Screen Africa February 2015

Studios PORT BACK PROMAXBDA AFRICA RE BROADCAST, FILM, TV, COMMERCIALS, NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY NEWS

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VOL 27 – February 2015 R38.00

| IN THIS ISSUE

20 Elements of Cinema – Reeling Romance

22

10

Carthage, the oldest Pan African Film Festival

Fine-tuned audience foreplay

36

35

There is something about a studio

Good Sport!

Special Features PROMAXBDA AFRICA REPORT

News

ADCETERA

POST-PRODUCTION

Another step towards

Painting the town Orange................. 10

Upstairs at the Ludus......................... 23

Making every penny pack a punch.. 14

pan-African content creation.............. 2

Fine-tuned audience foreplay........... 10

‘Flaunt your prowess’ ....................... 14

NFVF releases delayed

Searle Street Post

CSquared takes top sport promo

Q3 funding decisions............................. 2

creates time-lapse sequence

award at PromaxBDA 2014.............. 16

First ever homegrown

for new Liberty TVC ......................... 11

‘Power to the people’........................ 17

Hausa-language channel now on air.. 3

Jihan El-Tahri: ‘We have not

Cape Town’s Bryan Little

Stick ‘em up!......................................... 18

The world’s youngest filmmaker........ 3

directs new U2 music video............. 12

told our stories’.................................. 24

What space is there for Arab

The taste of a mother’s love............ 12

DISCOP AFRICA REPORT

and African films in Europe?................ 4

2015 marketing and

Introducing DISCOP

Kenya surpasses SA

advertising trends................................ 13

Africa Express...................................... 26

on STB rollout........................................ 6

Welcome to ‘Babiwood’.................... 28

Canadian-based filmmaker

Kanal D: Bringing Turkey to Africa.. 30

puts Djibouti on the cinematic map.. 6

COMMERCIALS

DA scrutinises set-top-box tender.... 7

STUDIOS

DIRECTOR SPEAK –

NFVF seeks ready-for-sale

There is something about a studio.36

projects to feature at Cannes............. 7

Delarey Hattingh................................. 18

Out of the ashes…............................. 38

The SABC appoints James Aguma

Telemedia set to expand

as chief financial officer......................... 7

studio facilities..................................... 38

Timbuktu nominated for a

Visual Impact Studio offers

Foreign Language Oscar....................... 7

complete production workflow....... 40

Orad Kronomav K2 robotised

Big Brother makes itself

curved dolly............................................. 8

at home at Red Pepper..................... 42

Panasonic AW-HE130............................ 8

Documentary

Sports Broadcast Good sport!......................................... 34

EQUIPMENT SALES AND RENTAL A welcome return.............................. 42

Regulars

FILM Elements of Cinema –

Box Office............................................. 43

Reeling Romance................................. 20

Production Updates................44 – 47

Carthage, the oldest Pan African

Events..................................................... 47

Film Festival........................................... 22

Social...................................................... 49

4HM MADI-MON................................. 8 Christie Microtiles................................. 8

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From the editor

Another step towards pan-African content creation While we were working on this issue the news broke that a new, bi-annual edition of DISCOP Africa would be launching in June this year in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Co-production discussions are also underway between the South African and Ivorian governments. These welcome developments indicate two encouraging trends. Firstly, it marks the resurgence of a nation that already had a distinguished history of filmmaking excellence prior to the economic collapse and political unrest of the 1980s and 1990s, and secondly it appears to mark a bridging of the cultural gaps between Anglophone and Francophone Africa – a gap that has existed, implicitly at times and more obviously at others, since the independence era of the 1960s. Of course it’s great that South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are strengthening filmmaking ties amongst them, but it is extremely heartening that this circle is widening even further, with the inclusion of Côte d’Ivoire and its French-speaking associates.

It’s wonderful to imagine a world in which Africans of various nations and ethnicities are working together to create film, television and new media content, but I think it’s vital to remember that for this to happen it will take a lot more than co-production treaties. It takes the initiative and action of our continent’s content creators. A piece of paper signed by two governments might be important when ending a war, but in our industry it is unenforceable by the government agencies involved and is really completely useless unless the industry itself takes action. We must still turn to government in some matters – particularly funding – until such time as we can make our industry self-sustaining. But this is one area where I think we can safely forget about governments and reach out to our colleagues across our continent’s barely relevant borders. I would be willing to bet that for any project being planned within a particular African country, there are filmmakers in a neighbouring state who would jump at the opportunity to make their contribution to it. And while our resources may be insufficient (a highly arguable assertion in my opinion), they would surely go further when combined.

Tentative steps are being taken towards this kind of work but we could be taking bold strides and it has never been more possible to do so. I don’t suggest that we should be moving toward coproduction and neglecting the creation of content within our own countries. But if co-productions are worth exploring – and many people in our industries seem to think they are – then what are we waiting for?

I, for one, can’t wait for the release of an epic film or series whose story world spans Johannesburg, Addis Ababa and Kinshasa, featuring all the biggest stars from several African countries. But then again, we may find ourselves sparking a major diplomatic crisis trying to decide which country’s star will be the hero… and which one will play the villain!

– Warren Holden

News

NFVF releases delayed Q3 funding decisions On 26 January, South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) announced its funding outcomes for the third quarter of the 2014/15 financial year.

This came just over a month after the agency issued a statement saying that the announcement, which is customarily made at the beginning of December, had been delayed. The delay, which drew many questions and criticisms from the industry, has been attributed to an administrative hold-up in the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), of which the NFVF is an agency.

Says NFVF CEO Zama Mkosi: “We were not in a position to finalise the outcomes until the administrative issues over the funding that was meant to be transferred from the DAC to the NFVF, had been resolved. I hope that the industry will appreciate that a public insititution does not run like any other business. For us to receive our funding there is a process that we need to follow with the DAC. “With the change of administration last year there were some issues in terms of the paperwork that needed to be in place to allow the release of funds to the NFVF. While we could have released our funding decisions in the meantime, it would have been irresponsible for us to do so. We manage public funds and we have to ensure that we don’t finalise any financial commitments before we even have the resources. Of course we understand that these delays are not good for business and we continue to extend our apologies to the industry, but waiting for confirmation from the DAC before making our decisions public was the responsible action to take.”

The results of the deliberations show that the NFVF has met and exceeded its targets for the financial year. In terms of development funding, the target was for 31 projects (consisting of both documentary and fiction). In the end a total of 34 projects were supported. The target of 25 projects for production funding was exceeded by five, while a total of 61 bursaries were awarded, meeting the target exactly. Mkosi points out that bursary funding has changed substantially over the years. Previously, the bursaries provided only partial funding for a student’s studies, they now cover them 100 per cent. All the details of the projects receiving funding from the foundation as a result of these decisions are available on the NFVF website under ‘Funding Cycle’.

