24 aslife

HCMC

aslife

HCMC

Local audiences remain critical o Vietnamese television,but it’s hard to deny the demand or homegrown content.

Tom DiChristopher

speaks to industry insiders aboutdelivering better programming in Vietnam.

I W A NT MY V NTV

The house is a typical residence in a younghamlet o District 7. The açade is a mixo local tastes and provincial Europeanourishes—Chateau Vietnam. Behind theexterior wall a tangle o motorbikes occupiesthe courtyard. The street on which it is locatedis too new to have been named.Inside, however, the scene is anythingbut typical. Crew members dart aroundthe ground oor, carrying flm equipment. Amakeup artist touches up Dai Nghia, whoportrays the husband o the household, orhis next scene. On the next level, one o thetwo bedrooms o the hallway is ooded withset lighting, while the other serves as a controlroom, presided over by young Vietnamesedirector Nguyen Manh Ha. This is not a home at all, but the set o anew television series called

May Rau Lam Vo

(

Mr. Housewife

).It’s immediately clear that Ha is busy thesedays. He excuses himsel intermittently duringthe interview to issue directions into a walkietalkie, and his gaze never strays ar rom thepair o monitors on which the scene acrossthe hallway unolds. Across town in a ar-ung neighborhood o Tan Binh District, the atmosphere is similar onthe set o

Vu Dieu Tinh Yeu

(

Love Romance

),the latest serial drama by veteran directorDang Luu Viet Bao. On any given day, Bao willwake up at 7am, shoot until the evening andaterwards edit the ootage shot the previousday. Then it’s back home to work on scriptsor prepare a new project beore turning in atabout 2am. This is the lie o a Vietnamese television di-rector. Until recently, Ha and his crew workedabout 14 hours per day, seven days a week.Ha lobbied the project’s investors or a six-daywork week, and they eventually relented. Witha slight smile that betrays irony, he says, “Iwon.”

A Love Affair with Foreign Content?

One could be orgiven or overestimating thenational taste or oreign television program-ming; surfng through the 65 channels nowcommonly available, movies and soap operasrom China, Korea and the United States inparticular still occupy the airwaves much o the day.“The general perception is that the Viet-namese love oreign-made products and wedon’t really appreciate our country,” says Tran Thi Thanh Mai, managing director o mediastudies frm Kantar Media. As evidence against this assumption, Thanh Mai points to the success o SCTV7,a relatively new channel that ocuses onprogramming steeped in Vietnamese culture,including

cai luong

, or traditional opera. Ac-cording to the People Meter system, whichKantar has used to track viewership in HCMCity since 2008, SCTV7 has consistentlyoccupied the top spot this year. In total, fveo SCTV’s channels have cracked the top 20,and other Vietnamese channels like Vietnam Television (VTV) and Ho Chi Minh City Televi-sion (HTV) are also dominating.“Like in any other country, the local peoplepreer to watch in the local language,” saysMai. “The movies on Star Movies, HBO andCinemax are quite good but o course they’rein a oreign language with subtitles,” says Thanh Mai, explaining that audiences don’talways grasp everything they’re watching inEnglish.Othello Khanh o production house Crea TV says the inuence o Korean and Chineseprogramming is also waning. “People usedto love it, but [that was] because there wasno Vietnamese programming,” says Khanh.“The Vietnamese decided to create Vietnam-ese programming … and now people wantmore as they discover that you can do localcontent.”Like many aspects o Vietnamese society,the television industry is both underdevelopedand growing rapidly. For nearly 30 years ol-lowing reunifcation, only a handul o channelswere available to Vietnamese viewers, butin the last decade, the number o channelshas grown at a clip. Cable television, onceprimarily consumed by oreign diplomats andexpatriates due to its prohibitive cost, wassignifcantly reduced in price in 2005, givinglocal viewers even more options.Concerned with the ratio o Vietnamese tooreign content, the Ministry o Culture issueda decree in 2007 recommending that 30 per-cent o programming be made up o original Vietnamese serial dramas and comedies.Consequently, directors like Ha and Bao arein demand.Ha, a relatively young director at 34, hasstudied in workshops at the University o South Caliornia and in Europe, and hasexperience in the better-developed Thai flmindustry. Ater shooting wraps on his currentproject, he’ll y to Singapore to get the ball

26 aslife

HCMC

rolling on a documentary he’ll direct or theDiscovery Channel. When asked how many Vietnamese television directors have compa-rable experience, Ha says, “At my age, not somany. Maybe our or fve.”

