Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 551 - How Did Hollywood Studios Cracked the Vietnamese Film Market? - Derek Powell

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551 - How Did Hollywood Studios Cracked the Vietnamese Film Market? - Derek Powell · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We are in the Bower's Museum.
0:04
[SPEAKER_02]: This is part of the Vitt Film Festival podcast series that I'm doing.
0:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I had Dustin here earlier and today I have Derek Powell.
0:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks a lot, Janice.
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to be back here again.
0:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was fun the first time.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to go through the same jokes, though, because we had some funny opening jokes.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I rarely hold paper anything while I'm in a podcast.
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to kind of let things kind of flow.
0:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is important because you walked in with this piece of paper.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't know these numbers here.
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I'm going to look down at these numbers to kind of trigger some memory.
0:44
[SPEAKER_02]: some ideas that I worked in theatrical distribution and film for a number of years.
0:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when you had talked about in the first podcast that this is what you did, I had to jump on this opportunity to talk to you because it's such a fascinating,
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: issue.
1:06
[SPEAKER_02]: To think about, this says in 2006, there was only like not even a million dollars that were that was generated from theatrical for movies and to see where it is today and I don't even think we're like even at the height of where this is going yet.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a really crazy, and you know, from pirate it this to a $213 million box office.
1:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for coming on and let's talk first about how you even got to be in the driver's seat for bringing information to and from Warner Brothers to the theatrical guys in Vietnam or Dallas because galaxies like run better.
1:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let me kind of go rewind back a little bit around when I first started at Warner Brothers, you know, as in Burbank.
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: The landscape, who's who how the business operates right in other time, it's called the wonderful video.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Later, it would be recognized as one of those home entertainment.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But the wonderful video was really the division of the studio that drove the home entertainment products.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So you think about the paper view, the business model, you also think about the time, DVD had just first come out, right?
2:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So looking at, you know,
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Understanding those market dynamics when was the right time to introduce these different products right to the market and then be able to capitalize on a perhaps a better and better quality video as well as additional
2:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I got the call from my boss to be able to go in and consider a role, a regional role for one of those brand new to be able to help support the regional offices we had in Asia.
3:01
[SPEAKER_02]: What year was that?
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: This was in 2002.
3:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Tooth, wow.
3:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, with two.
3:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So 2002, we had opened up a regional office in Tokyo.
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the only expat coming from Burbank.
3:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone else was local hires, which you know, back around the marketing and finance.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, you know, our GM was actually a gentleman by name of Koji Hase, who actually helped at the time who was with Toshiba, helped develop the patents and the technology around CBD.
3:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was really, really great team to be able to help
3:31
[SPEAKER_01]: winners, you know, footprint across the region.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: My first assignment amongst others was open up China at the time.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So we were looking at doing the China entry strategy and that was not just with home entertainment but also included theatrical and cinema.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had, you know, various groups looking at working with various Chinese government agencies and to be able to help drive a different kind of experience for the local market.
3:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Once we had a team in place in China, then the question was, we're also looking at the ground.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind you, the way that the business was set up was that you had licensees and affiliate offices.
4:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Licensee was someone that you would contract with to be able to distribute content, right?
4:11
[SPEAKER_01]: As a third party, the affiliate office view, your own staff that you would hire under, you know, we want a brother team, right?
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So the question was, why, you know, what other markets could we be thinking of?
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We were looking at Thailand for a minute, and then Vietnam came up because
4:26
[SPEAKER_01]: of their more openness around at the time WTO, fun flight piracy, they were doing all the right moves to be able to then open up their market to Western companies.
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
4:38
[SPEAKER_01]: When I first was looking at Vietnam, I was talking to everyone.
4:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, from a home video perspective, I wanted to know what content was already being distributed in market, and there's a few distributors that would license content out of Australia, but nothing really massive in that scale.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we also had, because of home entertainment, you had the supply chain infrastructure, you need someone to manage distribution as well as the manufacturing of these respective DVDs,
5:08
[SPEAKER_01]: obviously BCD was also very big.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So you wanted a quality of the actual pressing of those respective physics would have to be top-notch because again, as all about driving the right kind of experiencing one or four of the Vietnamese consumer in the audience.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So after going through all that, the question was, is there an opportunity, should we should we not hide the open up an office that we manage and run ourselves to be able to distribute content or do we work through a life and see?
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was where my initial research had really looked into.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We look at everything from the leading economic indicators, GDP growth, population growth, look at the demographics, looking at the infrastructure in terms of how these consumers were consuming, entertainment content.
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, you didn't have a lot of mega-plexes in Vietnam, to be able to help support the multiple screens and the wider distribution of the actual content.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You also had, you know, a very fragmented infrastructure to be able to support a lot of the things that you would need to, whether it be on the cinema side that they had to decide, even on the television side if you want to be broadcast deals right, be able to manage that.
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on the home entertainment side, which is a whole, again, whole entire division within itself in terms of what you need to have support.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You wanted to have some things in country because you wanted to avoid import duties.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But you also wanted to ensure quality.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a trade-off there in terms of what to do.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So this analysis, this research, was more around discovery and fact-finding, like, if I was able to go back to the bosses here in Verbank and talk to them about, like, this is what's happening in Vietnam.
6:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to go from the very basic data and facts and saying, this is the opportunity.
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, here's where we can be able to start to write that growth.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind you, again, that in the 2000s, it was a whole minute timet that was driving the revenue for the studios, not the actual and not television.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything was predicated on driving that growth.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, there's so many questions I have, you just really unleashed a tsunami here, home entertainment requires DVD, VCD at the time, and you're pressing it in countries so you can avoid duties and taxes, right?
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But what about pirates?
7:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let's talk about piracy.
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, why would you, why would anybody think that you can maneuver around piracy and press DVDs in country when this is like, legal, basically, on the street?
7:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So, who's very, so that leads to a whole different kind of conversation, right?
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So piracy, because there was no studio.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I did, you know, the major studio is here.
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Distributing content in Vietnam, we knew that it was 100% piracy.
