Strange Symphonies The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

15Malaysia

15Malaysia has just launched, and it marks the end of a project I have been working on for the past few months with the famous Pete Teo.

Upon beginning the project, I was informed by my colleague Razlan that we were going to meet Pete Teo. Having not heard of him, I asked Razlan more about who he was, and what the project was about. Apparently Pete Teo is quite famous. Apparently he made a project last year called Malaysian Artistes for Unity which became quite well known and liked by Malaysians, none of which I knew about. Apparently he was planning for something big this year, and apparently we were going to work with him.

Pete Teo's pet project, was called 15Malaysia. 15 short films about Malaysia, from 15 famous Malaysian directors.

Besides being just a basic website, hosting 15 short films, their making of, and their descriptions, we wanted to be able to expand the project even more. To make it even more noteworthy.

MyMalaysia

Living in the Web 2.0 world, the hippest thing to do is allow the user to participate in the creation and evolution of the website. Hence leaving them feeling more personally attached. User Generated Content, is where the world is currently at.

I pitched the idea.

There are more and more aspiring film makers out there, and living in the digital age, film production has become cheap. Film using your with your video camera, put it together on your home computer, upload it to YouTube. You can even make produce masterpiece with the latest mobile phones out there, all the way up to distribution (usually via YouTube).

What if, users could participate by creating their own short film. Everyone has their own opinions on Malaysia. Why limit it to just 15? I like that.

But what if, instead of the project being called 15Malaysia, what if it changed as more users submitted videos. I really liked that.

We would get more short films, from more directors, and the project isn't limited to just noteworthy directors. Everyone can participate in the project. Not only should a few peoples view be considered, but everyone. I was sold.

Interested in contributing to the 15Malaysia project? Make your own video, follow the instructions at the sidebar of the MyMalaysia page, and after the review process. Your video will be displayed.

Malaysia Truly Asia

Malaysia is a multiracial country, and being so, it has naturally been a multilingual country to me. Though Malaysians like promote our diversity, major Government websites were primarily in Bahasa Malaysia, or English. Leaving out the Chinese and Tamil speaking demography. It always unnerved me leaving them out, as personally I would love their participation. When ever I run events, I always feel I am indirectly discriminating different communities as English isn't their strongest speaking language. My discrimination is unintentional, it just happens because I can only present myself in English.

15Malaysia presents itself in English, Melayu, 中文, தமிழ்.

This isn't just limited to the website, it also works on the video itself. How many malaysian websites can say that they do just that?

Bigger than Yourself

This project isn't just about 15 short films. As the late Yasmin Ahmad said at TEDxKL, to be great, one has to be bigger than yourself.

Hopefully 15Malaysia will teach other Malaysians just that.