Coming up to Speed

Still, Vietnamese viewers aren’t ready to givetelevision producers a ree pass. A recentarticle on VietNamNet reported that the na-tional penchant or puns had been applied toa ew agging shows:

We Are In Love, Really?

was rechristened

We Turn Off TV, Really?

and

Sorry for Love

has become known as

Sorry the Audience

.One o the biggest obstacles to qualityprogramming, says Ha, is local knowledge o production practices, particularly at the pre-and post-production stages. “In Vietnam, wedo not have a proessional flm industry,” saysHa. “I have to fght with people in Vietnam. They ask, ‘Why do I have to do it like this?’ They don’t think [pre- and post-productionare] important.”Bao also emphasizes the importance o proessionalism on his sets, pointing to theact that his crew is able to carry on while he isbeing interviewed. “In order to do that, it takesa long time to prepare in pre-production,”he says. “The script must be edited careullyand even small props must also be preparedsufciently. Each member o the crew needsto thoroughly understand the idea o the flmthey’re making.” Achieving high production quality in Vietnamhas been a defning struggle or Jennier Ravo-let, creative director or Yan TV. Launched lastyear, the local music channel has been ableto set itsel apart by investing in proessionalproduction and drawing on oreign expertise.“When everything is grey, nothing looksgreat,” says Ravolet, reerring to the drabcolour in locally produced shows. “It’s a mattero production, how you set up your lights, yourset. It’s a matter o colour grading in post.” The premium placed on production qualityis in part what led Ta Thuy Minh, an entertain-ment journalist turned talk show host, to Yan TV. Her current VTV talk show,

IME

("I amme"), was inspired by Western-style ormatslike

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

,and she has become known orchallenging her celebrity guestsmore than is common on Vietnamese talk shows. Whenshe began developing a liestyleshow, Yan TV was a natural ft.“I love it when they try tobring the audience somethingbeautiul, something nice,something well-designed,” says Thuy Minh. “I like that about Yan TV. Televisionneeds that.” To achieve better quality, Bao points outanother asset that would help: time.“Nowadays, flms are made quickly to bebroadcast in time. We have a rather shorttime or post-production. Many directors don’teven have enough time to review the editing,”says Bao. “Editing in every shot needs to bechecked careully by the director. Especially inflms in which sound is recorded directly, it’svery important to edit every sound and noise.”Currently, that’s a luxury that ew directorshave, and until they do, says Ha, Vietnamesetelevision won’t be as good as it could be."The flm producers in Vietnam know how toimprove post-production while making theirflms, but it's hard to do that by themselves,"says Ha. "You can only improve the qualityo flm i you have a healthy and proessionalflming environment. We have to build up themarket. I you want to keep fsh, you musthave a fsh tank and clean water frst."

Making Ends Meet

The time constraints placed on directorshave much to do with the current und-ing structure behind most productions. In Vietnam, television stations do not fnanceprogramming, so production houses mustturn to outside investors and then presentthe fnished series to networks. Compound-ing the problem is that payment is madeupon broadcast—oten one year ater flmingwraps—so production houses can quicklyrun into cash ow problems. Today, there are about 60 productionhouses, big and small, in Vietnam, but televi-sion station expansion has outpaced theirability to create homegrown content.“The government is asking the TV stationsto fll up 30 percent o Vietnamese content,but it’s impossible to fll it up now becausewe don’t have enough resources,” saysChanh Tran o Crea TV. Although Crea TV has the capacity andskill to provide production work or clientssuch as

The Amazing Race Asia

and MTV’s

Road Rules

, they’re not immune to thetravails o the Vietnamese television industry. They’ve produced about 150 hours o televi-sion over three years, but the goal is to pro-duce at least 120 to 150 hours o program-ming per year, spread out over three or moreseries so there’s always money coming in orthe next project. That might not seem likemuch content, but according to Chanh, themaximum any production house in Vietnamis turning out is about 250 hours per year. To keep money rolling in, flmmakers have

“Nowadays, flms are made quickly tobe broadcast in time. Many directorsdon’t even have enough time to reviewthe editing”