Nation's first 360-degrees film series for Merdeka, Malaysia Day

Maxis Rojak 360 DEGREES film series provides an opportunity for the audience to experience a real situation or on the set during the shooting of the film.

The experience which thrills the spectator is brought specially by Maxis 4G and YouTube via five 360-degree film series for the first time in the country in conjunction with the 2016 Merdeka Day.

Maxis head of marketing communications, Bernard Lee, said in conjunction with the celebration of the 2016 Merdeka Day and Malaysia Day, Maxis Rojak 360, the work of the country's top five filmmakers, has used YouTube's 360-degrees immersive video-on-mobile platform.

"Each film requires the audience to move their phone around in various directions to "see Malaysia from many different perspectives," he said in a statement here.

According to him, with phones, films can be more inclusive than ever before "after all, every one of us has an entire 'cinema' in our pocket".

"The Rojak 360 degree project is our way of combining classic storytelling, with a 360-degree video technology and live video streaming experience that is unmatched on Maxis 4G," he said.

Bernard said the five Maxis Rojak 360-degrees films will not be shown in the usual cinemas but instead aired on 15 million mobile screens across the country from Aug 26.

"The Maxis Rojak 360-degrees film series is a multi-location, multi-lingual collaboration," he said, adding that Maxis has partnered with YouTube stars The Ming Thing and RED People, Tamil film director Veedu, short filmmaker Junad Mohd Nor who won an award at the Busan International Film Festival and commercial director Barney Chua.

He said the project is a celebration of Malaysia's diversity highlighting the uniqueness of local dialects including Johor Hokkien and Kelate (Kelantanese Malay), celebrates the cultural traditions that are less known, and showcases the beauty of different places in the country, including Batu Caves, Kota Bharu and Taman Kota Kinabalu.

"Although each storyline, locations and languages that appear are very different, each one of these films carries a common 'rojak-flavoured' Malaysia Day narrative of 'Cham Cham Lagi Best'.

"Three of the films were broadcasted on YouTube on Aug 26 in conjunction with the National Day and the remaining two films will be released in conjunction with Malaysia Day. The project was recorded entirely by cutting edge 360-degrees cameras and can be viewed on any normal smartphone via YouTube," he said.

Meanwhile, Industry Head Google Malaysia Prashant Pathmanaban said YouTube launched support for the 360-degree video 18-months ago and it was very encouraging to see it being used by brands such as Maxis to share inspiring Malaysia Day stories through virtual reality.

"What is most interesting about this new mode of storytelling is that it removes the physical barriers that are common place in two-dimensional and open space to showcase creativity and experimentation. Congratulations to Maxis on the premiere #MaxisRojak360," he said.

For the film premiere event, Samsung Malaysia also took this unique opportunity to preview their latest Virtual Reality (Virtual Reality-VR) headset (Samsung Gear VR) which allows viewers to pan, rotate and explore the film in every direction.

The writers, directors and actors also commented on their involvement in filmmaking process and editing of each performance of the Maxis Rojak 360-degrees film series.

Leading Malaysian Chinese YouTube entertainment channel, RED People said, in Malaysia no matter the colour of the skin, people can eloquently speak more than two languages because for Malaysians that is normal.

"For those who are not from Malaysia, they may see this as an exceptional case, but our film is to show that Malaysians are normal."

Writer and director Junad Md Nor, famous for the film 'Ikal Mayang's Odah' screened at the International Film Festival in Busan, Korea, said 'Gading Merah' emphasized the importance of unity and solidarity for when we are united, nothing is impossible.

YouTube stars, members of The Ming Thing, Ming Han said that this year, "I want to demonstrate fully the theme of togetherness with the involvement of Sabah and Sarawak, both in the story and location."

"Respecting each other's beliefs will lead to a better nation, one that is strong, diverse and united," said Denes Vimala of Veedu Productions who was behind the Malaysian Tamil box office movie 'Vetti Pasanga'.

Viewers who wished to experience the excitement of viewing the first three films namely, the 'Rojak 360 Lost and Found', 'Rojak 360 Cham Cham', 'Rojak Cow Cow' and to find out more about the project, can surf www.maxis.com.my/rojak360.