Indonesia pushing hard to be movie location hotspot

Trisha Sertori, Contributor, Denpasar

Feature films need far more than a good script coupled with some high-profile actors to make a profit. As the saying goes, “location, location, location” is often as much the star of the film as the actors: Selling those locations to the film industry is as competitive as any Hollywood audition.

But talent will out and the spotlight is now shining on Indonesia, due largely to a proactive stance taken by the Culture and Tourism Ministry and the Bali Film Centre (BFC), which attended in mid-April the Association of Film Commissioners International Film Locations Trade Show in Santa Monica, California, with outstanding results.

Indonesia even made the cover of Locations Magazine 2007, the filmmaker’s bible of international film locations.

At Santa Monica, the BFC presented Indonesian film locations and the low-production costs of doing business here — as it had also done in March at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and its Filmart’s Locations World Expo.

And presentation pays off. Film industry heavyweight RGM Associates aims to produce 10 feature films in Asia in the coming years, and Indonesia is well placed to be the “the next runaway film destination (location)”.

According to BFC director Deborah Gabinetti, a former New York casting agent and international film locations promoter, RGM had a US$100 million proposal on the table for an epic film using an Indonesian backdrop.

Warner Bros. Locations Executive Bill Bowling met with Bakri M.M. of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Hong Kong, a meeting that has resulted in “positive results with ideas for future film projects”, according to Gabinetti.

The high level of interest in Indonesia as a prime film location was echoed throughout the Santa Monica Film Locations Trade Show and Locations World Expo, said Gabinetti, with over 50 expressions of interest for Indonesian film locations and six film proposals already under discussion.

And with 18,000-plus islands spanning more than 5,000 kilometers, crossing two hemispheres and possessing a geographical diversity that takes in the monumental architecture of Borobudur and Prambanan, rainforests, mountains, deserts, glaciers, dense cityscapes and seas, Indonesia is representative of almost every environment in the world. It presents the perfect backdrop for just about any film production.

But it is not just the physical environment that makes Indonesia such an attractive package for international location scouts, stressed Gabinetti.

“We do have the most diverse locations in the world. But we also have the human resources to back that up. We have the master craftsmen to build backdrops, the additional cameramen often needed on feature films, the catering, costumes. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes and production houses utilize those human resources,” she said.

For example, she cited the 40 local crew members and more than 100 extras who were employed by director Marc Esposito during the making of Toute la Beaute du Monde in Bali and Lombok as just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the dollars generated for Indonesia via international film productions here.

Add to this the international advertising the archipelago gains through film production and the offshoot of greater tourist numbers, and the country’s cash register starts to ring.

The verified 50 percent increase in Korean tourism to Indonesia following the release of a Korean television program set on Bali, and the anecdotal leap in French visitors to Lombok and Bali following the French release of Toute la Beaute du Monde, highlight the value of international film productions to the nation’s tourism said Gabinetti.

“A film has a seven-year life span from the original theater release to DVD, syndication and cable,” she said. “Compare that coverage of a location like Bali to the average tourism advertisement that runs between 15 and 30 seconds at exorbitant cost. Film leaves an impression, an experience. Like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and New Zealand, you want to see that place.”

She points out that during the production of Lord of the Rings, 125,000 New Zealanders were employed, making the project that nation’s largest single employer, with a matching crossover spike in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Ongoing rewards are still being reaped through New Zealand’s growing tourism on the back of the film, a direct result of the blockbuster trilogy.

“A similar scenario can be seen in what the film Out of Africa did for Kenya,” Gabinetti added.

But as mentioned earlier, it takes more than Indonesia’s pretty face in the locations industry to go up against countries that have already seen the dollar value in location promotion.

Gabinetti said incentives to bring international film production houses to Indonesia were vital if the country is to take advantage of the strong interest already being shown by world players such as RGM Associates and Warner Bros.

“We need to be able to offer incentives that compare with our competing location countries to ensure the Indonesian locations get up,” she stressed. “At present, other countries will win if they have similar locations because here there is, at present, no real incentives — and we are trying to address that so Indonesia can compete in this market with its neighboring countries.”

With government-sponsored incentives, Gabinetti continued, there is real opportunity for Indonesia to become a major film locations center; when the human and location resources of the nation are considered alongside such incentives, Indonesia is a winner, hands-down.

“While we do not yet have an incentives system in place, what we do have is the ability to undercut most other countries in production costs by at least 10 percent. When you are talking of $100 million-dollar film projects, that adds up to a substantial figure.

“Because of those low production costs created by reasonable non-union labor, master craftsmen who can create sets, plenty of film extras and more than 360 ethnic groups, we have not only the landscapes, but also the ‘humanscape’,” said Gabinetti.

She added that the Indonesian government was supportive of international film production and was displaying a rapidly growing understanding of the international film and television industries’ potential value to the nation.