According to Mkosi, the NFVF is facing increased demand from the industry in terms of the services and funding it can offer. “This shows

SCREENAFRICA Publisher & Managing Editor: Simon Robinson: publisher@screenafrica.com Editor: Warren Holden: editor@screenafrica.com Journalists: Carly Barnes: carly@screenafrica.com Chanelle Ellaya: news@screenafrica.com Contributors: Claire Diao, Andy Stead, Ian Dormer, Louise Marsland, Sam Charo

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Sub-Editor: Tina Heron Design: Trevor Ou Tim: design@sun-circle.co.za Website & Production Updates: Chanelle Ellaya: news@screenafrica.com Subscriptions: Tina Tserere: tina@sun-circle.co.za Delight Ngwenya: admin@sun-circle.co.za Accounts: Natasha Glavovic: accounts@sun-circle.co.za

that there is growth in the industry,” Mkosi says.

“It is our mandate to be an enabler of the industry and to help stimulate and respond to that growth and we are bound to see it in what is demanded of us. Unfortunately, our allocation from the fiscus does not grow. That has led to situations where demand is much higher than what we can provide.

Previously it took us an entire year to spend our budget because we didn’t have as many applications coming in. We might get around 100 applications per quarter. Now we get around 400.

That is why, at the end of the third quarter, we had already met and exceeded our targets for production and development.”

Although bursaries, production and development budgets are all exhausted for 2014/15, during what is left of the year, there are still opportunities for funding in four newer, lesser-known categories: development of TV formats, DVD distribution, documentary archive and festival funding. Mkosi says that these categories have been introduced over the past couple of years and do not generate as many applications as expected.

“When it comes to archive, there was an outcry from documentary filmmakers over the costs involved with accessing archive footage. We decided to intervene and we can offer R250 000 per project for that purpose. We still have two opportunities open for that,” Mkosi says.

She continues: “Another area is the development of TV formats. This is one of our initiatives to contribute towards an industry that grows from being hand-to-mouth to selfsustaining. What this fund does is it assists people in the industry to generate and develop new TV formats that they can then own and exploit themselves rather than the intellectual property rights reverting to a broadcaster. There has not been a large uptake on this yet. Here again we have two opportunities worth R200 000 each.”

With the remaining two categories, the NFVF hopes to address the distribution bottleneck that the industry currently faces and to support new events that can fill gaps in the country’s film festival circuit. It therefore provides funds for innovative, straight-to-DVD, self-distribution models and supports and encourages the foundation of new festivals. The DVD distribution fund currently offers nine grants at R180 000 each and there is one festival funding grant available worth R350 000. The deadline for applications in all of the four categories is 20 February 2015.

– Warren Holden

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NIGERIA

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First ever homegrown Hausa-language channel now on air On 28 June 2014 the first ever indigenously produced 24-hour channel catering to Hausa-speaking people launched in northern Nigeria.

Available free-to-air on the Nilesat platform, AREWA 24 (‘arewa’ is Hausa for ‘north’), is a lifestyle and entertainment channel offering a variety of programming, with a significant contingent of original, Hausa-language productions across genres.

The channel came into being with the backing of American funds, the result of a grant awarded to San Francisco-based non-governmental organisation, Equal Access International, which exists to stimulate positive social change by delivering and facilitating access to media and technology in underserved regions of the world. “The goal was simple,” says the channel’s president Jacob Arback.

“Create a television platform and voice in Hausa through which northern Nigerians

The world’s youngest filmmaker

could tell their own stories in their own voices and celebrate their own music, film and local culture and build an original production capability for the long term.”

AREWA 24 is family-focused and has placed particular emphasis on youth culture, expressed through chat, magazine, music and sports programmes, as well as soap operas and music shows.

Although set up with US backing, the channel’s content is produced for and about northern Nigerians, as well as Hausa speakers in the surrounding countries. While the channel is only a few months old, it already produces 10 original shows. These include, among others: the daily morning show Gari Ya Waye (Daybreak); the primetime drama series Dadin Kowa, produced entirely in-house and launched on 24 January; the sport show Jaruman Wasanni; Kundin Kannywood, which focuses on the northern Nigerian film industry,

Click on the .

Twelve-year-old Nigerian-born Zuriel Oduwole made history recently when she became the youngest person in the world to have her documentary – A Promising Africa – screened in a commercial movie theatre.

Zuriel, a Nigerian native residing in Los Angeles, took to filmmaking at the age of nine upon entering a competition at school which required entrants to make a documentary about a successful revolution. Zuriel decided on the Ghana Revolution and with the determination

icon to watch the video

YOUNG BLOOD: Zuriel Oduwole interviews Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. and faith that only a child could possess, she wrote to Ghana’s former presidents, until one day she received not one, but two positive responses. Soon after, she flew to Accra where she interviewed former Presidents John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor and Jerry John Rawlings.

“The rules said that we had to produce the documentary ourselves, with no help.

We also had to set up the camera ourselves, and we had to edit it

MOTHER TONGUE: AREWA24’s daily breakfast show Gari Ya Waye nicknamed ‘Kannywood’, (setting it apart from the predominantly English and Yoruba-language Nollywood, based in and around Lagos); and a culture show called Waiwaye.

The advent of AREWA24 is good news, not only for television viewers in the region but also for the creative and technical professionals employed by the channel.

“In order to staff the channel we have hired professionals from the Hausa film industry, from the local television industry, as well as bright, talented university mass communication graduates,” Arback explains. “What we ultimately found was that there were plenty of young, creative and wholly dedicated talent already in the market and just looking for the opportunity to

use their skills. We now have 56 northern Nigerian executive producers, editors, on-air talent, finance professionals, field producers, translators, writers, directors, camera operators, sound technicians and others, who are building a highly competitive television channel.”

Despite the problems of setting up a new channel and the added infrastructural and security challenges presented by operating in Nigeria’s troubled north, AREWA24’s initial success has exceeded expectations.

The channel’s success is proof of the hunger that exists across the continent for homegrown content, in indigenous languages and that is drawn from and speaks to local cultures. – Warren Holden

ourselves,” Zuriel explains.

It seems the filmmaking bug stuck as she has since directed and produced three documentaries: Educating and Healing Africa Out of Poverty, Technology in Educational Development and her latest project A Promising Africa.

