Toys Metropolis ISSUE 003


original text:

THE HONG KONG LOCAL CREATIVE INDUSTRY

Why did you ask for copyright from the movie to produce flgures? Was it because you are a big fan of the movie ?Or did you do it just to make business opportunities with movie effect?

We think that there is room for improvement in terms of quality and technology for movie related figures now available in the market. Many manufacturers still hold that traditional concept of toys are just toys's. Some even take it purely commercial and finish it off quickly. They do not understand the perfectionist attitude of the toy consumers. DID want to break these concepts and let consumers feel our passion and persistence on making toys.we want them to understand that we, too ,are looking for better toys .

Speaking of LOTR III , we ourselves love this epic. But the main reason of producing LOTR figures was that we admired the director of the film. You can imagine how many difficulties he encountered, and the time he spent, just to make this piece of art. There was only one goal behind his passion and persistence: He wanted people to feel his passion of creation while watching this movie. This is what when we established DID. We want people to know that DID is also a toy lover and feel our passion and persistence in making toys.

What difficulties or problems did you encounter while negotiating for copyrights from the movies?

Difficulties were inevitable as we worked for perfection and we wanted to achieve better results. For example, all the things must be censored by the copyrighter .It involved a lot of time and procedures. It was also difficult to keep delivery time in control .In short, there were times when we were in the passive role.

How did people react to the figures? Was it related directly or indirectly to the screening of the movie?

Positive. For example, all infernal Affairs III’s figures were sold in pre-order stage before they could make to the market. Pre-ordering for LOTR III was also several times over the quota. Hong Kong may only be able to get a hundred sets or so .We are still working at the distribution arrangement.

This has little to do with the movie coming up or not because they are classic themselves, like LOTR III has won all the different Oscars already. The movie itself is a perfect piece of art and so its figure series becomes precious collectibles. Besides, figure itself is not a product that requires good timing.

Has copyrighted figures replace designer figures and become the mainstream in Hong Kong figures?

I doubt it because both have room for development in Hong Kong. Like DID ourselves have both copyrighted figures and our own designed figures. We also have fashion have fashion items like X-Boy, BMX, Golf or even sport series.

Will you try to get copyright from other movies for making toys? Why?

Of course, we will. DID will not let go of any good worthwhile movies because it can both satisfy the desire of collecting figures of the fans and also increase our publicity. There are negotiations going on right now. Just wait and see!

-- From <<TM>> ISSUE003