I Want My VNTV
Local audiences remain critical of Vietnamese television, but it’s hard to deny the demand for homegrown content. Tom DiChristopher speaks to industry insiders about delivering better programming in Vietnam. AsiaLIFE, June 2010.
Content
24 asialife HCMC
T M Y VNT V I WA N
Local audiences remain critical of Vietnamese television, but it’s hard to deny the demand for homegrown content. Tom DiChristopher speaks to industry insiders about delivering better programming in Vietnam.
The house is a typical residence in a young hamlet of District 7. The façade is a mix of local tastes and provincial European flourishes—Chateau Vietnam. Behind the exterior wall a tangle of motorbikes occupies the courtyard. The street on which it is located is too new to have been named. Inside, however, the scene is anything but typical. Crew members dart around the ground floor, carrying film equipment. A makeup artist touches up Dai Nghia, who portrays the husband of the household, for his next scene. On the next level, one of the two bedrooms off the hallway is flooded with set lighting, while the other serves as a control room, presided over by young Vietnamese director Nguyen Manh Ha. This is not a home at all, but the set of a new television series called May Rau Lam Vo (Mr. Housewife). It’s immediately clear that Ha is busy these days. He excuses himself intermittently during the interview to issue directions into a walkie talkie, and his gaze never strays far from the pair of monitors on which the scene across the hallway unfolds. Across town in a far-flung neighborhood of Tan Binh District, the atmosphere is similar on the set of Vu Dieu Tinh Yeu (Love Romance), the latest serial drama by veteran director Dang Luu Viet Bao. On any given day, Bao will wake up at 7am, shoot until the evening and afterwards edit the footage shot the previous day. Then it’s back home to work on scripts or prepare a new project before turning in at about 2am. This is the life of a Vietnamese television di-
rector. Until recently, Ha and his crew worked about 14 hours per day, seven days a week. Ha lobbied the project’s investors for a six-day work week, and they eventually relented. With a slight smile that betrays irony, he says, “I won.” A Love Affair with Foreign Content? One could be forgiven for overestimating the national taste for foreign television programming; surfing through the 65 channels now commonly available, movies and soap operas from China, Korea and the United States in particular still occupy the airwaves much of the day. “The general perception is that the Vietnamese love foreign-made products and we don’t really appreciate our country,” says Tran Thi Thanh Mai, managing director of media studies firm Kantar Media. As evidence against this assumption, Thanh Mai points to the success of SCTV7, a relatively new channel that focuses on programming steeped in Vietnamese culture, including cai luong, or traditional opera. According to the People Meter system, which Kantar has used to track viewership in HCM City since 2008, SCTV7 has consistently occupied the top spot this year. In total, five of SCTV’s channels have cracked the top 20, and other Vietnamese channels like Vietnam Television (VTV) and Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV) are also dominating. “Like in any other country, the local people prefer to watch in the local language,” says Mai. “The movies on Star Movies, HBO and Cinemax are quite good but of course they’re
in a foreign language with subtitles,” says Thanh Mai, explaining that audiences don’t always grasp everything they’re watching in English. Othello Khanh of production house Crea TV says the influence of Korean and Chinese programming is also waning. “People used to love it, but [that was] because there was no Vietnamese programming,” says Khanh. “The Vietnamese decided to create Vietnamese programming … and now people want more as they discover that you can do local content.” Like many aspects of Vietnamese society, the television industry is both underdeveloped and growing rapidly. For nearly 30 years following