After travelling to Ghana for the making of her first documentary Zuriel decided she wanted to change the way the world sees Africa. “I am always reading about the negative things they say on the news about Africa. They mostly show only the negative things, like the wars, the famine, the corruption and the diseases and I know that Africa is much more than that.”

“I have lived in Africa and I know there are many positive things, so that is why I made A Promising Africa. I found out when I made my first documentary at age nine, that the media is a powerful way to talk about something you love,”

Zuriel says.

Zuriel wrote, produced, directed and edited the documentary herself: “It was fun but it was a lot of work. I also did the voice-over in a studio but my mom paid for that,” she explains.

Not sufficiently impressed? Zuriel is also the youngest person of African descent to be listed as one of 2013’s 100 Most Influential Africans; she is the youngest person in the world to be profiled in Forbes Magazine at just 10 years of age, and she was selected as Global Brand Ambassador for Ethiopian Airlines and Heritage Bank’s Financial Literacy Ambassador in Nigeria.

A Promising Africa was released in November 2014 at the Film House Cinema theatre chain in Lagos, Nigeria.

Additionally it was screened in London in January 2015, and a limited release has been scheduled for later this year.

– Chanelle Ellaya

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 3

News

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TUNISIA

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What space is there for Arab and African films in Europe?

During the 25th edition of the Carthage Film Festival (Tunisia), a round table focusing on the space devoted to Arab and African cinema in European theatres took place, in the presence of various film professionals. professionals.

Participants at this roundtable of professionals held on 3 December 2014, included international sales managers, buyers, distributors, broadcasters, producers and filmmakers who sell or exhibit Arab and African films in Europe.

And most of them grew angry.

First of all, European film professionals claimed that film exhibition is globally complicated. “The European Market is struggling with the dominance of American movies,” explained the German filmmaker Viola Shafik. “Only a third of European productions end in theatrical

ARAB AND AFRICAN CINEMAS IN EUROPE: The round table at the Carthage International Film Festival release.” With 20 movies released every week, it is quite difficult for an unknown filmmaker or production company, from an unknown country and with a low budget to catch the interest of distributors and movie theatres.

Television could be an opportunity but, as British producer and head of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media (Ireland), Rod Stoneman underlines, “public service broadcasting in Europe has been severely limited, if not eliminated, by neo-liberal pro-market

policies.” When he worked for Channel 4 in the late 1990s, “with purchases and pre-sales, we bought and provided production finance for over 50 African feature films in this period.”

What about DVD sales? “DVD was really interesting for distributors but it changed in 2007, said Fortissimo Films managing director Nelleke Driesse from Netherlands. VOD is coming out but not raising enough. Look at Ritesh Batra’s Lunchbox success. There were 30 other films from India at that time. Why did this

15–17July2015 THEDOME@NORTHGATE

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one work? Because of marketing. We have 20 movies a year. It’s a real challenge to have non-English spoken movies.”

Film festivals could be a good place, according to the French producer and assistant director Daniel Ziskind. But only if Arab and African films “go to a big film festival, with a film market and sales opportunities. There cannot be a movie without a sale manager.”

Unfortunately, British curator Suzy Gillett, who worked on the Making Waves workshop in Berlin, reminded the group of the reality: “Young people do not know international sale managers. We introduce them to a distribution plans, trailers and posters.”

Because not so many movies from the Middle-East and Africa have visibility, copies, advertising and box-office sales, a standardised kind of Arab or African movie has been used and promoted to the audience to avoid risk taking. “The problem is that normalised movies for Western audiences are claimed as standard for all the other Arab and African films,” noted Tunisian film critic and festival artistic director, Ikbal Zalila.

This is an awkward situation, regarding the diversity of productions coming out of these regions. “Our societies are cosmopolitan,” claimed Algerian producer Mounes Khemmar. “We should get out from this Western perspective.”

– Claire Diao

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KENYA | DJIBOUTI

Kenya surpasses SA on STB rollout While South Africans continue to contend with uncertainties relating to the manufacturing and deployment of set-top-boxes (STBs), Kenya forges ahead with the first instalment of a clear three-phase rollout plan to ensure the country’s digital switchover is reached by the deadline on 17 June 2015.

Even with a spate of public reassurances from South African Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi, who has stated that unresolved issues delaying the switchover are being made a priority, recent allegations put forward by South Africa’s main opposition party, the DA regarding the validity of a R4.3 billion tender for five million STBs, have caused speculation as to whether South Africa is

able to effectively manage the transition in time. The DA has criticised the deal stating that policy and financing regarding STBs are not yet approved, that the process is being rushed and that the tender may have excluded certain companies from participating.

Other contributing factors to South Africa’s delayed switchover include the Communications Ministry experiencing a continuous changing of heads, with a turnover of five ministers in the past five years. In addition, there is still an unsettled debate as to whether STBs are to be encrypted or not.

In a media briefing held on 12 November 2014, Muthambi stated that she was: “close to reaching a recommendation to Cabinet,” on the issue of controlled access, and that she

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had: “prioritised that this matter is presented before Cabinet prior to year-end.”

Kenya has not been without a few DTT delays of its own. Most recently Kenya’s Nation Media Group, Standard Group and Royal Media Services, which together won a court case to continue their analogue transmission until the global switchover deadline, came under fire when they aired an advert warning the public not to purchase GOtv and StarTimes decoders where their free-to-air channels appear. The advert states that the pay-TV providers are featuring their content without permission. The commercial has been taken off air and the media houses were due to appear in court on 2 February.

Previous concerns were also raised in Kenya surrounding STBs being too expensive and not widely available.

However, Kenyan government has settled these issues and has since made a considerable effort to educate and inform the public by organising national awareness campaigns and roadshows as well as easily accessible information portals.

Canadian-based filmmaker puts Djibouti on the cinematic map Lula Ali Ismail is a Canadian-based filmmaker originally from Djibouti.

Twenty-four years ago she left her country and settled in the serene surroundings of Montreal but this comfortable environment did not deter her from keeping in touch with her African roots.

Djibouti has a population of less than 1 million inhabitants; it was under French occupation until 1977 and has French, Arabic, Afar and Somali as its main languages. It’s a 99 percent Islamic nation with Roman Catholic and other Christian faiths representing the rest of the country’s religious culture.

The country is ranked among the poorest in the world; its neighbours are Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Instability in the country led to a lot of emigration in the 1970s and early ‘80s.

For Ismail this was a blessing in disguise.

“It’s not easy to embrace a foreign culture and forget your own,” she says.

“When I left for Montreal I was naïve, young and didn’t know much about the rest of the world but being here has shaped my thinking into appreciating where I come from and my people and customs as an immigrant.”

