Competitive And
Sustainable Industry
content and talent
A lynchpin of MDA’s industry development strategy is to ensure a constant pipeline of new talent for our media industries. In the year in review, MDA ran several programmes to uncover new talent and nurture budding artists.
Last year, a total of eight individuals were supported under the Film Mentorship Initiative (FMI). FMI is aimed at grooming promising Singapore filmmaking talents by exposing them to inspiring and intensive environments where they can be coached and mentored by experienced screenwriters, directors, producers and script editors around the world. Filmmakers supported under FMI include Anthony Chen and Feng Kexin for Golden Horse Film Academy, Boo Junfeng for Jerusalem International Film Lab, as well as Tan Pin Pin and Tan Bee Thiam for Rotterdam Lab.
On the music front, MDA and MediaCorp organised a second joint call-for-proposals for local composers to write TV theme songs for MediaCorp dramas. This initiative is part of MDA’s efforts to develop the local music industry by giving local composers a chance to showcase their works. Successful proposals will also receive up to S$8,000 in funding under MDA’s Development Assistance grant scheme. One of the selected works, (幸福不难) by Serene Koong, became the theme song for MediaCorp’s Channel 8 mid-year blockbuster drama serial, The Dream Makers (志在四方). This song went on to win the 'MeRadio Top Downloaded Hit Award (Female Artiste) Award' at the 18th Singapore Hit Awards, held at Suntec Convention Centre on 22 November 2013. A third call-for-proposals was held in February 2014.
To nurture budding songwriters, MDA, together with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA), continued the partnership with Ocean Butterflies Music and Funkie Monkies Pop Music School to run Professional Music Career Programmes in 2014.
(Photo courtesy of Ocean Butterflies Music and Funkie Monkies Pop Music School)
MDA also identified and supported aspiring media professionals by sponsoring their studies. The Media Education Scheme (MES), which supports new talent in areas like filmmaking and producing, gave out four scholarships last year, bringing the total count of recipients to 186 since its inception in 2003. Two of the recipients, Daryl Bong Aik Tong and Louisa Tang Qianrou were co-sponsored by media companies (SingTel and MediaCorp), while another two, Chiang Wei Liang and He Shuming were supported under the MES (Film) category, which allows recipients to be mentored by local filmmakers for two years after their studies.
Besides the Media Education Scheme, MDA also supported 175 media practitioners with work attachment programmes to gain on-the-job learning as well as 530 others for specialised media courses.