7:56
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no legal or agreement with any distributor in Vietnam to distribute the content.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So we knew it was 100% piracy.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a couple of things we look at when we think about that.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the infrastructure of the country.
8:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have the legislative aspect, which is legal and legal to be able to inferring on copyrights.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want to make sure that you have the right controls in place and the right language and the legislation to deter the pirates.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But then what breaks down is the enforcement.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the problem.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, is it a criminal offense or is it a civil offense, right?
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we had one of those with one of the few students that actually had a dedicated anti-piracy leave, full lawyers that would go out and educate government officials and distributors in country around like, how do you deal and how do you manage right these different instances that come up right and how do you how do you work with these different agencies and countries.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to stop you first thing that comes to mind is like,
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm the Vietnamese government at the time, I'm thinking, where is the ROI in new control in this?
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, the enforcement of it, how is that bringing in money for us?
9:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it was about ensuring that, again, the dynamics around WTO, right?
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Vietnam wanted to be part of the WTO, so they had to abide by certain things.
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that is copyright protection.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: of IP, which included right movies as well as, you know, consumer goods and that kind of thing, right?
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there was, so there was an incentive for the government to be able to look and revisit their legislation, right?
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And how they were structuring, right, the deterrence, but also looking at how they were, you know, policing themselves, right, within country, to ensure that you didn't have people who were.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in the back, you know, overrunning, you know, inventory or, you know, going off and having these, you know, these, these, these, you know, in black market, you know, sort of operations, right.
9:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so, is more, but we were, help educating them.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They would, you know, the countries and themselves down to the police force and all the way up to the government would have to have the right.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: understanding and control to be able to support apparatus.
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And we would help with that, right?
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was for them.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: More of one, we can trust the government, and it's going to ensure that our content is not pirated, right?
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have restricting enforcement, and they have the right control to deter, right?
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, the professional pirates, and that's a different conversation, right?
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We're trying to get rid of the casual private, right?
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: The folks that are just doing this on the side hustle.
10:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other, but other dynamic here was that we also, very similar in our Chinese market entry, was looking at how do we work with the pirates?
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Because what they were looking for was, if you think about from the market perspective, you've got to give the audience an alternative.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so what authoritative could we provide that we could provide them with better quality video because you know this is not like in the back of the movie theater, right trying to you know film and record whatever's on screen.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a it wasn't you know a ripped version with you know with
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, foreign subtitles, right, or languages, right, kind of thing, right?
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, what we wanted to do was configure the product.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So that one, the consumer was getting a high value product.
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it may cost a little more, a little more.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also wanted to make sure that, you know, that to be audience and the market understood that by going and vying and purchasing legitimate product in these,
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: various distribution channels that they were getting a very good product in this day.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have the symptoms.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've got, you know, the matrix, like that, it's some other movie right from like Universal, but how did the pirates get the copies of these?
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard drives, you know, it's, you know,
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: people coming here, or perhaps even in a neighboring market, where it's shown theatrically before, it's shown theatrically in market, right?
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And be able to provide, right?
11:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's different ways of getting there.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So timing, proximity, and then, frankly, you've got a network of folks, right?
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: They're able to, you know,
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: acquire the video, acquire the audio, quickly do some voiceover translation, right, or narrative, and then boom, it's out in the market.
12:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we have seen hours, measured an hour, that day is a week, but hours, in terms of titles being, you know, shown theatrically here, and in the black market and in other markets.
12:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that,
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: time for you to do your due diligence on that.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Just that corner of that market alone.
12:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like a year or so to
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that sounds like the work before the real work of figuring out how do you bring into the article.
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me about that.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, part of this, right, was, you know, was stemming from my experience working in China, right?
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we do as a, as a, as a, figure team, we have access to a lot of data and information both in terms of, you know, mind you too, right?
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were working with, you know,
13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: hypermarkets in Europe that also had presence in China, so they would give us a lot of information in detail, right, in terms of what was sung, but wasn't selling right.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at the time, you know, there was a situation where a lot of these respective distributors did not want to share their point of sale information, but we convinced them and we were able to see what work would work, right?
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're also looking at testing campaigns, I mean, there's a lot of
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not it.
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, information, right, that you're going to be able to synthesize the systems, say, okay, well, this is, this is how I want to be able to, you know, enter the market, how do I enter the market, who do I partner with, right, and then be able to pull off that entire marketing plan, if I could then help to drive that.
13:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But.
13:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've got to have like a cross functional team that's going to be able to help know deliver that you need the anti-piracy team to go talk to government officials right you need to have the marketing teams to have the same team to understand how to sell into you know these respective hypermarkets right and train the respective individuals in terms of like what this really means in terms of you know the step function shift.
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: around distributing content from a supply chain perspective and operations right how do you help continue to educate right the manufacturing and distribution partners right that will then help support and drive you know better quality product right in the day right you get there's no compromise around that because we know that this is a a a discipline and a technology that does not warrant any error of you know manufacturing right so
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on top of that, right?
14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have all the business intelligence, right?
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: When we're just building out the respective reports and the team that would then help us provide us insights.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so that we can make better decisions going forward, right?
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So you had a very wide, cross-functional team that would all focus on,
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: driving and delivering this all at the same time and it was like just literally it's like okay you know what we're gonna kick off this project boom right we had everyone going in the respective directions and you know as sort of like the project lead looking at and determining what we need to do to be able to help support that so yeah before I launch it to my next question I am sitting here blown away like thinking Gillin Carolina in introduces and it was like really
15:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But I get to sit here and listen to the history you know, because I've wondered about this topic for many, many, many years, how did this all happen?
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I did so much gratitude that I've just expressed for you being here and sharing this information with me.
15:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm mind blown right now.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this is one of those times where I'm just like, I love what I do so much because, you know, you come here for one thing and then you, you know,
15:45
[SPEAKER_02]: There's benefits to this other world that opens up.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to know about the other studios.
15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So you at the time was consulting for one of our others or working hours.
15:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked.
15:58
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, your in-house at one of our brothers.