The youngest of eight children, Lula studied office automation but her mind and passion was in film and theatre and she later took courses in these pursuits.

She has been involved as an actress 6 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

with a number of television series in Quebec but over the years she was continually drawn to directing.

“I always felt like it’s easier for me to express myself well and be the creator of stories rather than the expression of someone else’s creativity,” she says. “If you grow up knowing what you are, what you can do, then over time that feeling starts taking its toll on you and you want to do what suits you, what makes you tick, with or without approval. That passion drove me into being the creator.”

Four years ago the 38-year-old did a movie called Laan, a short film about the everyday life of three young girls who chew khat and are in search of soul mates.

The theme was atypical of life in Djibouti.

“We shot it on a DSLR after I traveled to my country to raise funds and I was overwhelmed at the positive response I got from my family, friends and the public when I was raising these funds.”

The limited resources found in Djibouti were a challenging factor.

“There was no-one in the government to help, but then the ministry of culture tried the best it could, even though the country then was not really in a good shape to assist. The Djiboutian people helped and that’s really amazing. I can’t thank them enough.”

Her film received positive reviews from different festivals across France, Canada and America and was a success beyond

On 31 December Nairobi and its environs began the first phase of the switchover, while the second phase began on 2 February in Mombasa, Malindi, Nyeri, Meru, Kisumu, Webuye, Kakamega, Kisii, Nakuru, Eldoret, Nyahururu, Narok and Rongai. The third and final phase will take place in March and will cover Garissa,Kitui, Lodwar, Lokichogio, Kapenguria, Kabarnet, Migori, Voi (Vuria), Mbwinzau/Kibwezi, Namanga and any remaining regions.

As an additional resource for consumers, the Digital Kenya website hosts easy-to-follow instructions and diagrams on the purchase and set-up of STBs and offers a list of accredited suppliers and models with relevant contact details. In contrast, although Muthambi has made mention of: “an extensive public awareness campaign to inform South African citizens about DTT,” there has been no confirmation as to when this will commence or as to how government plans to ensure consumers are educated about the purchase and function of an STB ahead of the looming deadline.

– Carly Barnes

life in wild Africa.” She adds: “These three girls come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and they all have dreams and hopes and all want to have success in their lives. That, I think, is critical in relation to the audience in Djibouti and the world.”

The film was financed by an association named Organisation Internationale de la Francophone (OIF). French and Canadian funders offered 800 000 Euros and Senegalese and Djiboutis gave 160 000 Euros for the film.

The film was shot over seven weeks, on 35mm, with the entire production completed in Djibouti.

The French independent producer Gilles Sandoz thinks it is a great opportunity for Djibouti to have a female filmmaker to represent the country in cinema in a feature-length film project.

“This is absolutely amazing to be part of this and work with Lula in her first feature film,” she says. “I am thrilled that her resolve has finally paid off, and I wish this film to be a success for her and the country as a whole.”

– Sam Charo

Production details AFRICAN ROOTS: Lula Ismail Director: Lula Ismail

her expectations.

“When we showed this movie at Lausanne, we never expected people to respond the way they did, we won awards and this meant so much to us.”

In October 2014, Lula began shooting her first feature-length film, Dhalinyaro (Youth), about three 18-year-old girls from contrasting social classes in search of meaning while at high school.

“I want to tell a story that offers the audience a different understanding on

Principal Cast: Lula Ismail and Gilles Sandoz Country: Djibouti Year: 2015 Running Time: 90 minutes Producer: Gilles Sandoz Screenplay: Lula Ismail Cinematographer: Herman Bertiau Editor: Anthony Dodd Music: Ink Production Language: Arabic, French, Somali Format: DCP

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Timbuktu nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar

DA scrutinises set-top-box tender A R4.3 billion deal for the provision and delivery of five million set-top-boxes has come under scrutiny by the DA. The DA claim that South African Government may have side-stepped the correct procedures and assessments in a rush to meet the country’s digital migration deadline, making the tender process illegitimate.

The Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA) has responded to these allegations saying that all relevant tender processes were performed lawfully.

In a statement issued by the DA the following reasons are given as to why the party is questioning the validity of the tender: “The Broadcast Digital Migration policy has not yet been approved

by Cabinet.

The Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) STB tender document calls for two prices – for boxes with ‘set-top-box control’ and for those without.

The Direct-to-Home (DTH) standards have not been approved…

The low-key manner in which the tender process was conducted, which side-lined many companies that would have submitted bids, casts doubt over whether the process will be fairly adjudicated...”

In addition, the DA has pointed out that only R2.39 billion of the R4.3 billion has been approved by National Treasury for payment through the Universal Service Access Fund (USAF).

NFVF seeks readyfor-sale projects to feature at Cannes The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) will once again host and facilitate South African film industry presence at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival. The festival is scheduled to take place from the 13 to 24 May 2015.

The NFVF is putting together a festival catalogue of projects from the 2014/15 period seeking either completion finance or sales agents for publication. Along with other activities, the NFVF will also host a Sales Event aimed at presenting projects to international buyers and agents.

Independent filmmakers with fully developed projects (final polish scripts) or completed projects that are ready for sale are invited to submit synopses of projects for NFVF to consider for inclusion in the catalogue and/or pitch at the sales event.

Filmmakers must email the following

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A scene from Timbuktu The nominees for the 87th Academy Awards were announced on 15 January, revealing the final contenders in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The nominees include Ida directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland); Leviathan directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev (Russia); Tangerines directed by Zaza Urushadze (Estonia); Wild Tales directed by Damián Szifron (Argentina); and Timbuktu directed by Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania). Timbuktu is the first Mauritanian film to be nominated in this category.

In 2014 the film won a number of awards including Best Feature Film at the Durban International Film Festival, Best

Director at the Chicago International Film Festival and the François Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film tells the story of Kidane and his family, who live close to Timbuktu, a town in Mali now ruled by religious fundamentalists. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even soccer have been banned. The women have become shadows but resist with dignity. Kidane and his family had been spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu, but when their destiny changes abruptly, Kidane must face the new laws of the foreign occupants.

information (application form is not required): • Full synopsis of the project • Tagline • Two high resolution digital film posters (2000mm x 2000mm and 610mmx 910mm) • Trailer/Promo (where available) • High resolution production stills (where available) • Requirements (funding/sales agent/ distribution) The NFVF reserves the right to select qualifying films for the Sales Event or catalogue.

Deadline for submissions is Friday 20 February 2015. For project submissions email Carla Dias at: carlad@nfvf.co.za or call 011 483 0880.

