Managers behind the camera: a survey of the management of film production in Malaysia / Khairuddin Othman

The Malaysian society places high demands on filmmakers. From the standpoint of cinemagoers and film critics, Malaysian films are expected to match the production standards of imported films, especially those Hollywood, Hong Kong and Bollywood. This is expected because what the cinemagoers pay at the ticket counter is the same amount of money, irrespective whether the films are imported foreign films or made in this country by local filmmakers. This seems to be a tall order. Thus, we tend to hear many voices of discontent toward locally made films in the newspapers and magazines. However, many of these negative reports were often on what were seen on the silver-screen, especially pertaining to storylines, acting, character development, and weak production techniques. The major aim of this study is to understand the film production practices among the three key managerial personnel as they ultimately determine the standards of the production output. In any film production, the producer, the film director and the production manager decide most of the key activities in the development, pre-production, production and post production phases. The research employs a quantitative approach through a survey method involving a total of 42 samples of film producers, directors and production managers. The study had a sampling error of +8 percent at the 68 percent confidence level. The samples were selected by systematic sampling technique based on the population of membership listings from the Malaysian Association of Film Producers, Malaysian Association of Film Directors, and for the production managers from the membership listing of the Malaysian Association of Professional Film Workers. The major findings indicated that the three key personnel in Malaysian film production lacked formal education and trainings and there was significant mistrust among them. This resulted in the lack of understanding of functional responsibilities and aggravated the production phases when all the three key personnel wanted to be involved in them. The conclusion reached was that there should be greater entrenchment of professional practices in film production management among film producers, directors and production managers