Pertubuhan Industri Kreatif Digital Malaysia (PIKDM) or in English, Malaysia Organization of Digital Creative Industry (MDCI) wants to highlight the flaws of our creative industry – employment, the quality of our productions, and more – to serve the betterment of young creatives and veterans alike.
On the 16th of January, a press launch was held to introduce a new organizatio. The president, Muhammed Dean Lau Abdullah stated in his speech explaining the purpose of PIKDM (pronounced pik-dem). “When it comes to freelancers, they are mostly unrepresented. Who do we trust to represent [digital creative artists]? We need a different platform, or pipeline to represent [artists] from the industry. So that we can voice out our problems to KKKM, so they would know what the problem is with the industry”.
PIKDM wishes to be the support system for future creative generations, in honour of Malaysia’s preparation
for Transformasi Global 2050. The organization has stated that their role is to unite the Digital Creative Industry and create a holistic ecosystem from graduates to the industry veterans. This includes people like producers, directors, animators, film makers, film crews, creative content, audio and visual effects artists, graphics artist, sound engineers, writers, music composers, talens and the entire creatie industry – basically anyone and everyone involves in the creative process.
The board of directors for PIKDM consists of a variety of people from several parts of the creative industry.
Protection of rights for everyone in the creative industry
One of the first initiatives of PIKDM is to start a roadshow forum across various universities in order to find out what the problem is with the creative industry. Besides that there will also be active efforts to rally policy and legislation to protect creative veterans and freelancers, e.g. through tax incentives, better intellectual property laws and enforcement. Dato’ Kamil Othman, former FINAS (Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional) director-general also spoke at the launch, speaking extensively about intellectual property laws.
“Last time, it was harder to introduce this digital technology and initiative, because we as Malaysians are too used to the traditional way of craftsmanship. There are too many laws that do not cover digital works. There is the problem of unemployment, when we talk about unemployment we only think about graduates, but there are still many veterans who are also part of the category”, said Dato’ Kamil.
Dean Abdullah also mentions, “There are at least 50,000 people working in the industry. Some of these are all veterans who have experiences of more than 10 years, and we have more people coming in. People from Aswara, Limkokwing, MMU, and more make up the tens of thousands of newcomers into the industry. Where are they going to go? Even the veterans are suffering. We are working with agencies as well so that people would know you are representing your job scope when you register you will automatically be known locally and internationally. We’re working together with a private firm to facilitate the registration process. We will be the complaint bureau for the industry”.
It was also pointedly stated by Dean Abdullah that practitioners of the independent music will also be included in this initiative. One of the board of directors and founding partner, Ivan Khoo comments on the state of most fledgling musicians in Malaysia. “The mentality is that, all I want is for my song to be heard, but there is actually an opportunity to grow”.
Augmented and virtual reality is the future
Besides that there were also ample talks about the future of the digital creative industry, namely when it comes to augmented and virtual reality. “[The future is a] future that combines production, graphics and technology. Even if you are producer you are also part of the evolution of the augmented reality because it could be used in TV and drama”.
A new organization, Pertubuhan Industri Kreatif Digital Malaysia (PIKDM), is now officially launched to represent the new technological frontier of the creative industry.
Here’s a teaser of the possible application of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality shown at the event pic.twitter.com/oLtMQqj1h6
— The Daily Seni (@thedailyseni) January 16, 2018
In a world where more and more people have access to the tools for creative output,the entire panel of PIKDM stresses the importance of ensuring that ‘decentralization does not lead to devaluation’. Gibran Agi Abdul Ghafar, founder of Magic Dreams Media remarked, “We’re too focused about our own local industry. This industry is supposed to go beyond Malaysia. The market for digital creative industry is international”.
This is more convincing structure to face the industry 4.0 challenges. Great job, guys m
LikeLike