16:01
[SPEAKER_02]: What about the other six studios?
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a great question, right?
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So the studios, I mean, they, I can't speak for in terms of the level of interest, globally, but specifically in Vietnam,
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: you know the strategy we had in China was something we want to replicate basically where you had the play block we just want to replicate in different market.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the only difference basically is obviously the market dynamics and obviously the length of it.
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had those different pieces that we need to pull together.
16:27
[SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to a true colonial, a colonial, really it's a two.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: This is how you colonize countries.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, exactly there.
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had this playbook.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We sit there and said, OK, well, how do we frame this up?
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we know the right questions to ask.
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know what's going to get us to be able to be successful in marketing.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And we knew that even though Warner had the largest catalog amongst all the majors, it wasn't enough.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What was enough content because because look you know what I mean, you know, I think of the day in order to make the economics look right you're going to have I got to have access to to actually right so films and TV shows and you know one or only has you know part of what's the entire Hollywood studio brings to to market.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So our thought was, how do we figure out a way to be able to scale this?
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But at same time, make sure that we are legitimizing and we have do not do diligence around like what that market would be able to become based upon where its state current state is and what this feature potential was.
17:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't make sense to now, for how to do distribution deals, this is one of others, right?
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: On the home entertainment side, sitting there and going to a caramount, go to a fox.
17:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to Disney and say, hey, you know what?
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be distributing my own catalog in the NBITNOM.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you want to do a distribution deal with me?
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I could distribute Disney's product, right, and market freeing.
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not a new concept because the risk is borne by the district or us, right?
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus, you know, having a Disney, having a paramount goal instead of shop right and doing their own deals and doing their own research, right?
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that okay?
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, it's a small market right?
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did the same approach in China as well.
18:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very similar what we looked at trying to distribute other studios content.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they sign up?
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Some day, yeah.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think part of the success or part of the success criteria was getting enough content that would then attract all the various distribution, and those assistants say, oh, OK, God.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Because what you don't want to do is, you just don't want to have water content, right?
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't do the industry, we do it, right, from off.
18:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy.
18:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I would never think that.
18:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's thousands of titles at 2002 that WB owns.
18:54
[SPEAKER_02]: How could it not be enough?
18:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll look.
18:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you had other other franchises, right?
18:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Other content.
18:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, you know, it's also profitable, right?
19:01
[SPEAKER_01]: If you a first and market and you're able to set up this infrastructure, the like people, the like partners, the entry into the hypermarkets,
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And if a paramount or a fox were to come back and say at the time, I just did the foreign transaction, right?
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The other side of the transaction.
19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But...
19:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You come in and say, look, you know, at this other's cut you a deal, I'll give you distribution free.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And you go ahead and distribute my content.
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an easier lift to be able to get your legitimate content in market than it is that everything else.
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done the heavy lifting, right?
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so part of it was saying, look, we want to do good by the Vietnamese market.
19:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also want to ensure that it's a profitable venture for the organization.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we had to run those numbers constantly.
19:43
[SPEAKER_02]: fascinating at what point.
19:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, did you guys ever break through and go, okay, we're going to be able to press DVDs and be some.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a couple of, because Vietnam, we didn't have a, then we didn't have any licensee of distributor in place, right?
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So typically what you would do is that you would partner for help.
20:01
[SPEAKER_01]: identify a licensee and market.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, a third party you would contract with, they would be responsible for delivering, you know, you know, your IP across across the country.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So they would then have to go and find, you know, their own manufacturer, their own distributor, they would trust right, you know, we would come in sometimes and qualify those respective manufacturers because it's again, a very, very nuanced technology, right, an engineering and manufacturing line that you need to be able to, to understand.
20:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But more importantly though, I think was the fact that by going with the licensee model initially, you get the learn with the licensee, right?
20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So you take some risk off, right?
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, I think I've done all my homework.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Before I go in and invest a lot of money and building up a market, I'm going to go and do, I might have a third party in there, see what's there, what's not there, and if it works out well, maybe we will acquire the licensee, maybe we'll start our phone.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I first came out to Asia, in my original assignment, that's what happened in Taiwan.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a licensee in Taiwan, and there was a decision to be made where we're going to open up our own office, staff our own team, right to now be able to distribute the content.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very similar model for one of our little times, but it also provided a learning of something opportunity, and to really test that our hypotheses that we thought about this
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the actual was a little bit different, right?
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the cinema side and the actual side, right?
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That was typically each individual division.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, mind you too, which I'm early 2000.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, home video was sort of like spearheading, right?
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The respect of market entry into these markets.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Television and theatrical would sort of typically fall asleep.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: China was a little bit different because we wanted to build cinema between wanted to be able to distribute the
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: is a big market and there's a lot of different hands and if you want it to build theaters in China?
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so there was an actual group within one of us that actually will go and build cinemas.
22:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And where they called?
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I just identified things that were like in the winter cinema.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't see them.
22:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because it's crazy because we are blocked here.
22:19
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't vertically, you can't be production, distribution, and exhibitor in the U.S.
22:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is crazy because now Netflix is actually, right?
22:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you've actually, like, has nobody thought about that?
22:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is something monopoly rules have blocked for 100 years.
22:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden Netflix comes along.
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They're so vertically integrated.
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That now they have a control on the entire market.
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I think when you look at like the cinema piece, right?
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's also a business agent, right?
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this, we see a lot of stuff in Australia, we saw some of it in Asia as well.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, cinemas is one of the smaller groups within the Warner Brothers studio at the time.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it was another sort of another card we could play, right?
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: In terms of how we were deepening our investment in China, right?
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It was this another way of saying what we're committed to making sure that this market is, you know,
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: working in the best interests of our IP at the same time, you know, providing great quality content to your, to your, to your, to your country.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so from that perspective, right?
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, the, the thought was was, you know, use every card you can, not every market was getting you just building cinemas, right?
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But if home video had their done their, have it lifting, right?
23:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And done their analysis and research.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the other respective divisions would be able to follow suit, right?
23:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And be able to leverage that those learnings, right?
23:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, with us having a licensee and sometimes converting a licensee into now and affiliate market, that definitely helped as well.
23:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So in home entertainment, it goes on for how many years to cross this over to theatrical exploration?
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so yeah.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I didn't mention was there was just a lot of coordination between home entertainment and theatrical intelligence, right?
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you had these things called windows.
24:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, which basically is sort of like a roadmap on how product is distributed across various channels, right, throughout its life cycle.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say, for example, we take like the Harry Potter, right, it's going to go into the theatrical window, right, and may stay there for, you know, 12, maybe 15 weeks depending on, you know, the performance, right, and then you may have another window between that and say, for example, home entertainment, right, you may have
24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know a smaller window around like airlines ride and hotels right so that's that's typically where they lie and then you have like the extended you know home entertainment window Right, and then from there you have like you know, you may have a television window ride and that kind of thing.
24:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean TV content a little bit different.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, yeah, first run and it goes in this indication you had that entire life cycle right it's very different but every piece of my feet has their own respective life cycle
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Stage right in terms of where it's at and then depending on what's days there are in their life cycle You would then have to coordinate right with the respective folks right so for example One of the things that going into China as well as going to Vietnam Sort of tested us a little bit was testing those windows because they were hard windows right so if I had a theatrical title in market
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I was almost every time guaranteed a 12-week window.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't matter how well that particular IP performed in the theaters, right?
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I would guarantee what, I may extend it, but I was given through all this.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So what you see now today, which is more of a dynamic window, right?
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So depending on the financial performance, you may have a situation where this particular piece of IP will be,
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: and we three or four, and then you see a big drop in cliff.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's a decision to say, I need to monetize this IP, so you may bring up that string window right today in today's terms.
25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, the idea was that you're always looking at and guided by when you could be able to release.
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And that then had its own entire project management scheduled right in terms of when you needed content and assets you needed to be able to then develop,
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: the DVD master to build, you know, manufacture of distributes and get on March the right on a particular street day.
26:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember another, I mean, I can't remember ever when things were 12 weeks.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it just feels like it's 12 weeks and you're out.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, exactly, right?
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that so?
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: How could they have stretched to do it?
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, also too, right?
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're talking pre-COVID.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking where, you know, cinemas, you know, we're trying to find innovative ways to be able to increase the revenue, their overall balance sheet, you know, by providing like, you know, new experiences in cinemas.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there was a lot of experimentation going on.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, how do I, you know, how do I keep and, you know,
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sort of an unspoken rule is that, you know, no one across the studios knows what street date or what they have to date, right?
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: These different movies are fine.
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, there is, there's some intelligence that they're gathering, right, to be able to understand like, okay, well, you know, I'm not going to have two temple titles or from two different studios on the same weekend, but that doesn't really work, right?
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone's sort of maneuvering around.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's some intelligence happening there.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But the idea here is that you want to be able to maximize the discretionary funds that consumers are spending in the theaters.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: right, not just in concessions, but just take a South, get their butts in the seat.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And you want it so that if they're not able to come in during the first few weeks, right, they're still a trail.
27:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a good example is like the Odyssey.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That was just going to bring it up.
27:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly, right?
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you look at, you try to find the ticket to go watch it and I'm at.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always sold out.
27:42
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what it's like.
27:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to be in the movie theaters for a very long time.
27:46
[SPEAKER_01]: A long time, because just the way, I mean,
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: this director and love his work, but I think the idea here is that you look at that information at data and says, hey, look, there is still strong consumer appetite for that for people to see this in the theater, right?
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And the theaters change and they need to be able to dynamic, right?
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Figure out like, okay, well, now I've got few schedules, but good, of course, right?
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: The theaters are always hungry for more content, right?
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: To be shown on the theaters.
28:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, under screens.
28:14
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the first title do you remember that Warner Bros. are under your watch was brought
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's a tough one.
28:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's enough to be exact, but I just kind of want to, I just kind of want to place ourselves in that window.
28:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
28:30
[SPEAKER_02]: No pun intended, but yeah.
28:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to kind of put ourselves in that historic period to see sort of like how it performed.
28:39
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that feeling like in, I don't know, 2005?
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the sort of the temperature read at the time?
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think there's a couple things.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: One is that when you think about sort of the time period
28:51
[SPEAKER_01]: when all this analysis is one of which is like, you know, the early 2000s, you know, we were just coming off of, you know, the matrix and that whole trilogy, right?
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, there's some films after that.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But the matrix really sort of helped drive a lot of the awareness and education for the markets right to understand it.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And it opened a bit, no?
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I mean,
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that the actual slate in Vietnam, but I will tell you that when you look at like some of the major franchises like the Harry Potter franchise, I mean, if you're familiar with the content, you know that like there's multiple volumes of books that will come and the way that it was structured was that there will be multiple movies according to that whole entire agreement.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, you start to build these franchises.
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We're really strong merchandising.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really strong brand recognition, right?
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That would didn't carry that particular piece of IP to a different level.
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, you know, I think one of the things I think for me that was really sort of eye-opening was, you know, there was always an appetite for Western content, but you know, I also saw this emergence of Vietnamese films come up as well.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And the perception I had, it's a wrong perception, unfortunately.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: The perception I had with a lot of Vietnamese film and produced by filmmakers was that it was always based on the lore.
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't want to walk another war movie, right?
30:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've watched all those in the 80s and 90s, right?
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to watch them.
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's sort of like deferred me a lot of it, right?
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was in market, then I was talking to,
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the respective theater owners and operators are like, oh, wow, this is very different.
30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Learning more about how the country was trying to build up their creative parks, the media, in this area.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, I can't pinpoint a specific, you know,
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, title right in Vietnam, I would tell you that there was some licensing going on but not very much and it wasn't a scale and it wasn't again, you didn't have like the major, you know, megaplex that you have today.
30:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, you did have one off right that that did happen there and you know whether you lived in you know, South Vietnam, Central and North right would pretty much dictate whether or not if you got an opportunity to go by to get to walk that particular thought.
31:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we talked about this idea of like bundles, right?
