XZV Studio made its debut at Hong Kong Filmart, together with Malaysia’s production studios and broadcasters.
Since our inception, every space we enter gets a shock from our presence. We’re in animation, started from a pilot of an animated series. Within a few years, we readapted our assets and story into gaming format, allowing our big toe to step into the gaming sphere. This year, we landed in Hong Kong to attend Filmart under FINAS Malaysia Pavilion, representing a slew of partner studios work and ourselves.
Across the spaces, we get asked: “Why are you here?”
Our studio is a stubborn whack job that believes in original storytelling with high-technology. Traditional filming, making games and animation are costly – so costly, in fact, it’s difficult for new names, no names to start. Indie is the category and Indie is restricted by mileage. Building anything of scale requires a large team of thinkers, problem solvers and executioners. There are many pieces that have to fit together for production to churn out a product. It’s easy to pay for hire work around your vision, I guess…
Timo and I are the people you pay to put your vision together. We’re the ones you go to to make life easier, so it is in our habit to always see problems first and find solutions. We came together to build XZV Studio and have it “both our ways” – a vision to build to our expertise, reputation and dreams. We were not just a pay-for-hire studio with no opinion, we understand our backyard and the people who make dreams come true on anything.
There is something very gritty and hard-earned about our presence in all the markets. We write and build our stories to travel. We didn’t design ourselves for one endgame, because staying true to ourselves, we love many things. We own our time and what we do with it, that makes a difference when facing a saturated market of stolen make-beliefs.
Films are hard to produce in Malaysia, and harder to sell. My delusion for chasing commercial export has been widely tabled, but it does warrant a study considering how ballsy we are to dream so big. Who are we, right? Upon going to HK Filmart, I grounded my team that “we are nobody from nowhere.” Whatever we have done in the years before and who walks with us, we do our best for the friends we play with. Our studio is packed to the brim of modern technology, creative thinkers, and techniques untapped by all medium.
We know this because we are on these engines with our aspirations.
Perhaps it’s being silly or just the right amount of ambition, we attended Filmart entirely focused on seeking funding for our projects. We have prepped for weeks, sidelining the capabilities of XZV Studio because I kind of think it’s arrogant to boast. Journalism has kept my writing confined to representation rather than invitation. Turns out, the trade of filmmaking is presenting all of you in a snapshot.
In the start-up and marketing world, it’s all about retention – less slides, better outcome. In the creative world, it’s storytelling – give everything. We are very proud of our ecosystem and the partners we play with. Somehow, our dreaming these years drew out a space for us on our own among filmmakers.
To us, an IP is not just one industry – it’s a friend and a culture for everyone.
We continue on with our dreaming,
Vivian Syc