The SABC appoints James Aguma as chief financial officer On 5 January 2015, the SABC announced that James Aguma was appointed as the corporation’s chief financial officer (CFO).

Before this appointment, Aguma was in charge of strategy and audit matters for the organisation.

The SABC’s chief operations officer (COO), Hlaudi Motsoeneng, commented: “On behalf of the board led by the acting chairperson, Professor Mbulaheni Maguvhe, as well as management, I would like to congratulate Mr Aguma on his appointment. He has been acting CFO since March 2014 and during this time he has implemented changes which have already provided positive results.

We believe with this appointment there

will be continuity as we further stabilise and bring in more revenue for the James Aguma organisation, having posted a profit of R651 million in 2013/14.”

Aguma is a chartered accountant by profession and comes with a wealth of financial experience, joining the SABC from the auditor general’s office. He has extensive public sector experience, having worked with government departments and state owned enterprises (SOEs).

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 7

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Technology

Orad Kronomav K2 robotised curved dolly Orad and Kronomav have collaborated on the creation of a robotized, curved dolly, an addition to Orad’s Virtual Studio and Augmented Reality systems.

Broadcasters have long expressed the need to incorporate curved dollies into their virtual studio productions, expanding the possibilities of immersive graphics and virtual reality in studios.

Kronomav, a Spanish company specialising in robotics and machine vision, designed a protocol that provides Orad tracking systems with the required real-time tracking position and orientation of the K3 dolly. The new protocol features an easy-to-use wizard that allows users to move the dolly in different predefined locations on the rail. The system’s absolute encoders are integrated in the K2 dolly, ensuring all relevant tracking data is sent to the Orad tracking system. Orad’s Tracking Set application receives the tracking data and transmits it to its HDVG rendering platform, allowing the graphics to be positioned anywhere in the studio, while the camera moves along the rails.

“Our joint customers have been asking for curved tracking support and they will be incredibly pleased with the high-quality integration Orad and Kronomav offer,” comments Avi Sharir, CEO and president of Orad. “Orad has built its reputation on exceeding customer expectations, and the level of integration and performance offered with the Orad-Kronomav joint effort is right in line with this philosophy.”

Orad is distributed and serviced in South Africa by Harambe Technologies.

Panasonic AW-HE130 Panasonic’s new AW-HE130, pan/tilt/zoom camera, launched in December 2014, incorporaties recently-developed highsensitivity, low-noise ½.86” 3-MOS imagers designed to produce high quality images even in low light conditions.

Revolutionary new features include Power over Ethernet+ (POE+) for easier integration, and multi-stream transmission of H.264 HD video and audio (up to 1080/60p at 24Mbps.) The new camera will debut at Content and Communications World in New York City from 12 – 13 November.

The HE130 adds several innovative features to Panasonic’s AW-HE120 PTZ, which has become the standard remote control camera for educational, government and house of worship use, and is likewise prevalent in news, staging, sports and reality television production. New features in the HE130 are: • 3G-SDI output (up to 1080/60p) • stereo mic/line-level inputs for embedded and streaming audio • a night mode for hi-res, near IR video acquisition (using an optional IR-illuminator in the 850nm range) • an Optical Image Stabilizer (OIS) • IP-Live Preview for remote control and management of up to 16 cameras via a browser.

• Standard professional interfaces including HD/SD-SDI, HDMI and SD composite, as well as 3G-SDI for single cable delivery of high-quality content up to 1080/60p • RS-422 serial compatibility with controllers designed for use with previous generations of Panasonic remote camera systems • Support for both direct and Web-based IP remote control • native 24p and 30p output for teleproduction • digital access authentication • MAC/Android support for web monitoring; and color adjustment by colour temperature HE130’s optical zoom lens covers an extended range of shooting situations, from wide-angle to ultra-telephoto, with 35mm equivalents of 32.1 mm at the wide-angle end to 642.5 mm at the telephoto. The built-in remote-controllable four-position ND filter (Through, 1/8, 1/64) facilitates flexible exposure control in brightly lit shooting situations.

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www.screenafrica.com

4HM MADI-MON

Designed for broadcast, production and live applications, the MADI-MON in-rack monitor enables auditioning of embedded MADI channels without the need to connect to external routers or audio consoles.

In addition, MADI-MON is the first device to provide studio engineers with the tools necessary to interrogate the MADI stream in order to view the status of embedded channels. As a result it is the perfect monitor for the maintenance of, or commissioning of MADI-based audio systems.

Providing bargraph metering for all 32 stereo pairs (64 channels), MADI-MON provides ‘at-a-glance’ assurance of signal presence across the complete MADI stream.

Selection of the stereo-pair to be audibly monitored is very intuitive, and once selected, both channels are also metered on a pair of dedicated high-resolution bargraph meters.

The status of the MADI stream can be interrogated using the unique MADI data display. From here it is possible to view useful information such MADI frame data, AES status/user bits and checksums of each embedded stereo-pair. General configuration menus are also available, such as selection of sync source (including wordclock, video, AES and MADI) and sample rate converter.

In addition, MADI-MON simultaneously makes 32 pairs of balanced AES/EBU and unbalanced AES3-id available for interconnection to routers, audio consoles or any other AES equipped devices.

As the MADI-MON can be used ‘in-line’, it provides both coaxial and optical MADI loop-through outputs. As with all other 4HM products, it demonstrates its professional credentials by the inclusion, as standard, of an internal redundant power supply.

• MADI audio and data monitor • Monitors every MADI channel pair • 32 channel pair (64 channel) meters with valid audio indication • High-resolution stereo bargraph meter for selected channel pair • MADI data display • MADI loop-through (coaxial and fibre) • Simultaneous 32 x AES/EBU and AES3-id pair outputs • Redundant PSU as standard 4HM products are distributed and serviced in South Africa by Concilium Technologies

Christie Microtiles

Christie’s MicroTile video wall system is built on proven DLP® technology and specifically designed for maximum image quality in demanding indoor, high ambient light environments. Christie MicroTiles suit a wide range of demanding applications, including architectural elements, out-of-home advertising, command and control video walls and event production.

Using both DLP projection and LED technology, MicroTiles offer substantially brighter images and a much wider colour palette than conventional flat panel LCD and plasma displays. The system is meant to be infinitely scalable, with no limit to the number of screens or the way in which they can be arranged.