reunification, only a handful of channels were available to Vietnamese viewers, but in the last decade, the number of channels has grown at a clip. Cable television, once primarily consumed by foreign diplomats and expatriates due to its prohibitive cost, was significantly reduced in price in 2005, giving local viewers even more options. Concerned with the ratio of Vietnamese to foreign content, the Ministry of Culture issued a decree in 2007 recommending that 30 percent of programming be made up of original Vietnamese serial dramas and comedies. Consequently, directors like Ha and Bao are in demand. Ha, a relatively young director at 34, has studied in workshops at the University of South California and in Europe, and has experience in the better-developed Thai film industry. After shooting wraps on his current project, he’ll fly to Singapore to get the ball
asialife HCMC 25
they’re making.” Achieving high production quality in Vietnam has been a defining struggle for Jennifer Ravolet, creative director for Yan TV. Launched last year, the local music channel has been able to set itself apart by investing in professional Coming up to Speed production and drawing on foreign expertise. Still, Vietnamese viewers aren’t ready to give “When everything is grey, nothing looks television producers a free pass. A recent great,” says Ravolet, referring to the drab article on VietNamNet reported that the nacolour in locally produced shows. “It’s a matter tional penchant for puns had been applied to of production, how you set up your lights, your a few flagging shows: We Are In Love, Really? set. It’s a matter of colour grading in post.” was rechristened We Turn Off TV, Really? and The premium placed on production quality Sorry for Love has become known as Sorry is in part what led Ta Thuy Minh, an entertainthe Audience. ment journalist turned talk show host, to Yan One of the biggest obstacles to quality TV. Her current VTV talk show, IME ("I am programming, says Ha, is local knowledge of me"), was inspired by Western-style formats like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and she has become known for “Nowadays, films are made quickly to challenging her celebrity guests more than is common on be broadcast in time. Many directors Vietnamese talk shows. When don’t even have enough time to review she began developing a lifestyle show, Yan TV was a natural fit. the editing” “I love it when they try to Dang Luu Viet Bao bring the audience something beautiful, something nice, something well-designed,” says production practices, particularly at the preThuy Minh. “I like that about Yan TV. Television and post-production stages. “In Vietnam, we needs that.” do not have a professional film industry,” says To achieve better quality, Bao points out Ha. “I have to fight with people in Vietnam. another asset that would help: time. They ask, ‘Why do I have to do it like this?’ “Nowadays, films are made quickly to be They don’t think [pre- and post-production broadcast in time. We have a rather short are] important.” time for post-production. Many directors don’t Bao also emphasizes the importance of even have enough time to review the editing,” professionalism on his sets, pointing to the says Bao. “Editing in every shot needs to be fact that his crew is able to carry on while he is checked carefully by the director. Especially in being interviewed. “In order to do that, it takes films in which sound is recorded directly, it’s a long time to prepare in pre-production,” very important to edit every sound and noise.” he says. “The script must be edited carefully Currently, that’s a luxury that few directors and even small props must also be prepared have, and until they do, says Ha, Vietnamese sufficiently. Each member of the crew needs television won’t be as good as it could be. to thoroughly understand the idea of the film "The film producers in Vietnam know how to
26 asialife HCMC
rolling on a documentary he’ll direct for the Discovery Channel. When asked how many Vietnamese television directors have comparable experience, Ha says, “At my age, not so many. Maybe four or five.”
