KUCHING: Creative industry players should now start to look into archive materials for inspiration in their media productions in order to bring the country’s creative industry to greater heights.
“Archive materials can actually be an inspiration for filmmakers. They can see what kind of movies that they want to produce based on the archive materials,” said Former National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) director Datuk Kamil Othman.
“The film can be a hybrid – a combination of archive materials and new contents,” he said in response to a question during the Siri Syarahan Kursi P. Ramlee programme conducted via Google Meet on Tuesday (June 29).
The lecture was organised by the National Arts Culture and Heritage Academy.
Kamil said the archive materials could even be colourised as the country had the technology to do so.
“For instance, we can do a documentary based entirely on footage from Tan Sri P Ramlee…this sort of production will have no expiry date.”
He said as such, funding, besides putting so much on just the production alone, should also go towards this kind of ideation and development.
“So, this archive is really important. With the technology available, we can combine both materials from the archive and other shots.”
He further said that having real scenes obtained from the archive was popular in the international market as many people were interested in history.
“Although it does not sell well in the cinemas, it will still be featured and of interest to educational institutions or research centres abroad.
“Therefore, this will go beyond the cinema market.”