Microtiles boast extremely fine pixel image reproduction, with 70 times more pixels than high-end, 4mm surface-mount display LEDs. The tiles lock together quickly and easily, automatically detecting and synching with one another. They can also easily be pulled apart and reconfigured. The built-in sensors in each tile allow them to adjust brightness and colour to ensure a seamless image across the entire display. Each tile is front accessible and can be individually serviced without switching off the display or detach any of the other tiles.

ADCETERA

| Report on the South African commercials industry

Painting the town Orange French telecommunications service provider Orange is illuminating its ever-growing presence in South Africa with a new TV commercial to kick off the New Year.

After successfully launching a local online store in 2014, Orange’s 2015 plans include opening a number of branded retail stores nationwide beginning in Cape Town, and launching as an internet service provider. The spot was conceptualised by creative agency Publicis Conseil in Paris.

The ad, which was produced by Cape-Town based Bird Films with producer Alan Lawson at the helm, portrays a build-up to the 2015 New Year’s Eve countdown. In a colourful parade of culture and diversity, masses of people are drawn together from dusty rural roads, the stairwells of apartment blocks and the corners of the city to sing, dance and usher in a New Year.

Moments before the clock strikes midnight a power outage casts a gloomy shadow on their celebrations until, one after another, their phone’s light up with New Year’s text messages. The once still and dark crown begins to twinkle with

spots of light, and the party rages on. As Lawson explains: “This spot was more about emotions of people coming together and the drama of celebration.”

Shot in July 2014 in Durban and surrounds, the commercial includes approximately 200 extras which form the massive crowd that fills the town square and spills out into tributary alleys and side streets.

According to Lawson, this effect was created using crowd replication and plate shots – techniques applied in postproduction by the visual effects team which entail layering and replicating footage of a small group of people onto background shots of a scene’s location to create the illusion of a larger crowd. The grade was done in Cape Town at BlackGinger using Baselight, but all VFX work and post-production was executed

by Prodigious Post-Production in Paris.

Lawson adds that director of photography Eugenio Galli chose to shoot the commercial using an Alexa XT camera with a Cooke Xtal Anamorphic lens as it offered RAW capabilities for plate shots and (using its 4:3 sensor) was able to give a cinematic widescreen look

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Grant de Sousa and Eugenio Galli to the footage.

Additional key crew members who worked on the production included director Grant de Sousa, first assistant director Neil Uys, steadicam operator Michael Carstensen, first assistant

Fine-tuned audience foreplay Drugs, alcohol, money and sex – all deliciously tempting audience draw cards for the newest local drama series on the block – aYeYe. Before the show premiered on 19 January on Vuzu Amp, Jozi-based ad agency Black River Fc approached the team at Bomb Commercials to produce a promo dotted with narrative clues that push the envelope and reflect the tone of the show. What they delivered was a high-energy, daring and fresh sneak-peak into the world of a new type of young black man.

Director Tebza Malope says the idea was to tease an audience they believed already existed for the show as well as to captivate an audience that may not traditionally be interested in a show of this kind.

“There is an audience that we felt hadn’t been targeted yet or perhaps represented in mass media as much as it should be; it’s the booming black middle class,” says Malope. “The audience that counter balances a gleaming future and a broken past. They live in Parkhurst but their older brother is still in Diepsloot. We wanted to shift from a typical township narrative and tell a story of a new black middle class, and that’s the audience we targeted.”

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Screen shot from aYeYe promo

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cameraman Garth Scholtz, grip Thomas Wahl, gaffer Bruce Thomas, art director Margaux du Preez, stylist Allison Basset and editor Christiaan Rautenbach.

– Carly Barnes

Shot over one day in December 2014 at a Soweto studio, the promo features the main characters in the show, JK (Thapelo Mokoena), Neo (Sthembiso ‘SK’ Khoza) and Lebo (Mpho ‘Popps’ Modikoane), interacting with extras around a boardroom table as they offer hints about the show’s narrative.

Malope says the promo was shot with a high speed Red MX camera, using macro lenses on a rig above the table. “A strong visual in the promo is the play between frame rates; ramping between slow mo’s and sped up bits and so we felt we needed a camera that could handle these frame rates while maintaining a very cinematic look.

“We also went for primarily top shots and macro shots, so we needed a lens wide enough to keep us very close to the action, so that the actions were visible to the idea. We were also going for a very low-key mood in some segments and the high speed lenses were perfect for this task, we also utilised high speed macros for the macro shots,” he explains.

Though Malope has directed a number of commercials, he maintains that he applies the same approach when working on a promo. “The challenge is the same with every project that I do, the challenge of creating a piece that fully represents the product/show and not an isolated piece of art. At the end of the day it is about telling a compelling story about the product at hand, and we did. The upside is that for this specific product the characters had been built already and I was riding on an existing foundation,” he concludes. – Carly Barnes

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Searle Street Post creates time-lapse sequence for new Liberty TVC The new Liberty television commercial, Paycheck, takes the viewer on an emotional journey across four decades, through the eyes of a pensioner.

The ad, which was conceptualised by Grant Jacobson from advertising agency FoxP2, and executed by Jeremy Holden of Riverstone Films, cleverly conveys the true-life story of an unfortunate pensioner – Liberty founder Donald Gordon’s father, Nathan Gordon.

Holden says that the brief from FoxP2 Johannesburg was to create a commercial that remained true to the recent legacy of Liberty commercials. “The story was simple and powerful… Grant was very clear on what he wanted to achieve with

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Still from the Liberty Paycheck commercial

the commercial. However, the process was incredibly collaborative,” says Holden.

The commercial starts in 1965 in Johannesburg, where we meet Nathan Gordon, struggling to purchase his monthly groceries on his pension cheque.

After a lifetime spent working hard, Gordon retired on a paycheck of just R28.00 (roughly R1 942 in today’s money).

His son watched his father suffer, unable to afford retirement, which led him to introduce Liberty Umbrella Fund in South Africa – allowing businesses of any size to offer their employees a comfortable retirement. The commercial ends with a pensioner in present-day Johannesburg, shopping with a smile on her face.

A time-lapse sequence was used to efficiently display the passing of time.

“The agency wanted a single shot to transport us from 1965 Johannesburg to Johannesburg today, where we meet the second pensioner,” Holden explains.

Having previously worked on the Liberty Shoes commercial, Searle Street Post was contracted to handle the post-production once again. Heino Henning, VFX producer and supervisor at Searle Street Post explains that the time-lapse sequence was constructed by a combination of in-camera and post.