improve post-production while making their films, but it's hard to do that by themselves," says Ha. "You can only improve the quality of film if you have a healthy and professional filming environment. We have to build up the market. If you want to keep fish, you must have a fish tank and clean water first." Making Ends Meet The time constraints placed on directors have much to do with the current funding structure behind most productions. In Vietnam, television stations do not finance programming, so production houses must turn to outside investors and then present the finished series to networks. Compounding the problem is that payment is made upon broadcast—often one year after filming wraps—so production houses can quickly run into cash flow problems. Today, there are about 60 production houses, big and small, in Vietnam, but television station expansion has outpaced their ability to create homegrown content. “The government is asking the TV stations to fill up 30 percent of Vietnamese content, but it’s impossible to fill it up now because we don’t have enough resources,” says Chanh Tran of Crea TV. Although Crea TV has the capacity and skill to provide production work for clients such as The Amazing Race Asia and MTV’s Road Rules, they’re not immune to the travails of the Vietnamese television industry. They’ve produced about 150 hours of television over three years, but the goal is to produce at least 120 to 150 hours of programming per year, spread out over three or more series so there’s always money coming in for the next project. That might not seem like much content, but according to Chanh, the maximum any production house in Vietnam is turning out is about 250 hours per year. To keep money rolling in, filmmakers have
to keep investors happy, which can affect everything from casting to production schedules. For example, investors prefer for wellknown singers and models to be involved, reasoning that popularity in one medium will transfer to another. For directors, this often means coaching amateur actors and actresses, as well as contending with their overlapping commitments to the stage and runway. When scheduling conflicts arise, budget problems follow. Currently, says Chanh, the average amount spent on an hour of television programming is USD $10,000, which he estimates is half the average in Thailand and one percent of the cost in the United States, where one hour of production easily reaches the $1 million mark. Those budgets in part explain why most television series are slated for about 30 to 40 episodes. “You cannot get the commitment of all the actors,” says Othello Khanh. “You get a contract for, like, three months to shoot the series. You don’t have the financial power to lock everybody in for five years.” Under good conditions, where the cast is able to commit fully, Bao and Ha both report that they can shoot one episode in two days, with an additional two days on either end for pre- and post-production. “If the film is just about the lives of the members of one or two families, it’s finished rather quickly, within about two months,” says Bao. “But if the film is staged in the countryside, all the crew have to spend time moving, so it’ll take a longer time, maybe three months.” Not an ideal situation, but for now it’s the status quo. Finding (and Keeping) an Audience Few expect change to come overnight, but everyone surveyed believes it will come. The last five years have been evidence of that. At
the dawn of the second decade of television in Vietnam, signs point towards a shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to strategies rooted in identifying market segments. That,
“We have different accents, cultural habits. So no one is really confident that they’re going to cover all of the market in Vietnam”
Ta Thuy Minh however, will be a challenge for culturally diverse Vietnam. “We have different accents, cultural habits,” says Thuy Minh. “So no one is really confident that they’re going to cover all of the market in Vietnam.” There’s also a line between older viewers, who tend to consume traditional programming, and teenage audiences, who have grown up with international-standard programming and Internet content. Since teens will be tomorrow’s audiences, it’s no wonder they’ve become prime targets. Yan TV is one of the channels trying to attract their attention. In lieu of qualified music video directors, they’ve turned to creative director Jennifer Ravolet to direct videos and devised an agreement that benefits both Yan and the artist: low-cost, high-quality production in exchange for rights to the video. “Producing music videos is not a core business of a television channel,” says Do Quoc Hiep, CEO of Yan TV. “But then what happens is you see there are not so many good quality music videos out there, and we happen to have someone like Jen in the company, so we do the job of the pioneer. We open another way for people to look at
how you produce a music video.” Hiep acknowledges that being a pioneer in Vietnam can lead to a slippery slope. In pushing the boundaries, Yan TV must be careful not to venture so far beyond them that their content loses its relevance. “The challenge is really remarkable,” says Hiep. “At first we had long arguments. Do we set a high standard and make the audience reach us, understand us? Or do we produce the content that they will accept? We came to a point where we said, ‘OK, the creative people like Jen, they are used to a high standard, but then you have to make your story understandable to local tastes.’” As difficult as it can be to resolve foreign and local sensibilities, Bao believes that international involvement is essential to the future of television. As a lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Theatre and Cinema, he says looking beyond Vietnam presents opportunities to supplement the young industry. “[The University] should invite some lecturers from other countries that have successful movie industries to come and share their practical working experience, as well as to teach several periods,” says Bao, adding that there’s currently a shortage of lecturers and few internship opportunities. Ha agrees that bringing today's students up to speed will make for better films tomorrow. "If workflow isn't good, it will also affect the next generation of filmmakers," he says. "Nothing carries over like mistakes." While help may come from outside Vietnam, real change will come from within. Bao and Ha both stress the importance of source material. You can throw all the money in the world at a production, but without a solid script that speaks to local audiences, a television show will fail. It boils down to a simple maxim, Bao says: co bot moi got nen ho. No flour, no paste.
asialife HCMC 27
T M Y VNT V I WA N
Local audiences remain critical of Vietnamese television, but it’s hard to deny the demand for homegrown content. Tom DiChristopher speaks to industry insiders about delivering better programming in Vietnam.
