It is no secret that Les’ Copaque Production Sdn Bhd founder and managing director Burhanuddin Md Radzi is irked when his former employee,Nizam Abd Razak, mentions publicly that he is the creator of “Upin & Ipin”. Nizam, who quit last year, is promoting a new series BoBoiBoy.
The bad blood between Burhanuddin and Nizam runs deep over certain issues. As such, it is understandable that Burhanuddin wants Nizam to cease using for publicity Upin & Ipin and Geng — Les’ Copaque’s flagship animation series and movie.
“I am upset that they keep leveraging on Upin & Ipin’s success to push their product. They are not the creators, they are just part of the original team. Upin & Ipin was developed jointly by the team at Les’ Copaque,” Burhanuddin told [email protected], which had, in December, published an article on Nizam’s new venture.
“Also, I feel Nizam does not have the right to comment on our marketing strategy with regards to marketing Upin & Ipin. Likewise, I do not believe he will like it if I comment on his product and marketing strategies,” he adds.
Nizam was part of the original team that put together Upin & Ipin and Geng, the movie. But to say who is right or wrong in claiming credit as the “creator” is best left to the experts.
To recap, Nizam and seven of the original team left Les’ Copaque to set up Animonsta Studios Sdn Bhd last September. Its first product is BoBoiBoy, which tells of the adventures of BoBoiBoy and his friends, who gain super powers to fight aliens who invade earth for coffee.
The departure of Nizam and the others has done little to disrupt Burhanuddin’s plans for Les’ Copaque.
After hitting box-office pay dirt for Geng and gaining recognition for Upin & Ipin, Burhanuddin is looking at making a new movie and another season of the series, and at a co-production partnership. He also plans to expand the presence of the characters via a kopitiam (coffee shop) type franchise business as well as an interactive theme park.
There is already an international investor who is keen to invest in the new movie, which will feature Upin & Ipin as the main characters, he says. “If the investors are coming in, our approach to the movie will be tailored to international markets. It will cost a lot. We are still negotiating terms.
“The budget for our next film is RM6 million because we want to try new technology, that is, 3D,” he says, adding that the new movie is targeted to be ready by middle of 2012.
In the Geng movie, Upin & Ipin made special appearances with limited roles. But because of their popularity, the company had to make a lot more changes to give them more screen time.
“It cost us RM4 million to make Geng and we got a RM1 million grant from e-Content fund to partly finance its making. We did not receive any financial assistance from the government for the Upin & Ipin series. We managed to get a sponsorship deal from Telekom Malaysia for last year’s production. This year, there has been a lot of interest shown by big companies in sponsoring the series,” Burhanuddin says.
He adds that the fourth season has been sold to Malaysia’s TV9 and TPI in Indonesia. The new series will begin airing in March.
Burhanuddin expects to recoup his initial investment by next year, which will put the company in profitable position by then. Les’ Copaque posted a turnover of over RM7 million last year, with Geng raking in RM6.3 million while Upin & Ipin grossed RM1 million.
“The deal with TV9 is a two-year broadcasting licence with a fixed price per episode. In Indonesia, the deal is revenue sharing based on advertisements. In total, we are getting much more revenue from Indonesia due to the popularity of the series. Apart from that, we have collected more than RM1 million from the Upin & Ipin series after it was released on DVD.
Last year, Les’ Copaque completed 42 episodes of Upin & Ipin, changed the format to seven minutes and included more universal content instead of focusing on Islamic content.
“Based on the first 18 episodes, although the series was a hit with Malaysians, we found it hard to sell globally because of the Islamic content. Hence in the 42 episodes, we decided to not put in too much Islamic content. Instead, we went for universal content while still retaining moral values. We are negotiating to sell the third season to Turkey, Kuwait and other Middle-East countries,” he adds.
Upin & Ipin is already being broadcast on TPI and Disney Channel, which is showing in 17 territories including Southeast Asia as well as Korea and China.
Burhanuddin says the company is also starting to get enquiries from TV stations around the world, but price remains the deciding factor.
“We will not be selling the programme just for the sake of selling it. We have started sending the series to the Latin America markets this February and hope to see some results. In India, we are dubbing the film and television series into Hindi and 11 more languages for release in the Indian market,” he adds.
Co-production proposals
More excitingly, Burhanuddin says the company plans to undertake a co-production venture. Currently, there are two proposals on his table — a yet-to-be-launched TV series by an international player and a film with a Chinese partner.
“One is a very high-profile TV series that is yet to be launched but has already been sold to a big international TV station. Under the co-production proposal, we will invest and do the entire animation while the story telling, script, and so on will come from the partner. We will also share the intellectual property rights to the series worldwide,” Burhanuddin explains.
For the other proposal, “the partner is an animation studio like us. They want to do co-production with us. We are looking at both proposals but will only take on one,” he adds.
Currently, Les’ Copaque employs about 70 people in various technical capabilities and plans to increase the workforce to 120.
After developing the animation business, Burhanuddin aims to build a gaming side as well. “I also plan to introduce Upin & Ipin games in collaboration with UiTM. We have set up a dedicated team and UiTM is helping us on the content. We want to focus on mathematics in our games.”
If he manages to replicate his animation success in gaming, Burhanuddin hopes to attract more people to become game developers and play a role in helping to develop the sector.
Moving forward, fans of Upin & Ipin may get to see more of their favourite characters in various venues and formats, from a kopitiam business franchise, an interactive theme park and even plans to build a food factory in Sungai Petani to manufacture Upin & Ipin snacks.
“We are still working on the concept to build an indoor theme park in Alamanda shopping centre in Putrajaya. It will be more like Petrosains — an interactive experience, and not just focused on rides.”
Several parties have shown interest in the project, including Khazanah, although nothing has been discussed yet. If there is no sponsor, Burhanuddin will personally fund the project.
Suffice to say, Les’ Copaque has its hands full despite its management issues last year. This Year of the Tiger will see the company roaring with more projects and hopefully creating another hit.
This article appeared in [email protected], the technology section of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 792 Feb 8 - 14 2010