Asia Pacific’s top production company draws rising talent into its fold.

Home-grown regional production network Directors Think Tank (DTT) has always opened its doors to budding creative talent keen to lead the industry one day.

With so much experience and expertise in its ranks, it is poised to help train young hopefuls become industry professionals of tomorrow.

If you are familiar with Celcom Axiata’s 2019 Merdeka TVC Getaran Pertama, Pantene’s Wanita Besi, Tokopedia Indonesia’s Ramadan spot, or the latest global Coca-Cola PSA TVC For the Human Race you get the idea.

But DTT Co-Founder Rajay and his team of shining stars stay behind the scenes, “We produce commercials, creative content, documentaries and the odd music video, but we let the work speak for itself.”

This twice Kancil Production House of the Year, has seen “action” from the inspiring landscapes of India for Petronas to the misty farmlands of Hungary for Unilever, and struck amazing partnerships with some of the best talent in the world.

Apart from TVCs, they have expanded to produce long form content starting 2019, with their first feature film last year and the Film Division team is going strong with a few projects in the pipeline.

Two years ago, Japan’s leading production company AOI Pro. Group acquired a majority share in DTT bringing some serious creative firepower into the mix.

COVID-19 opens new ways of working with global talent

The new PSA campaign for Coca-Cola was a global project that broke new boundaries in collaboration.

“The challenge was unreal – having to produce this without being able to leave our homes. This life-changing project involved teams from so many countries,” said Heng Tek Nam, DTT’s Executive Producer in charge of the project. 

DTT is also bringing back the art of claymation into the industry by representing two claymation artists, US-based claymation artist Mr Oz and
UK-based Aiden Whittam across Southeast Asia.

Working with world-famous director of stop animation and model maker Aiden, DTT teamed up with him for agency Imaginary Friends on the Play Your part campaign – a series of cheeky claymation videos that highlight the importance of following new safety protocol on production sets post Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO). 

Whittam known for Puppet, a short film that has been shown at international animation festivals, works remotely from his home in Bristol, UK, while collaborating closely with DTT.

Another happy accident that happened during MCO saw Singapore-based Clare Chong join DTT’s existing roster of 13 in-house film directors.

She’s a young film director whose works include short films, music videos, documentaries, commercials, experimental films, video art and installation pieces.

Technology to drive talent development

While DTT already represents some of the world’s most talented and dynamic directors, the hunt for young talent continues…

According to Rajay, the COVID-19 lockdown has taught them the importance of leveraging on their resources “that “fostering young talent is not only necessary but essential”.  

With growth in mind, they invested in their own Bolt robotic arm motion control and phantom hi speed camera bringing a new standard of high speed shooting now available locally.

In creative-director speak, this means a phenomenal range of creative possibilities like high-speed capture, synchronised motion for extreme precision timing, interface to augmented
or virtual reality in real-time,
and more…

DTT has also acquired a post production house during MCO, completing their suite of full-service offerings. This allowed them to take in fresh graduates to learn first-hand the finer points of film-making, fusing talent with technology.

When borders finally open, all these creative platforms and talent are poised to swing into action with the aim of “putting Malaysia as the preferred shooting location destination”.

Rajay concludes, “We need to keep our heads down and keep pushing as we have some really exciting developments in the pipeline.”

To view Directors Think Tank latest work, click here.

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