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You buy my Harry Potter, but you have to pick up these other 20 titles or whatever.
31:19
[SPEAKER_02]: The kind of like the equation in the film business is really make one or make 10.
31:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And hopefully that one will take off and really pay for the babies, the younger siblings of the studio.
31:35
[SPEAKER_02]: How does that play out in those early days in Vietnam, like sending these big titles, and then you have, I mean, are were there little titles that had to follow?
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so typically the way that works, right?
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have an infant country distributor, right?
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Outside of the affiliate, I think that's a different sort of business model, but when you look at the affiliates, that would typically bundle, right?
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: These respective titles, the other, well, you didn't understand like the financial, you know, dynamic they were on that, right?
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they are given a slate of titles that are going to be released in the next 12 months right during their budgeting process right and it's up to them to be able to provide and submit a minimum guarantee.
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm minimum guarantee that I can be able to deliver this amount to you, who's doing the MGs, the distributors, or the exhibitors, the extra, the, the,
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: the, well, actually, basically any third party, right, that's looking to a district to acquire this title.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're giving you an MG. That's right.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, exactly.
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, that, that, that's late, right?
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Made have a, you know, two, three, four, tenfold titles, right?
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's there?
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They can sit just like, oh, okay, God.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I know which, which type of that, you know, that are going to be my blog clusters.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, right, they've got to put in numbers, or at least it has to be around the other title that either lesser, lesser,
32:51
[SPEAKER_01]: known, or this is a rom-com, I know won't do very well, but I got from the number anyways, right?
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So typically the students will take the highest minimum guarantee because that's how it works, right?
33:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're also like,
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: doing the licensee of disservice because now they're under pressure to deliver those funds to you, right?
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And in order to do that, you've got to buy a certain amount of inventory to make those numbers up, right?
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you have too much inventory, right?
33:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if I'm an accounting perspective, it looks with a bad, right?
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You find yourself upside down, and a lot of that.
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So what they do is that, you know, the
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The stores would come in and say, hey, well, I think I like the Harry Potter one.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I like these two rom-coms.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's actually like, I don't want anything else.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last thing would come in and say, wait a second here, if you want the Harry Potter, you need to take these other 10 titles.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to sell you the Harry Potter.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, you kind of like step now, unfortunately, they're the retailer.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's stop with this inventory because they know we'll move.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The less you move, what you would move, right?
33:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But because of this over-commentment on the minimum guarantee, they've got to be able to push this into marketing.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where, like, I get like, you know, I feel like sometimes the business model itself doesn't work in the best interest of the IP because, you know, every title has its, you know, market value and, you know, and then.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: in order to win the distribution rights and country for that, you get put up a high minimum guarantee.
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes, you know, it's just a way, what's your alternative though?
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right?
34:19
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the terms, you don't distribute, right?
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So you lose out on that.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But now you're, now you're going to move with the creative way to be able to now, you know, make up for that, right?
34:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just a lot of pressure.
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It just does, you know,
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: For any title, that is not a temple.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes it very, very difficult.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We can honestly get very developed.
34:36
[SPEAKER_02]: The film industry is a tight, it's worse than the food business, I think.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all those business I spent decades in and I just like when I think about the tool of it, it's just because it's so fickle, right?
34:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so fickle like nobody is forcing anybody to go eat at this restaurant or go watch this film.
34:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're both necessary, like I have to go watch Odyssey.
34:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to go eat at the steakhouse, but I mean, the bets are all off.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nowhere, there's it's impossible to kind of predict these things in a way.
35:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I think the studios in the restaurant business is like, well, you gotta make this stuff on spec, which means you're putting up money to make, I mean, if you think about like a shoe factory, I mean, you're making like, you're putting the stuff,
35:26
[SPEAKER_02]: hundreds of millions of dollars on one movie, which is like the size of a shoe factory.
35:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Go on, I wonder if people are going to buy shoes.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's exactly what I think about.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think too, right?
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, part of that, that was then, right?
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That was physical media, right?
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Things have changed so much now, right?
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Streaming me is very different, right?
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I can stream content into Vietnam, have all the respective agreements without having a third party in market.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just the way that the cloud, the various processes, right?
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, you know, we can get into like what's changed, what hasn't changed, but I feel like, you know, the more you get into digital streaming, right?
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You have more relying on the technology infrastructure, but if that is mature enough and sort of markets in certain areas, you know, you can actually operate for form very well there, without having a dedicated team on the ground, right?
36:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask a touchy question because we got to move along, um, this is a little touchy.
36:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think studios care about domestic films when they were coming in at early days and we're like, you know, we're going to dominate this because we don't care about the domestic production.
36:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I'm on the indie side making like these scrappy movies about like hip hop and psych on and Hanoi and I'm just like, you know, these big guys
36:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really a colonial model if you think about it right your your leverage of understanding like as an MBA person or whatever your language is right now it's it's so much more over leverage than anybody in that space trying to figure out how to deliver.
37:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there is some group, for example, us at Warner, we did have a group that was focused on acquisitions.
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does that mean?
37:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That means that we could go and purchase distribution rights from independent filmmakers.
37:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another equation for that, because you guys sit there and say, well, this is half global appeal.
37:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, am I going to be able to make the money off of this, right?
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And the answer is mostly no.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of laser's hard, it's a very hard business, right?
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that, you know, and yeah, I think we wanted to did that because, you look, you know what, it helps to industry as a whole, right, to raise the bar, right?
37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: In terms of the various types of storytelling, right, that any particular film make for a creative way, I mean, want to be able to, you know, exercise, right, in terms of telling the story.
37:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And being able to have access to like a massive engine,
37:53
[SPEAKER_01]: like like like like like a major studio is great.
37:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, there are some of those, you know, respective, you know, what is why you, you go to can, you go to these other from festivals, right?
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And these deals are being done, right?
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: All the time, during these festivals, or these gatherings, where, you know, you want to be able to have, you know, content,
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: that provides, you know, not just a domestic view of like what an action hero looks like, right?
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Or what a love story looks like from a U.S. perspective, right?