The house is a typical residence in a young hamlet of District 7. The façade is a mix of local tastes and provincial European flourishes—Chateau Vietnam. Behind the exterior wall a tangle of motorbikes occupies the courtyard. The street on which it is located is too new to have been named. Inside, however, the scene is anything but typical. Crew members dart around the ground floor, carrying film equipment. A makeup artist touches up Dai Nghia, who portrays the husband of the household, for his next scene. On the next level, one of the two bedrooms off the hallway is flooded with set lighting, while the other serves as a control room, presided over by young Vietnamese director Nguyen Manh Ha. This is not a home at all, but the set of a new television series called May Rau Lam Vo (Mr. Housewife). It’s immediately clear that Ha is busy these days. He excuses himself intermittently during the interview to issue directions into a walkie talkie, and his gaze never strays far from the pair of monitors on which the scene across the hallway unfolds. Across town in a far-flung neighborhood of Tan Binh District, the atmosphere is similar on the set of Vu Dieu Tinh Yeu (Love Romance), the latest serial drama by veteran director Dang Luu Viet Bao. On any given day, Bao will wake up at 7am, shoot until the evening and afterwards edit the footage shot the previous day. Then it’s back home to work on scripts or prepare a new project before turning in at about 2am. This is the life of a Vietnamese television di-
rector. Until recently, Ha and his crew worked about 14 hours per day, seven days a week. Ha lobbied the project’s investors for a six-day work week, and they eventually relented. With a slight smile that betrays irony, he says, “I won.” A Love Affair with Foreign Content? One could be forgiven for overestimating the national taste for foreign television programming; surfing through the 65 channels now commonly available, movies and soap operas from China, Korea and the United States in particular still occupy the airwaves much of the day. “The general perception is that the Vietnamese love foreign-made products and we don’t really appreciate our country,” says Tran Thi Thanh Mai, managing director of media studies firm Kantar Media. As evidence against this assumption, Thanh Mai points to the success of SCTV7, a relatively new channel that focuses on programming steeped in Vietnamese culture, including cai luong, or traditional opera. According to the People Meter system, which Kantar has used to track viewership in HCM City since 2008, SCTV7 has consistently occupied the top spot this year. In total, five of SCTV’s channels have cracked the top 20, and other Vietnamese channels like Vietnam Television (VTV) and Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV) are also dominating. “Like in any other country, the local people prefer to watch in the local language,” says Mai. “The movies on Star Movies, HBO and Cinemax are quite good but of course they’re
in a foreign language with subtitles,” says Thanh Mai, explaining that audiences don’t always grasp everything they’re watching in English. Othello Khanh of production house Crea TV says the influence of Korean and Chinese programming is also waning. “People used to love it, but [that was] because there was no Vietnamese programming,” says Khanh. “The Vietnamese decided to create Vietnamese programming … and now people want more as they discover that you can do local content.” Like many aspects of Vietnamese society, the television industry is both underdeveloped and growing rapidly. For nearly 30 years following reunification, only a handful of channels were available to Vietnamese viewers, but in the last decade, the number of channels has grown at a clip. Cable television, once primarily consumed by foreign diplomats and expatriates due to its prohibitive cost, was significantly reduced in price in 2005, giving local viewers even more options. Concerned with the ratio of Vietnamese to foreign content, the Ministry of Culture issued a decree in 2007 recommending that 30 percent of programming be made up of original Vietnamese serial dramas and comedies. Consequently, directors like Ha and Bao are in demand. Ha, a relatively young director at 34, has studied in workshops at the University of South California and in Europe, and has experience in the better-developed Thai film industry. After shooting wraps on his current project, he’ll fly to Singapore to get the ball
asialife HCMC 25
