With a special knack for making award-winning local historical dramas while also collaborating with regional powerhouses, Singaporean production outfit Ochre Pictures continues to punch far above its weight. At the recent MIPCOM in Cannes, the firm’s creative director, Jean Yeo, announced that South Korea’s Page One Film (behind Move to Heaven) had acquired remake rights to Ochre Pictures’ award-winning series, Last Madame (2019). This makes the show the first Singaporean intellectual property (IP) to be adapted for the Korean market.
Just two weeks ago at the Busan International Film Festival, Ochre Pictures signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with South Korea’s One Entertainment, which had acquired rights to Ochre Pictures’ Café Verita, a drama series in development that blends romance and fantasy. This milestone similarly marks the first time that a Korean company has acquired an in-development Singaporean series IP. The drama centers around the mystical Café Verita, where its patrons can only speak the truth. Run by Im Hae-sol, who is on her own quest for the truth, she hires part-timer Jeong Woo, who is immune to the café’s powers.
Last year, Ochre Pictures also worked with Korea’s Studio Dragon to film an episode of Netflix’s Little Women in Singapore. “While we’ve done our local content, we are also looking to work with regional or international producers to go global, or at least to another significant territory,” shared Yeo, on Ochre Pictures’ strategic plans.
“I feel that our shows do make a difference. For me, it’s just super interesting to unearth things about our past and voices that people do not know about,” Yeo said. “There are so many other intriguing stories about Singapore. It’s just not in your textbooks.”
Amid this recent string of success and good news, Yeo admits that making historical dramas in Singapore remains an incredibly challenging endeavor. Firstly, historical dramas require a longer and deeper time of research. During production, they also require far more budget for costumes, set design, makeup and language consultants.
Secondly, show budgets from local broadcaster Mediacorp are relatively set in stone. “In the local context, we have a very different way of working. It’s not the international way where you get your finances and then you really piece up the budget that you hope to achieve because you have a vision for the show,” Yeo shares. “Here, you roughly know what kind of budgets they can afford, and then you work backwards from there. Sometimes you want to do more but you have to ask yourself if you are really willing to take the risk.”
Another challenge is the lack of interest from global streamers like Netflix in making original Singaporean content, although most have based their APAC headquarters in the business-friendly hub. “It’s very difficult for Singapore. Streamers are not interested in Singapore because we do not have the market size,” Yeo said. “They want to work in Indonesia and Thailand.”
However, Yeo remains upbeat, pointing out how her Best Asian Drama win for Last Madame at the Asia Contents Awards in 2020 generated significant media interest in the show in China and South Korea, which proved that high-quality Singaporean content can succeed regionally if given the chance. On its way to the awards win, the show had edged out red-hot titles like Korea’s Crash Landing On You and Kingdom 2.
On October 18th this year, Ochre Pictures scooped up several National Winner accolades (for Best Direction, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Production by a Streamer/OTT) at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2023 for Sisters of the Night. The historical drama is a prequel to Last Madame, and stars Gini Chang, Yusuke Fukuchi, Fang Rong and Zhang Ze Tong. Ochre Pictures also swept up three awards for its other series, Third Rail.
“I told myself that if I wouldn’t show a project to my closest and dearest, I won’t do it. I think that’s what has kept us going,” Yeo said. “I feel that our shows do make a difference. Like for Last Madame, it was about female empowerment. But for now, the themes that underlie a lot of my new shows are resilience and mental strength.”
Moving forward, Yeo emphasized the importance for Ochre Pictures to continue working closely with international collaborators to open up more markets and funding avenues for projects. Recently, Ochre Pictures received development funds from Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) for two projects on their slate. “Both are co-productions — one is with Korea and for the other one, I’m hoping to find a co-producer in the UK to do higher profile shows that can attract the international streamers. This is the direction that we are going in,” Yeo said.
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