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of different pieces of content there that just needs, you know, a little bit of attention and redistribution and, you know, they can get the right deal, they'll make it happen.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, I think when you look at something like, I often do this a lot where I help students understand like a difference between like the expansion of Disney versus Netflix.
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when you think about Disney, Disney has their catalog, everyone knows the Disney catalog, right?
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if I'm going to go and expand geographically, right, it's all about me going in and saying, okay, well, I've got this deal in place.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the infrastructure that the team had won on the ground.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Boom, right, I'm going to take my technology platform and just extend it just a little bit to be able to now accommodate just any market that I'm getting, right?
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I have access to all the content, all the localization, right, that's required any censorship, right?
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: all that, all that history and data and information and metadata is on the support of that particular market.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That fits the difference.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: What Netflix does is that they'll go into a new market and what makes Netflix successful is having local content.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how they drive subscribers.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
39:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, before you had Netflix originals, you didn't have, you didn't have a lot of you.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They were licensing content from the other studios, right, to now, you know, stream.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And they still do that.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But in this case, here, not only do they have their own originals, right?
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also felt like, in part of their success was being able to acquire.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Local content so that now that local market will be able to stream that local content and if there's an opportunity to be able to get global rights Guess what now that content now is now available in any other market of which Netflix is able to distribute to
40:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, you may have seen on Netflix that there have been, you know, a couple, you know, French TV series.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, we're just come from, I've never heard of this, right?
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, they've been around.
40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's decent content.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you know, I get used to the sub-titles, and maybe the language a little bit right.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, this is actually decent content.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there are different ways and how the streaming technology has sort of opened up doors for a lot of those smaller independent filmmakers.
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: while these studios continue to build upon their existing catalog.
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that, for them not to care, I don't think that is the question.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the red question is, how important is local content in order for them to be successful in that perspective market?
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And as they meet two different ways of how studios are looking at that.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, from somebody who is not, you know, I don't have a whole lot of depth and understanding of the business today.
40:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Nor have I ever had that much, but just sort of like a basic understanding of streaming in Vietnam versus theatrical.
41:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It just seems like a very different ecosystem, but I have a feeling that when streaming is fully blowing up in Vietnam, it's going to kill the theatrical business like it is here.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll tell you that, you know,
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Back in 2006, like I mentioned earlier, right, it's all about home entertainment, right?
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: DVDs, VCDs, you know, and you have Lou Ray, right?
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: How is different, like, in a format's coming out and everyone else is sort of, you know, tracking off of home entertainment.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think today, the way it works is, you know, you still need cinema, but you're gonna skip over to streaming and I think that equation is gonna be the better equation for the Vietnamese market.
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like, you know, there are some movies you gotta see on the big screen.
41:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, you guys see it, right?
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.
41:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what, you need sci-fi, action flick, right?
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Even they has a lot of special facts, visual facts, right?
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're going to want to see that on a big screen, right?
41:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I need to see a rom-com on a big screen?
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's debatable, right?
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, no, you may be a big fan of this specific, you know, stars are in that, too.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I think you can sit there and, you know, and say, it's like, hey, looking up my box office overall, it's going to be smaller for a romantic comedy than it is, going to be for an action suit, correct that.
42:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you don't think it's going to take over, or you don't think it's going to destroy it.
42:15
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think the cinema experience is very important.
42:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially Vietnam, because it's so damn hot.
42:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And all these young people, they live with their mom and dad.
42:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, well, we gotta place, you know, we gotta go somewhere with our date.
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's right.
42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think for market like Vietnam, it works very well.
42:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, you know what I mean, you know what there's, there's something to be said when you go in and you're watching this content right on the big screen, right?
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, I know that there still continues to be investment in the cinema business with the actual business, which is great.
42:42
[SPEAKER_01]: There's still expanding.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: There's still been.
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great.
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's the bet, right?
42:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that, you know, you're going to have very unique experience in the cinema versus watching it at home, right?
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you're in your device, right?
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's going to be the right equation for.
42:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's crazy.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what the exact numbers are.
42:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I think about like, when I was in distribution, I remember there was about four to 5,000 screens in 2012 here in America, I think there's like 4,000 screens in Vietnam now.
43:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's like a neck neck.
43:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think there's been a lot of, you know, when I went to go visit, I remember two down the same.
43:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you go to a theater.
43:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not like, there was not a destination you want to go to a theater.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It was hard, it was like, it was like, it was stuff that's even better than here.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The experience is much better.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Much better.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the more they can capitalize upon that, I think the better, right?
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be able to continue to milk that the actual windows.
43:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love it.
43:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the fact that you can go watch a movie in Vietnam and be in the theater.
43:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like a cooling place.
43:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you need a place for young kids to go where they're living through generations in a house.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, exactly.
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you've got, oh, you know, you've got IMAX, right?
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got all these other, you know, various theatrical technologies, right, that enhanced that experience, right?
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we know from here, right?
44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got to dine in experience, right?
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, all these various aspects, right?
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Just brings a different level of,
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: engagement and the draw of people to come to the theatre.
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a very good thing.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of emerging artists that are trying to grow this particular part of their ecosystem should take a page from Vietnam's done from their playbook and try to replicate that.
44:25
[SPEAKER_02]: At any point in that those early days, do you think you were sent to Vietnam because the people know that yet Vietnamese heritage in New York?
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, not my leadership knew.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that why they sent you or... Actually, so initially, after I finished with China, I went to Thailand and I'm looking at the time market.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time in parallel, I was also looking at the Vietnamese market.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was doing those in parallel because it was looking at the same data.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I just needed to be able to break apart and make sure that there is a business case for each.
44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you my research in Thailand that got short, only because at the time the Prime Minister was under a lot of pressure.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Social pressure and political pressure, because he had, you know, he was all pretty much exiled, right?
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: on the country at that point.
45:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of uprising, as well, in Scotland, with different factions and different religious groups, unlike unbombing that like retailer, I mean, there's no time to be going into a market like that.
45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So we ended that fairly, fairly, fairly quickly.
45:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Vietnam analysis continued to go.
45:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And then once all that now is done, we worked with our international office in London to be able to take on the range and now be able to now.
45:43
[SPEAKER_01]: deploy the right agreements and the right infrastructure support that market.
45:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So wow that's um that's amazing.
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's really good.
45:52
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, time market Vietnamese market.
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a difference in box office numbers.
46:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, look, you know what, I mean, you have to understand, right, there's a culture involved, right?
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Vietnam had just been through two major conflicts, right, with French and with them, with their Americans, and so, you know, there's still healing from all that, you know, there's still trying to figure out like what re-unification looks like, you know, you still had a lot of,
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, again, with the WTO, essentially, right, you still wanted to, as a country, one do the right thing, right, and Vio to be open.
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Thailand was already there.
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think from their perspective, right, they didn't have to go through major conflicts.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what you would find, I think, on the theatrical side, and what really works with that particular market is, is, you know, this high films, right?
46:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They're very prized folk, a culture, right?
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when, when,
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I was observing when, you know, there was a Thai mobile company that was sold to Singapore.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was really, really upsetting to the people, right?
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, how could you sell
46:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, high property, right, doesn't make sense.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And they did never gone through that process, right?
47:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Were they, Thailand's never been occupied for another country or anything?
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when you look at some of this, where there's a lot of pride and culturally, you know, for them, right?
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they would flock to, you know, the theaters.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing I did learn though, which is, you know, again, we've talked about piracy earlier.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: If the communication from the Royal Family,
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: was this title will not be pirated.
47:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You would not find that's because I really, I was shocked, I said, wow.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that came up from the royal family, right?
47:39
[SPEAKER_01]: From whatever messenger, right?
47:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And you would not find that content, pirate it anywhere in that market.
47:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And why didn't the royal family say that about every people?
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, say you last other thing, right?
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, part of it may be self preservation, but part of it is that, you know, look, you know what, when you deal with the monarch, right?
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to get into like a day-to-day life, and the government, that kind of thing, right?
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you have a prime minister, you have the cabinet, right?
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone's going to do what they need to do.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But if there was a film or a party that was funded by the Royal Family, and interested in it, very, very.
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, very, those little nuances, again, you know, this is like what I hear, right?
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I do something you say yourself like, wow.
48:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is very interesting.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very dynamic and, you know, and particularly, you know, when you go into a movie theater in Thailand, I will tell you,
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing you do is that they play, you know, that's the National Anthem, the photos of the royal family, and everyone stands for everyone's family.
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's there for every family show.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The preamble, before it starts, is that right?
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I remember when I grew up on a military base, we would go to watch the movies on bass, they would play the Anthem, we all stood up for it as well.
48:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't a new to me, but today,
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you go to an ANC or an adversary or we go, you don't, you don't see that.
48:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Ain't nobody doing that.
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Ain't nobody doing that.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was doing it, right?
48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Half the room is still sitting, right?
49:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't actually do it.
49:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is what it is.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have a riot.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not doing that.
49:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I think, again, it kind of goes back to culture, right?
49:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes back to like being fightful and respectful for those who, you know, who, you know, who are trying to portray the Thai culture in a very positive way.
49:18
[SPEAKER_02]: When did you feel like Vietnam's box office, the theater, theatrical, or people movie going audience got it, began to understand, like, oh, this is the way we consume this product.
49:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think social media really helped accelerate that quite a bit, right?
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Now mind you, people weren't filming, right?
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to movie theaters, but to be able to translate that what that looked like, right?
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It ended the day with something that was very, very cheap.
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but no, I'm going to go back.
49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, when you have social media, right, you had this now platform of influences, right, to be able to go and talk about their experience, right, in the movie theater, right.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, there's a faster way to get information out.
50:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a faster way to be able to go and engage, uh, you know, the, the casual, you know, um, you know, audience member,
50:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I say, oh, wow, this is very interesting.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But our weather is promoting a place, right?
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's very, very low, low lift in terms of being able to help educate a wide mass of people around, like you experience.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And that, I think, helps drive that engagement, right?
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, when you think about going to like the dark room, right?
50:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you're stuck in the seat, right?
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: For two, two and a half hours, right?
50:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's a lot of connotations that come.
50:33
[SPEAKER_01]: with like, do I really want to go do that or do I really want to experience that right?
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that all I'm going to be doing it?
50:37
[SPEAKER_01]: My I'm going to stay home and watch that home, right?
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And luxury of my own couch and my own family.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you start adding around all these various, you know, marketing promotions where I had the experience you had right going in.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it adds a different layer.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the next generation coming in is really helped to ride that.
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have a generational pivot and you also have like now this technology pivot that then helps to simulate this information widely.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think when that came out, that's full well.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you know, there's different ways of being able to not to stay home and watch, you know, watch this movie.
51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I can have a very different experience of more engaging perhaps even,
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: better experience when I watch it with my friends and my colleagues or whatever may be right in the group to be able to now experience that right in a very different way.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So just all about the inspiration and content.
51:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Today is so special.
51:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I had Dustin here in your seat earlier and today I have you in the seat.
51:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Both of you are veterans in the film business and being able to see all of this and
51:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to invite all of our audience to if you have a chance, watch more of Vietnamese films, and if you have a chance to really participate in the vid film festival because that is so important.
51:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you Derek for coming today and I appreciate you.
51:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Nham.
51:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I imagine you worked with licensing a lot and definitely want the problem of you who run into a censorship.
52:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for the past, you know, for the past say it's two decades, have you seen any improvement in censorship?
52:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say just imagine when we first thought out was first important, like, lesson childhood series, there would be a lot of like,
52:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I imagine there's not been a lot like a pool pool to speak with some high all because the government might not understand this, but you think it has changed today.
52:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think those are fighting words to the government.
52:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's not get banned, but I'm just kidding.
52:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, I can't do it.
52:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't do it.
52:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a great question there.
52:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think censorship is very interesting, right?
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're looking at how do you, and you know, there's someone's making a decision or a body making a decision in terms of what content can it kind of be shown to that today audience, right?
