 HKCinemagic: What is your opinion about the obvious commercialism of the current HK music industry and its lack of variety? |
| Terence Yin: I just think they are shooting themselves in the foot. There will always be a market for canto pop. But it’s the same again as with the film industry. Without alternative music and stuff like that, the mainstream is not really gonna change. A big reason why Hong Kong has this problem is because it’s a small place, [with] only 7 millions people. So having so few people in your population means it’s very difficult for your media and distribution channels for alternatives. And that’s what we are trying to do with alivenotdead. Basing the content on the social network model which is very prevalent on the internet to create a big community, regroup all the individuals together, not necessarily the famous artists but all the talents, scriptwriters, directors, musicians, indie bands in Hong Kong. And more importantly, as a collective, we gonna use the website to generate more opportunities for the artists in Hong Kong and potentially get bigger internationally. |
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| HKCinemagic: What are the requirements to be part of the site? |
| Terence Yin: They must be the real person or group and for every genre of arts there may be different requirements. For films, they must have done something, whatever genre. If you haven’t done anything yet, it disqualifies you as a feature artist. For music, you have to play gigs. And so forth. |
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| HKCinemagic: You are not sponsored to run the site? |
| Terence Yin: No, we are on our own. |
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| HKCinemagic: Do you have long term plans about its evolution? |
| Terence Yin: The long term plan is to, for every genre of art, expand the website capabilities to promote the artists, to improve the communication. We would hope to create an opportunity to distribute digital and physical products for every artist. It’s basically the trade element and the distribution which are our goals. In the near future, I would also like to expand the coverage of the art genre. Right now, it’s basically a collection of artists, who blog about various things. But in many ways, a lot of the things, the events we are trying to promote don’t get enough coverage: People writing about it, taking photos. So we are definitely going to expand that. |
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New Police Story |
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| HKCinemagic: It sounds a bit similar to some functions available on sites like Facebook? |
| Terence Yin: No, we are really not trying to be a new Facebook or Myspace. We are basing the concept on the social networking scene but there’s already a Facebook or a Myspace so as an internet entity we have to do something different in order to be relevant. |
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| HKCinemagic: Do you think the development of internet can bring fans and artists closer (without interference of executives from company)? Is it the future for artist promotion? |
| Terence Yin: It’s a good part of it, it’s not the entire thing though. We are definitely in a transitional period. Kids, the generation after me, are so used to communicate with their friends, sharing pictures, listening to music or watching videos. In many ways, the internet is gonna be full of different pockets of community and they will play a very important role in promoting products or artists. So we are trying to focus solely on the arts and the artists, to push along the artistic scene. |
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| HKCinemagic: Do you think the Edison Chen scandal is a good way to show the hypocrisy of the entertainment scene or on the contrary is a move backward for artists? |
| Terence Yin: I think it’s a very unfortunate affair. I don’t have any opinion about what anybody does in their private life but what happened is very tragic for the women and for Edison himself. The social climate surrounding the frenzy this scandal created is definitely a negative thing. Some of the artists involved in this scandal have a very strong influence on the youths in Hong Kong and for them to see it, because they have all seen it, that’s really sad. The way sex scandals are viewed in Hong Kong are very different from the West. In the West, it almost becomes a promotional vehicle. But I’m not sure it translates the same way in Hong Kong. It’s still an entirely ugly affair because you don’t know what is happening behind the scene and why the photos were realized. It opened a whole series of questions which make this all affair uglier. I’m hoping we’ve seen the last of it and all the artists involved will eventually be given a chance to continue their work. |
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| HKCinemagic: What are your future projects? |
| Terence Yin: I’ll continue to act; I still consider it to be my main profession. Now I have also a passion project, www.alivenotdead.com, so I’m gonna put a lot of energy into that. I’ll pursue other possibilities like singing, with my friends in the next months or years. I’m at a stage of my career in which I’ll be a bit more selective. I’m hoping to get the opportunity to produce more films. |
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