they’re making.” Achieving high production quality in Vietnam has been a defining struggle for Jennifer Ravolet, creative director for Yan TV. Launched last year, the local music channel has been able to set itself apart by investing in professional Coming up to Speed production and drawing on foreign expertise. Still, Vietnamese viewers aren’t ready to give “When everything is grey, nothing looks television producers a free pass. A recent great,” says Ravolet, referring to the drab article on VietNamNet reported that the nacolour in locally produced shows. “It’s a matter tional penchant for puns had been applied to of production, how you set up your lights, your a few flagging shows: We Are In Love, Really? set. It’s a matter of colour grading in post.” was rechristened We Turn Off TV, Really? and The premium placed on production quality Sorry for Love has become known as Sorry is in part what led Ta Thuy Minh, an entertainthe Audience. ment journalist turned talk show host, to Yan One of the biggest obstacles to quality TV. Her current VTV talk show, IME ("I am programming, says Ha, is local knowledge of me"), was inspired by Western-style formats like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and she has become known for “Nowadays, films are made quickly to challenging her celebrity guests more than is common on be broadcast in time. Many directors Vietnamese talk shows. When don’t even have enough time to review she began developing a lifestyle show, Yan TV was a natural fit. the editing” “I love it when they try to Dang Luu Viet Bao bring the audience something beautiful, something nice, something well-designed,” says production practices, particularly at the preThuy Minh. “I like that about Yan TV. Television and post-production stages. “In Vietnam, we needs that.” do not have a professional film industry,” says To achieve better quality, Bao points out Ha. “I have to fight with people in Vietnam. another asset that would help: time. They ask, ‘Why do I have to do it like this?’ “Nowadays, films are made quickly to be They don’t think [pre- and post-production broadcast in time. We have a rather short are] important.” time for post-production. Many directors don’t Bao also emphasizes the importance of even have enough time to review the editing,” professionalism on his sets, pointing to the says Bao. “Editing in every shot needs to be fact that his crew is able to carry on while he is checked carefully by the director. Especially in being interviewed. “In order to do that, it takes films in which sound is recorded directly, it’s a long time to prepare in pre-production,” very important to edit every sound and noise.” he says. “The script must be edited carefully Currently, that’s a luxury that few directors and even small props must also be prepared have, and until they do, says Ha, Vietnamese sufficiently. Each member of the crew needs television won’t be as good as it could be. to thoroughly understand the idea of the film "The film producers in Vietnam know how to
26 asialife HCMC
rolling on a documentary he’ll direct for the Discovery Channel. When asked how many Vietnamese television directors have comparable experience, Ha says, “At my age, not so many. Maybe four or five.”
improve post-production while making their films, but it's hard to do that by themselves," says Ha. "You can only improve the quality of film if you have a healthy and professional filming environment. We have to build up the market. If you want to keep fish, you must have a fish tank and clean water first." Making Ends Meet The time constraints placed on directors have much to do with the current funding structure behind most productions. In Vietnam, television stations do not finance programming, so production houses must turn to outside investors and then present the finished series to networks. Compounding the problem is that payment is made upon broadcast—often one year after filming wraps—so production houses can quickly run into cash flow problems. Today, there are about 60 production houses, big and small, in Vietnam, but television station expansion has outpaced their ability to create homegrown content. “The government is asking the TV stations to fill up 30 percent of Vietnamese content, but it’s impossible to fill it up now because we don’t have enough resources,” says Chanh Tran of Crea TV. Although Crea TV has the capacity and skill to provide production work for clients such as The Amazing Race Asia and MTV’s Road Rules, they’re not immune to the travails of the Vietnamese television industry. They’ve produced about 150 hours of television over three years, but the goal is to produce at least 120 to 150 hours of programming per year, spread out over three or more series so there’s always money coming in for the next project. That might not seem like much content, but according to Chanh, the maximum any production house in Vietnam is turning out is about 250 hours per year. To keep money rolling in, filmmakers have
