MDA & Fremantle Announces Three S’porean partners2 min read

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The Media Development Authority of Singapore and US-based FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) have announced three local production houses as their partners at MIPCOM yesterday.

The agreement generate US$12 million (as agreed upon in the agreement announced last April) from projects by Imaginary Friends Studios (IFS), Oak3 Films and Ochre Pictures in a bid to raise the profiles of these three media companies, and to produce content beyond local shores.

Said Dr. Christopher Chia, CEO of MDA, “IFS, Oak3 Films and Ochre Pictures
are three promising media companies. Their partnership with an established player like FME will further raise their company profiles and fuel the creation of more high-quality Made-by-Singapore content aimed at the global market.”

IFS is a a concept art, comics and illustration production house hosting artistic talent from Southeast Asia in its Singapore and Jakarta studios. The studio has built up an impressive clientele that includes marquee names such as DC Comics, Electronic Arts, Marvel Entertainment, MTV, Nokia, Sony, Top Cow and many more. FremantleMedia Enterprises became the first international media company to land this development deal with IFS, and together will produce content specifically for television, with the chance to extend to other applications such as gaming.

The agreement with IFS will last one year, and will also seek to exploit Singaporean comic book talent for the international market. A number of drama series will also be developed based on characters designed and conceived by IFS.

For Ochre Pictures, the agreement is to produce content related to travel and cooking. Extreme Cooking is one such programme centred on the planting of an established chef in various environments and cooking methods.

This partnership also brings about the production of an informative programme called Tribunal Warming, headed by Oak 3 together with FME and MDA. This programme will be a travel documentary that goes deeper into travel and living overseas. MDA and Oak 3 have also plans to collaborate with producers from three other countries on a global multi-platform documentary called Extinction, a six-part series in high definition, featuring endangered species.

It is the first four-way joint venture between France, Singapore, Brazil and Canada.