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• Amazing Crowd, Great Panel

  2009-03-16 11:44AM / 標準BLOG / 會員可以看
  4個評論

  The issue of funding raised more questions than any other subject at the I Shot Hong Kong film panel discussion at California in Lan Kwai Fong.
  
  More than 80 people turned out for the panel discussion to hear three of the industry's biggest players give their views on the trials confronting HK's movie sector and to answer questions from the audience.
  
  The issue of funding and how the government chooses which projects to fund drew the greatest interest from the audience.
  
  Members of the FIlm Development Council were invited to attend the evening but declined. The FDC last week was given $300 million by the government to spend on revitalising the industry by funding film related projects.
  
  One member of the audience, Matthew Scott, explained that his project - a festival celebrating and recognising 100 years of film in Hong Kong - had just been turned down because, according to the FDC, "It would attract too much attention."
  
  Mr Scott had managed to convince 5 major global cities to take the festival, which would have resulted in free and international exposure of the industry and Hong Kong to the world.
  
  Wushu director, Antony Szeto, said he firmly believed the FDC was too much of a "club" and criticised the organisation for only distributing funding to people its Board knew within a tight film circle.
  
  The issue of what constitutes an Independent film was also addressed. General Manager of Irrestistible Films, Lorna Tee, told the audience Hong Kong's industry was now solely an independent film industry. However, there was disagreement over what actually constitutes an "indie" film.
  
  Bey Logan, from Weinstein Co., explained that films were business and young filmmakers tend to get carried away with the idea of their film rather than the business of it. He advised that in order to make a film pitch sound attractive, filmmakers need to first of all look at the pitch in all its components and honestly answer questions to themselves about its value to a studio or production company.
  
  Mr Logan offered to listen to and accept any pitch from any member in the audience and to give their pitches a proper critique. Needless to say, he was inundated by people after the talk.
  
  Antony Szeto took the audience through the career path of making a short film to his first non-animated feature. He explained the reason behind his short film and the difficulty in tackling a major feature in terms of running the operation as a business rather than as an artistic project.
  
  Questions from the audience ranged from topics on ethnic filmmaking in Hong Kong to shooting formats and the changes brought on by High Definition.
  
  Among the audience were many of the industry's top producers and script writers, including William Pfeiffer, from Tiger Gate, and John Raczka.
  
  Another event is now in the pipeline.