“Riverstone Films consulted us during pre-production to solve the technical challenges a time-lapse like this poses…

We brought Erik Kruger from Luma on board to help plan the shoot and camera moves, as well as to liaise with the motion control camera operator to realise Jeremy’s vision.”

| ADCETERA “Erik used Softimage to create a CGI previz (previsualisation) of the time-lapse sequence, based on the actual dimensions of the set,” Henning continues. “The wonderful thing about motion control is that it allows you to replicate the exact same camera move, with different performances and different props that can be composited together.”

“We opted to shoot at 25 frames a second, which results in super long takes with good edges, ideal for isolation and compositing. A big part of this project was to create subtly different motion blur effects to apply to various elements during the final compositing stages,” Henning concludes.

Naomi Anderlini from Searle Street Post was the lead compositor working in Flame and was assited by VFX artists Graeme Armstrong and Theuns van Rensburg.

DOP Werner Maritz, shot the bulk of the commercial on a single lens using the Red camera and a motion control rig in a warehouse that had been turned into a large studio. “The technical complexity of the project and treatment that searched for as much to be in-camera as possible, required that we shoot in a controlled environment. The street that the camera travels down, is one continuous set that was constructed,” says Holden.

– Chanelle Ellaya

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 11

ADCETERA

| Report on the South African commercials industry

Cape Town’s Bryan Little directs new U2 music video

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Still from U2’s music video This is Where You Can Reach Me Now South African Bryan Little, of Fly on the Wall Productions, has always been a fan of Cape Town-based, China-born street artist DALeast. So when he was presented with the opportunity to direct the music video for U2’s This is Where You Can Reach Me Now featuring DALeast, Little jumped at the opportunity, without having even heard the song!

DALeast made his name internationally by creating artworks of animals that appear as though they’re in motion and are about to leap off the walls they’re painted on – something that actually happens in the This is Where You Can

Reach Me Now music video.

“His animals have this threedimensional character; they’re born to be made into 3D animations,” says Little.

Little explains how the concept for the video came about: “I was walking around in Hout Bay one day and saw a young man, a boy really, who cruises the hood with a pack of dogs. Unleashed and somewhat feral, this pack morphs around the boy like a protective canine bait ball.

Being familiar with DALeast’s work, I always had a secret desire to bring his creatures to life…this image of the man and his pack of hounds became my

central image for the video.”

Little got the call confirming the job on his birthday in August of 2014 and was on a plane to New York City two days later with DALeast and Fly on the Wall producer Filipa Domingues.

The band allowed Little and DALeast complete creative freedom in terms of conceptualisation resulting in an enchanting end product, “DALeast would tell me old Chinese fables and together we created a world where perhaps we exist as more than the single path we are on.”

To animate DALeast’s artwork, Bryan

roped in Iwan Zwarts, a fellow South African – and guru flame artist – who’s now based in New York as a visual effects supervisor. Zwarts put together a remarkable post-production team from around the world, including Tom Bussell, Charlotte Arnold, Danny Morris, Alexandre Allain, Sauce Vilas, Jimmy Gass, Mikey Rossiter and Manuel Riedl.

“Tom would work with DALeast on creating the creatures, another artist would animate them, Jimmy would create particle systems for the pieces flying off, then Danny Morris would add elements such as trees that react to the flying eagle in the tunnel which were not there in the original shot,” explains Little.

This is Where You Can Reach Me Now was shot over three weeks in New York City, “We shot the end sequence first so the post guys could get cracking, then we spent the next 10 days shooting time-lapses and the live action story elements. I was editing as we went along,” says Little.

This is Where You Can Reach Me Now is available on iTunes as part of U2’s Films of Innocence, a video album featuring street artists from around the world interpreting Rolling Stone Magazine’s Album of the Year.

The taste of a mother’s love The ACE Expensive Girlfriend TVC – brain child of TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris – follows two men who turn into their mothers while giving a friend some relationship advice. The lighthearted yet undeniably touching commercial was directed by Malo8 and produced by Liz Dahl, both of Frieze Films.

Agency producer Jerry Mohale Sekhwela says both Tiger Brands and Frieze Films were extremely open to the initial brief, allowing for the concept to be developed and brought to life in a truly collaborative manner. “The concept came about from the insight that ACE is a meal as abundant as a mother’s love,” explains Sekhwela. “ACE is filled with a mother’s love, so when you give someone ACE, it’s the same as giving them a taste of a mother’s love.”

“The mother’s love intervention was such a simple and strong idea,” says Malo8. “I laughed when I read the brief, but there was also a fuzziness that came over me as I pictured the mother suddenly standing there and giving advice to one of the boys. As a director, I am well versed in creating warm, heartfelt stories; I also love doing quirky comedic pieces. But this was the first time I could 12 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

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Still from the ACE Expensive Girlfriend TVC

work with both of these tones in one ad.”

Shot in October 2014 in an apartment in Johannesburg CBD, Malo says that the casting process was relatively simple as they were on the lookout for fresh new faces: “that were believable without having to do too much.”

Rather than using elaborate visual effects to transform the men into their mothers, Malo used clever editing, still producing a transformation that is both dramatic and unexpected: “We opted for a simple edit cut instead of any tricksy special effects.” “…There is a natural temptation to

make the transformation the central point of the story, when in fact it is just a device to help us bridge a gap between two generations, showing that ACE is relevant for both the younger market and the older market,” he continues. “What was critical for me was to keep the transformation within the confines of a simple, character-driven, performance piece, so it didn’t overshadow the narrative.”

Rob Schroeder at Rob Roy Music composed the score which subtly prepares the audience to expect some unusual happenings, cleverly adding to

the comedic feel of the spot.

The remainder of the TBWA\Hunt\ Lascaris creative team was made up of Pete Khoury, George Low, Melanie Moore and copywriter Harry Mackenzie.

DOP Werner Maritz shot the commercial on the Arri Alexa, while Paul West at Deep End Post Production edited the spot.

The ACE Expensive Girlfriend TVC was awarded an orchid in Brendan Seery’s Orchid and Onions column in The Saturday Star, and it was also named the joint winner in ididthatad’s monthly SA Film Reel. – Chanelle Ellaya

OPINION

| ADCETERA

2015 marketing and advertising trends

Google Glass

For the industry this time is without a doubt the ‘Age of Content’.

Transparent, authentic, real stories for brands to market themselves to consumers by pulling on their heartstrings.

The pace of change is accelerating at a speed never before seen in humankind – in the past 18 months or so, we’ve seen Google Glass being released – and now on ice; 3D printers print everything including houses; wearables go mainstream; serious talk about drones being used commercially; a host of self-drive cars being released; new players in the Space race; the rise of social activism and a host of new innovation, cultural norms and values.

Advertisers and marketers need to tap into these changes in culture and technology and make sure they remain current and in touch with their consumer.