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to give you an example and China that I would put back to be enough.
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: In China, when Harry Potter came out, it was initially banned.
52:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of witchcraft.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But you get the right people aligned to the right understanding of what the movie is, then you can sit there and say, ah, okay, we can now be able to show up here and talk to the Chinese.
53:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, so there's a little bit of, I won't call it Greyson Wheel, and it's not a financial.
53:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more about how are you able to work the process and understanding of what you need to have.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there's, there's aspect in terms of, this is banned, you cannot show this film.
53:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and market versus you can show this found which you need these edits.
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Take this out, take this out there, so in these stacks and smoke and drinking, like that kind of thing.
53:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, every studio has their edit list right in terms of what's acceptable and market will not.
53:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's very, that's very common.
53:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But given sort of like the materials that you're given to provide for submission, sometimes that's not even like to finish product.
53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, you have some way to be able to work with that.
53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Vietnam, I think one of the things
53:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that needs to be done if we're looking at trying to get more Western films and market is to be able to have that sort of similar structure.
54:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You need an advocate to be able to help, you know, the deciding body to understand, oh, okay, you know, this is not what this means, right?
54:09
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, this is, this is how you should understand it.
54:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there's that education process, then there is the additional consideration in terms of whether it is a full van or, you know, there is restriction, right, or edits that mean you made.
54:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't go into the details around this, but I think a good example is to look at Barbies.
54:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Barbies was banned in Vietnam.
54:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, good reason.
54:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
54:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think, when you look at that, and you're considering to say yourself, okay, so, was there is there a way where someone could have helped?
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: At least understand of what could have been what they're the alternatives for outside of just the entire movie being banned versus not right and and I think that's where like when you get into censorship right it's a government regulatory body right so you got to work with them right you got to.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to do you need to good to fight them, but the idea here is that you want to be respectful and you want to ensure that you're in compliance with what they have approved for that market.
55:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The hope is that there's not a whole entire slate of titles that will go through that will be rejected or banned or require major edits that take away from your story life.
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: yet to be cognizant in terms of look, you know, if I know that this is going to be, you know, a horror film that's got all these different elements to it, right?
55:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to sit, I'm not going to submit this for a clue of a full distribution for you to know this is the high degree or high probability is going to, you know, it's going to.
55:34
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, be rejected.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but if there is, you know, if there's a movie like targeting, which appeals to a wider demographic, then yes, it just says like, well, okay, am I missing something here, right?
55:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What is, what is, what is really the rub and how do I now be able to now either recent it?
55:49
[SPEAKER_01]: why you get some reconsideration around that, right?
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, education process, how you interpret that without being disrespectful for their rules and guidelines that started in front of it?
55:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, I think that Nambrot Berber, very good topic.
56:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But that could go on for a whole episode.
56:03
[SPEAKER_02]: How censorship has changed about the years in Vietnam?
56:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And really, what is the kind of the,
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: approach to the future because they are changing.
56:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But then how much of this has really hindered the box office money.
56:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but you know sometimes you know there's no price to be paid when you're trying to protect the culture, right?
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And what you show you would what you show your audience, why you're people from that for sex.
56:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, you know, if there are films that portray a majority of pornography, do I really want that, and I'm really to sacrifice that, you know, maybe it doesn't make sense, right?
56:43
[SPEAKER_01]: To be able to pursue that.
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, look, if there is, like, incidences of, of, of, of, of, of,
56:48
[SPEAKER_01]: scenes where you have smoking or drinking could you edit that out and does it still maintain life that intent of the producer?
56:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can, right?
56:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's that's more like this.
56:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got to be like someone's got to be on the forefront on that, right?
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone's got to be a proactive advocate for ensuring that that particular, you know, film or that particular submission right gets through without.
57:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But do you do watch a lot of films?
57:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I try to.
57:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you do.
57:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I love hearing that.
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you do.
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
57:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I actually, no.
57:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a rule.
57:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's some of my substance rules, but most of Hollywood movies, I won't watch until it gets on streaming.
57:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be too critical during the theatrical.
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that there is like thing that they're seeing on the effects of, like, I can't.
57:27
[SPEAKER_02]: How many films you watch a month?
57:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually increased over the past year, you know, anywhere between 20 and 30 films.
57:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a month, a month, yeah, it's a lot, yeah, but you know, I've got, I've gone towards more of the independent films.
57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so, you know, you have, you know, you have to switch into all the major, you know, PowerPoints, but I'm really looking for like the smaller independent producer right and really what their angle is, right?
57:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for me, you know, there's a different sense of authenticity right and the fact that you knew or the fact that you know that this is not back by big dollars right or if you're on the studio that can come in and be able to come in and have, you know, last edit right to your film.
58:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think for a lot of these independent filmmakers right, that's really where
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You get like sort of like the wall and, you know, the honest feeling around like how they want that particular country to be portrayed.
58:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, that's been sort of the deal.
58:21
[SPEAKER_01]: When I'm on international flights, I try to watch all of the international films right as much as I can.
58:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I did four from Europe to LA.
58:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I never do that, but I mean, there's so many good films out there.
58:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you just have to.
58:30
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
58:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can't wait to watch the Odyssey on the plane, just kidding.
58:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
58:57
[SPEAKER_02]: in our episode today versus like anybody oh, you have like a high word count.
59:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You speak fast, you speak a lot.
59:05
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of volume that comes out of your mouth.
59:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I really appreciate it.
59:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so much knowledge.
59:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you probably speak twice the amount of word count that the average guest does.
59:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.
59:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
59:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I'm in a career stage now, when I want to be able to help this many people I can't.
59:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's filmmakers, those who want to get into the industry right, those who're figuring out how to pivot in the careers right to get into the industry, you know, I feel like, you know, I've seen a lot.
59:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been through a lot, you know, and, you know, and to get back, right?
59:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, to be back.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this is this one of many ways.
59:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Derek.
59:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And we will party hard tonight.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
59:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
59:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
59:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, everybody.
59:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
59:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.