Manner Production: Pioneer of Online Short Films in Macao

Manner Production is a web media founded two years ago. At the beginning, its comedy web series was a real hit and got over 140,000 Facebook likes. Recently, Manner Production has started to make commercial promo videos. To its founders, Sixtycents (alias) and Jacky Lei, Manner Production is both a business and a hobby. They expect that the resounding success they garnered in Macao is just the first step towards something bigger – the global market.

Sixtycents and Jacky Lei were born in the 1990s. Sixtycents is an amateur magician and Lei is an amateur filmmaker. Usually Sixtycents is the person to put ideas forward, while Lei is to convert ideas into a reality. At the stage of inception of Manner Production, neither of them thought of making money out of it. It’s a leisure activity and they did what they loved.

“I recalled that at the very beginning, we made a music video Looking Back out of fun. We got very positive responses in two weeks after we uploaded the video on the web. The video is about our childhood toys, our first love, and the mistakes we made when we were small. Netizens love it, and we made a name for ourselves because of it,” Lei said.

Spreading Happiness with Creativity

Riding on the success of the videos released, Sixtycents and Lei founded Manner Production accordingly. They decided to use “Flavour of Happiness“ as the campaign slogan and started making nine-second comedy short films. “Up to now our strongest mission is to spread happiness. Comedy is one source of happiness and it’s also the most popular type of short films we have. However, we believe that there are different types of happiness. Feeling warm and sweet is one of them, and being inspired also counts. We now try to make different types of films to let our audiences get different types of happiness.”

Sixtycents pointed out that most of the people in Macao are conservative, so comedy can’t go too far. Prank shows may not be Macao’s cup of tea. Comedy short films suit people in Macao the best, and they are sure to bring happiness to the city.

Recently, the same cast appears in Manner Production’s shows regularly. The founders of the company believes that by doing this the actors and actresses get regular exposure and people can easily identify that the films are the company’s productions.

“Now we have five actors and actresses and we are their managers. The model of artist management is similar to those in our neighbouring cities. Actors and actresses get no pay for casting. They get honorarium instead. It’s because we are in collaboration with each other. We hashtag them once we upload the videos on the web. Actors and actresses get popularity and we can continue to operate our business. It’s a win-win situation,” said Sixtycents. But he also worried that talent shortage is still a problem, no matter it’s the cast or the crew. Fortunately, people tend to know each other in Macao and it’s easy to seek help from friends whenever necessary. That’s why so far Manner Production can be run smoothly. “If possible, I would like to make ten videos a day. Of course, we need more manpower and creative ideas to do it,” said Sixtycents.

Opportunities Abound on the Internet

Now all of Manner Production’s videos are released via internet platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Weibo, a microblogging website in the mainland, is used, too. Both Sixtycents and Lei said that it’s a right move to invest in internet branding, as the impact of old media has started to decline. They believe that the internet is the mainstream media in the future.

“People living in urban areas mainly rely on the internet to get information. Similar to youtubers in other places, we kickstarted our business on the internet. Using resources on the internet is indeed the way to go,” said Sixtycents. But he also pointed out that although the internet is a good value tool that allows them to reach a large audience in a short period of time, online comments posted by internet users can somehow be unfair.

“There’s a lot of pressure to maintain an online platform. For netizens, it’s easy to point a finger at someone else. All you need to do is to leave a bad comment online. Whether to cater to the audience’s needs, or to be true to ourselves, and how to communicate with the audience, we are still learning the ropes,” said Lei.

Neither Sixtycents nor Lei has time to do full-time jobs now as they have to spend most of their time and effort to run this online business. At the beginning, Sixtycents worked as an amateur magician and Lei as a freelance producer to financially support the business. Now since the operating costs have surged to over MOP$50,000 a month, no matter how brilliant the productions are, it’s still difficult to continue to run the business. Fortunately, Manner Production has found a new way out.

“We got a job referral. That is to make a promo video for a trade fair and it will be broadcasted via our platform. Up to now we have five corporate videos in hand. There’s enough on our plate. We hope that our clients can keep up with our comedic style. Hard selling isn’t really our cup of tea. The most important is to keep a balance between our style and what commercial needs,” said Sixtycents.

Sixtycents also expressed that the biggest difficulty they are now facing is the availability of the film crew which is basically at the mercy of friends. To commercialise and then to grow the business, a system is needed to calculate the money and time required to make a video.

Both Sixtycents and Lei understand that even opportunities abound in Macao, their ultimate goal is to go global and to gain a foothold in the international market. “Comedy is our forte and we will keep doing it in the future. The commitment to locally-specific content will remain as strong as ever, but we also want to add elements that other people will like too. For instances, recently we have collaborated with To Siu Kiu, an internet celebrity in Hong Kong. This also allows audiences in Hong Kong to get to know more about us. In the future, our short films may include more actions and have fewer dialogues. If possible, we would like to add roles of different ethnic backgrounds so as to let the world see Macao via our films,” said Sixtycents and Lei.