to keep investors happy, which can affect everything from casting to production schedules. For example, investors prefer for wellknown singers and models to be involved, reasoning that popularity in one medium will transfer to another. For directors, this often means coaching amateur actors and actresses, as well as contending with their overlapping commitments to the stage and runway. When scheduling conflicts arise, budget problems follow. Currently, says Chanh, the average amount spent on an hour of television programming is USD $10,000, which he estimates is half the average in Thailand and one percent of the cost in the United States, where one hour of production easily reaches the $1 million mark. Those budgets in part explain why most television series are slated for about 30 to 40 episodes. “You cannot get the commitment of all the actors,” says Othello Khanh. “You get a contract for, like, three months to shoot the series. You don’t have the financial power to lock everybody in for five years.” Under good conditions, where the cast is able to commit fully, Bao and Ha both report that they can shoot one episode in two days, with an additional two days on either end for pre- and post-production. “If the film is just about the lives of the members of one or two families, it’s finished rather quickly, within about two months,” says Bao. “But if the film is staged in the countryside, all the crew have to spend time moving, so it’ll take a longer time, maybe three months.” Not an ideal situation, but for now it’s the status quo. Finding (and Keeping) an Audience Few expect change to come overnight, but everyone surveyed believes it will come. The last five years have been evidence of that. At
the dawn of the second decade of television in Vietnam, signs point towards a shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to strategies rooted in identifying market segments. That,
“We have different accents, cultural habits. So no one is really confident that they’re going to cover all of the market in Vietnam”
Ta Thuy Minh however, will be a challenge for culturally diverse Vietnam. “We have different accents, cultural habits,” says Thuy Minh. “So no one is really confident that they’re going to cover all of the market in Vietnam.” There’s also a line between older viewers, who tend to consume traditional programming, and teenage audiences, who have grown up with international-standard programming and Internet content. Since teens will be tomorrow’s audiences, it’s no wonder they’ve become prime targets. Yan TV is one of the channels trying to attract their attention. In lieu of qualified music video directors, they’ve turned to creative director Jennifer Ravolet to direct videos and devised an agreement that benefits both Yan and the artist: low-cost, high-quality production in exchange for rights to the video. “Producing music videos is not a core business of a television channel,” says Do Quoc Hiep, CEO of Yan TV. “But then what happens is you see there are not so many good quality music videos out there, and we happen to have someone like Jen in the company, so we do the job of the pioneer. We open another way for people to look at
how you produce a music video.” Hiep acknowledges that being a pioneer in Vietnam can lead to a slippery slope. In pushing the boundaries, Yan TV must be careful not to venture so far beyond them that their content loses its relevance. “The challenge is really remarkable,” says Hiep. “At first we had long arguments. Do we set a high standard and make the audience reach us, understand us? Or do we produce the content that they will accept? We came to a point where we said, ‘OK, the creative people like Jen, they are used to a high standard, but then you have to make your story understandable to local tastes.’” As difficult as it can be to resolve foreign and local sensibilities, Bao believes that international involvement is essential to the future of television. As a lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Theatre and Cinema, he says looking beyond Vietnam presents opportunities to supplement the young industry. “[The University] should invite some lecturers from other countries that have successful movie industries to come and share their practical working experience, as well as to teach several periods,” says Bao, adding that there’s currently a shortage of lecturers and few internship opportunities. Ha agrees that bringing today's students up to speed will make for better films tomorrow. "If workflow isn't good, it will also affect the next generation of filmmakers," he says. "Nothing carries over like mistakes." While help may come from outside Vietnam, real change will come from within. Bao and Ha both stress the importance of source material. You can throw all the money in the world at a production, but without a solid script that speaks to local audiences, a television show will fail. It boils down to a simple maxim, Bao says: co bot moi got nen ho. No flour, no paste.
asialife HCMC 27
