Friend of mine called me from Bangkok the other day. He said he is still baffled by the new Made In Indonesia regulations and how it will affect them as they're quoting to shoot a regional commercial commissioned out of Bangkok for Asia. He said that his Indonesian friends are just as baffled.

The biggest problem seems to be in the interpretation of the regulation and who will be policing it in future. At the moment, it seems like its anyone's guess.

Apparently one of the TV stations broadcast a forum involving different groups of people in the industry as well as those outside the industry. And the points brought up by representatives from the association of crew involved in advertising commercials were fairly disappointing or smelt of narrow mindedness.

According to a friend of mine, most people in the industry are guarded in their "official" responses cos they don't want to be branded as non nationalistic even if they think that the regulation takes Indonesia back to the stone-age and would likely cause stagnation in the standard of production in Indonesia.

Crew members who are not directors and DOPs don't really care. Whomever the director or DOP, the  crew get to work anyway. So why is  the association which supposedly represents their interests (for they are the majority compared to directors and DOPs) focusing efforts on protecting the interests of a minority rather than theirs? There's resentment in most quarters, from what my friend told me.

I also heard that the production companies have also formed an association - a long overdue step which started in the middle of 2006. Perhaps a sound move, especially in light of this new regulation. Already, crew costs in Indonesia are comparable or even higher than that of the rest of South East Asia, even though costs of living in Indonesia is lower than Malaysia and Singapore and on par with Thailand, and possibly the Philippines. Average camera assistants in Indonesia costs rp.3 million, or about USD340. This is about the same as Singapore's, probably higher than rates in Malaysia and Thailand. Haven't really done a comparison for China and the others. Imagine what happens when demand and supply factors kick in should Indonesia really start restricting foreign crew from shooting their commercials? Camera assistants isn't really a good analogy as very few productions will entail flying in foreign assistants; BUT the availability of foreign alternatives does provide a check against exorbitant exploitation, won't you say? If local costs rise above those of the region, producers can always bring in someone else to do the job, which is the basis of a free market economy. Survival of the fittest, or whatever words one chooses.

So what does this mean for the industry in Indonesia and for that of Asian as a whole? Confusion. Until they come up with a system to qualify points stated in the regulation, and until there's a credible "police" for the regulation, be it the crew association, production companies' association or the advertising and advertisers' association. One thing for sure though is that if they let the crew association police this, they will immediately have ceded control to a union, who can then dictate what an advertiser, ad agency and production company can or cannot use for their production. Unless there are ulterior motives, or hidden agenda, or something similarly sinister, I can't envisage an industry wanting their union to dictate their fate, for unions are supposed to work in consultation with employers and management in the rest of the world.