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Hello there,
Growing up, you inevitably develop a variety of dream careers. Mine were like most people’s: astronaut, ballerina, archaeologist, and rock star, among many others.
One that stood out was filmmaking. I fell in love with the medium the first time I watched Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 film Cinema Paradiso. I was sure I’d become the next Orson Welles. Granted, I was really young and naive.
A few months later, I picked up the Wimpy Kid Movie Diary, which chronicled the filmmaking process behind the screen adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Suffice to say, my dreams were crushed. I hadn’t known just how much work went into producing films and TV shows.
With precarious project flows, hellish call times, and financing problems, navigating the traditional industry alone is tough. Compounded by the difficulties of new distribution methods such as over-the-top platforms, creatives face a lot of hurdles.
In this week’s big story, my colleague Collin dives into Hooq, the Singtel-backed video streaming platform that went bust in 2020.
Though the firm has been defunct for three years now, creators that had partnered with Hooq have still not yet received repayments for the work they’ve completed. One production house says that it’s owed over US$150,000 and has not yet been given any updates on Hooq’s liquidation status.
This has left these filmmakers – along with several others – in debt, pushing them out of their craft and into multiple jobs to make ends meet.
In other news, my colleague Nikita speaks with Atlas Capital about the VC firm’s scientists-backed climate tech plans for Southeast Asia in Making Waves, while I detail an update in text-to-video tech in AI Odyssey.
— Shadine
THE BIG STORY
Filmmakers trapped in Hooq’s nightmarish liquidation: Show us the money
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Creditors of the Singtel-backed video streamer say they haven’t received their repayments, and there’s no word if they ever will.
MAKING WAVES
AI ODYSSEY
NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW
FYI
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