Some of you might have noticed that we have stopped posting stuff since last week. Last week was one of the worst period for Malaysia’s acg community. Anyhow, let’s put that behind us and work towards a better future.
Today we are bringing you a super long post that should have been posted last week. Time passes so fast and in a blink of an eye, it is April fools day. We have another 4 months to go till our last day. Here is a long post on what has happened to Studio14 so far after the close down announcement was made last year. If you like to have a peek into my studio life, you can continue to read on.
Right after announcement, we had a few cosplayers and photographer who messaged us asking about prices of items for sale. They wanted to open their own studio with those items and some just wanted to buy to keep as prop for future plans. There is a minimum of 5-7 studios that will be opening after July this year. So do not fear that you have no where to shoot. Now you have a total of 12 studios to shoot in. WOW!
Surprisingly there are some photographers from overseas that came to shoot are also interested to buy our themes. They want to setup their own home studio. I hope they know what they are going into. Setting up a home studio is not an easy thing. Sometimes it takes the whole day to setup and another day to remove. That’s why there are ready to rent studios. Unless they want something so special that other studios are unable to provide.
By announcing the big news long ahead of time, we were approached by a few group of people with great proposals.
There was a group of passionate people who wanted to setup a studio and they don’t mind that their studio looks exactly the same as Studio14. Meaning they want to directly move some our themes to their studio. They are willing to pay for the whole theme and top up for the modifications. I am still thinking of what to charge them, as moving the stuff over and modification takes up my time and effort. This “might” be what I will be doing after July until I have a solid plan for Studio14.
I also had a great proposal from a record producer. I was offered to use the whole 4 floor building for free. I have full authority to build the themes that I want and they will pay half of building cost. Of course, this will be profit sharing. This was very tempting. Until I went and have a look at the location. Basically a bit too close to the most famous studio in Malaysia. I measured in google maps and it was just around 700meters away from them. Around 5 minutes slow walk distance. And most importantly a bit too far from my house.
2nd proposal that I had was a venture capitalist wants to invest a large sum of money to build a super huge studio. After crunching some numbers, it is doable and would be great for the cosplay community as it will be a complete studio with all the famous scenes from all types of anime. But the problem with this proposal is myself. The responsibility to build something like that is super heavy. And I don’t need the extra pressure and stress. Most people know that I always work alone and sometimes with the help of some friends.
3rd proposal that I had was offered by a warehouse owner. A super large space with high ceiling and lots parking space in the compound. The rental was relatively cheap at RM1 per sqft rental. The whole place is 20k sqft. You go do the maths. Initial rental is 2 months deposit + 1 month utility + 1 month advance. The location is almost 1 hour away from our current location. That is worst than going to Cheras.
A lot of cosplayers and photographers, local and foreign, are asking what are my plans for Studio14. At the moment there is still no solid plans. I had been going around PJ area to look for suitable places to restart but each and every location has it’s own advantages and problems. We are still open for suggestions and proposals.
This is all I can say at the moment -> “If I can find a super suitable place to restart, then we will continue the studio with ‘all new themes’. If by end of July and we still can’t find a place, then we will just find a storage place to keep unsold items from the current studio and find a new adventure.”
The plans for April to July are as follow:
1. Pack all our renovation/construction tools as we are not using it at the moment.
2. Pack all unused raw materials, might even discard/sell/give away.
3. Throw theme prototypes that didn’t work.
4. Reorganize the whole studio and make it less cluttered.
5. Catalogue all items in the studio and put a price on each item for sale. <- Will start in May.
6. Find a place to store unsold items.
7. Find a place to restart the studio. <- Please suggest and include rental price.
Places that has been covered so far - Uptown DU, DJ, Kota Damansara, Ara Damansara, Aman Suria, Taman Mayang, Taman Megah, Taman Mayang Mas, Sunway Mas Commercial centre, old NZX area, Subang, USJ.
