution of filmmaking in the area of Virtual Production.”

Erik Weaver, Head of Adaptive and Virtual Production at ETC, emphasized the importance of adopting visual effects (VFX). Increasingly used, particularly during the COVID-19 era, VFX has become the new standard as it played a part in reducing production costs.

5. Post Production Technology and Visual Effect

Punn Wiantrakoon was the filmmaker and Virtual Art Department Supervisor at Amazon Studios Virtual Production. He identified tools and technologies as the heart and soul of virtual production with the correct tools; artists and producers could collaborate their work together from anywhere in the world – both virtually and physically.

6. Entertainment Distribution

M.R.Chalermchatri Yukol, Program Director of VIU Thailand, expressed that streamers had always been searching for fresh and new content. To satisfy content buyers’ demand, producers should study the platform’s existing contents and structure to understand the audiences’ preferences toward that platform, in order to customize content and production for the specific platform. Elaborating on the approach, Yolanda Macias, Chief Content Officer of Cinedigm Corp. who had been responsible for acquiring global content rights for both online, cable, and broadcast distribution platforms, added that understanding the uniqueness of each platform, as well as creating connections with local producers, are important to platform developers in international marketing.

Other outstanding webinar topics include Post-COVID-19 changes and adaptations in the media industry (Producers-Audiences), risk factors in media production, adoption of soft power in story-telling, and customizing production for platforms.

The shared insights had fueled a lot of enthusiasm and created inspiration for many Thai media professionals – potentially leading to the elevation of Thai content to global platforms in the near future.

The webinar ended with the remarks by Dr. Chamnan Ngammaneeudom, Deputy CEO, Thai Media Fund.  He expressed sincere gratitude toward speakers and participants, and summarizing the essence of the webinar.  The key take-aways included importance of promoting Thai content to an international scale; Asia’s international experiences in the field; market readiness for Thailand’s Soft Power content; new technological support in production; roles of movie producers; good business models; new markets, particularly the streaming market; desirable content in a Thai context; insight study of platform’s uniqueness; and the necessity of appearances in roadshows and festivals. Addressing all matters, the Thai Media Fund has been well-equipped and ready to support and provide funding for safe and creative content and media production – particularly in content that could eventually be internationally recognized.

Dr. Chamnan added that “In elevating the Thai media industry to an international level, The Thai Media Fund has committed to 3 promotion strategies: (1) development of quality creators, (2) promotion for media production and funding accessibility, and (3) promotion of local Thai contents with universal and global appeals.  Thai Media Fund strived to become the One-Stop-Service provider, thoroughly supporting Thai media producers – from idea development, fund sourcing, production, to international market access. Determined to bring international recognition and value creation to local media industry, we will be a connecting piece between local media professionals with international streaming platforms, as well as educating and training future media skills and international business etiquette.”

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          Thai Media Fund (TMF) kicks off the ‘TMF Awards’ by partnering with the university network and expert panel in selecting the safe and creative media to achieve the highest honor awards from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. The awards aim to honor the good media producers that provide quality content and create a positive society.

          Dr. Yupha Taweewattanakitborvon, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Chairperson of the Management Sub-Committee at Thai Media Fund, stated that today we must admit that people can easily access to media on all channels. At the same time, we have seen much non-creative news such as gambling sites, porn sites, fake news, violent clips, and viral news, which has become a crucial problem that affects people’s thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors, particularly children and youths. The government agencies have been monitoring unsafe media by using rules and various legal measures as a tool for regulation; for example, the rating of age-appropriateness on television programs. However, it is not enough for today’s society since it can be viewed backwards anytime. Therefore, we realize that there should be positive media supervision that supports and promotes desirable behavior of media producers to incentivize the production of good media that are legally compliant and create value for society voluntarily.

          “The ‘TMF Award’ platform aims at glorifying and honoring good performing media as a role model for society. We promote and support those media to inspire them to create value for society, build unity and rely on each other in creating innovations and providing good content, which is a substance that makes our awards different from the others. Accordingly, it can be said that it is an encouraging process to stimulate media companies and media producers to be proud, and tends to develop safe and creative media for youth and society, which will be the driving force for the country to progress further.” Dr. Yupha said.

          Dr. Dhanakorn Srisooksai, Chief Executive Officer at Thai Media Fund, talked about the judging criteria which hold TMF’s principle in promoting morals and ethics, teaching life skills, promoting acceptance, understanding, and appreciating social diversity, including promoting good relationships in family and personal. Furthermore, there must be a creative innovation process that accesses directly to people. We expect that these criteria will be applied to a wider society, to open more space for safe and creative media to encourage a positive society in the future.

He added that the selection processes work in three-round. In the first round, TMF has partnered with 24 university networks in Communication Arts, Journalism, and Communication to select a variety of media categories such as radio, television, movie, print, online, personal media, local media, public relations media, innovative media, and TMF’s 683 granted projects. Then, a panel of expert judges screened 97 works in the second round. Finally, in the third round, a panel of the honorary judges will select the best works to award the winners of each 13 categories.

         The highlight of this stage is the grant of royal trophies from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, which is the highest honor of the winners from 13 categories. The runners-up in each category, a total of 39 awards, will receive the trophies from a Chairperson of the Thai Media Fund. And the 97 selected works will receive certificates from the Minister of Culture. It is expected that all entries will be announced by May 2022, and the award ceremonies will be held, respectively.

Thai Media Fund’s 2022 Annual Grant Program received the following applications during 17th January to 16th February 2022;

1. Open Grant (with the budget not over THB 90 million): 371 projects
2. Strategic Grant (with the budget not over THB 180 million): 368 projects
3. Collaborative Grant (with the budget not over TBH 30 million): 7 projects

Total number of proposed projects: 746 Projects

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