Including the content trend, these are some of the key trends for 2015 for brands to take note of:

Storytelling For earned, paid and owned media – across the board – this is the trend in content: telling authentic stories, being

real, telling the truth. For brand stories and advertising campaigns, corporate websites and annual reports… it is all about an authentic narrative to reach and influence your consumers, stakeholders, employees. This includes responsible sourcing of services, suppliers, ingredients, complying with the rule of law, not bamboozling your consumers, not inventing fake founders of your brand, but finding and telling those real stories that touch your consumer. Involving them in the story, creating a social responsibility element that keeps on giving publicity, solving real problems and helping create a better world. Yes, it is a simple as that and as cheesy.

Millennials Get to know the millennial generation.

This is the first digital generation, born into the internet, the largest diverse grouping with a myriad of sub-groups of interest – between 18 years and 35 years old – and one of the most influential generations to date because of their savvy social media skills, peerrecommended networking and graduation to online shopping. They could also be called the ‘App or smart generation’ the way they have embraced new technology and tools. They are demanding – they want everything immediately; they are socially aware – this is the ‘selfie’ generation too after all; they share everything and eschew privacy issues, preferring to let it all ‘hang out there’ than be unknown. They despise dishonesty and fake-real brand advertising, so business needs to come to turns with being more transparent in their

dealings with the internal and external stakeholders, in all communication and with their values. But they also admire brands and believe they have the power to do good – don’t betray that trust or you will face social media hell.

Maker movement This is a movement that has been born out of a broken economic system, hard recession and the need in this technological world to balance things with a return to home-made, craft skills and artisanal goods, bartering, and brands with a ‘struggle/ordinary-manmade-good’ backstory that resonates with the new consumer, who wants to know the source of things and be involved in product creation themselves.

It also reflects the need for new economic models in the wake of the great recession, whereby communities have turned hobbies into businesses, created neighbourhood goods markets, online trading posts. It is about ‘hacking’ life, finding solutions to problems, taking existing tech and remaking it, collaborating, creating and making.

Maker Fairs have sprung up all over the world to bring tech-minded creators together with global tech brands.

Communities are creating urban farms in their midst, run as co-operatives, to share and sell organic produce to each other and business. Craft products, packaging, décor and food are all the rage.

Wearables Wearables are going mainstream. From being a huge success in the fitness and

medical industry, being incorporated in smart home technology and smart offices, 2014 also saw fashion brands introducing wearable technology into clothing. This trend will only increase as technology becomes more accessible and easier to incorporate into everyday products and clothing. Examples include the wearable band aid that monitors the wearer’s vital stats; smart-everything, from watches to necklaces and rings; the trainers that you can print your own designs on at purchase; clothing that self-cleans; and so on. Apart from the fashionable tech, many wearables have particular functionality to improve the lives of consumers. It is way overdue.

Africa renaissance Finally, the African Renaissance, long talked about and long hoped for, is coming to fruition as revealed by the increased investment in consumer research on the continent from big players like McKinsey and Forrester; as well as the international agency networks which have been on a massive buying spree on the continent, including South Africa, to establish a foothold. While the South African recession takes hold, brands are urged to seek growth in the rest of Africa. Key here is for brands to collaborate with consumers in finding solutions to add value to and improve their lives and to promote home-grown brands – either ‘Made in Africa’, sourced in Africa, in collaboration with the African consumer. – Louise Marsland February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 13

PROMAXBDA AFRICA

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REPORT

Making every penny pack a punch Everyone knows how important it is to make a good first impression, and the same goes for title sequences – which could be considered as the initial how-do-you-do between a TV show and its audience.

Yet more often than not titles are only allocated a sliver of a production’s budget or are forgotten about until the final hour when turnaround time is minimal and only a few scraps of finance are left to play with. Enter the thrifty trio at Huge Designs, a London-based title design company which received an Emmy award for their Da Vinci’s Demons title sequence.

Speaking at PromaxBDA Africa in November, owner and designer Hugo Moss explained why having budget constraints can be a blessing in disguise.

Together with designers Paul McDonnell and Tamsin McGee, Moss uses the most industrious and imaginative ways to make the impossible happen. From filming light reflections, from a spinning award trophy to overlay in the Mr Selfridge title sequence; to concocting home-made fake blood for the title of White Queen; there are very few things they can’t create from inside their own office.

The title sequence for Da Vinci’s Demons was inspired by The Johnny

MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPEN: Hugo Moss

Cash Project, a music video created by visitors to the site who were able to take frames from the video, add their own animation and effects and upload it again. The final product is an interesting mish-mash of different images and styles.

To implement this technique in the title sequence Moss originally visited colleges to ask students to draw illustrations, but proving unreliable he took another approach. “Instead we worked with an illustrator we could trust – Leonardo da

Vinci. His work is out of copyright so we pillaged his book,” jokes Moss. These free images were then animated, tweaked and layered onto real footage from the show.

When compiling the title sequence for Any Human Heart, a series which tells the story of one man’s journey through the 20th century, Moss and his team were faced with the challenge of showing the progression of a man’s life from start to finish in just 40 seconds.

To accommodate their tight budget, they took various shots of in-house designer Paul McDonnell on the roof of their offices completing poses and actions which signified different life stage scenarios. These images were then recreated for live action using an animation technique called rotoscoping.

Composer Dan Jones completed the title sequence with a complementary score. “Music is everything for us,” admits Moss, who relies on composers to marry his designs with emotionally powerful and moving tracks.

Moss concludes: “Fighting against small budgets is such an amazing process. Sometimes when you do something DIY, the results can be so much better.” – Carly Barnes

‘Flaunt your prowess’ Prowess, power, grace, style, heart, spirit and passion. Admit One Productions invoked these qualities in their response to a brief from pay-TV sports broadcast giant, SuperSport, to create a promo for the launch of the UEFA Champions League in 2014.

If the results of the 2014 PromaxBDA Awards are anything to go by, the production house exercised these very qualities in executing the project: the promo, titled ‘Football Forever’ won them the Most Outstanding Promo Award at the annual gathering of South Africa’s on-air promo specialists.

The promo combines exciting football action shots and a stirring music track with original footage showing a succession of performers embodying the qualities being called out – a ballet dancer for grace, a bodybuilder for power, an African warrior for spirit and so on. The simple, punchy and effective copy includes a series of slogans such as ‘Flaunt your prowess’, ‘Show your power’, ‘Move with grace’, Attack with style’ and ‘Defend with heart’. The promo is proof that, in this business, the most effective piece – especially when it comes to sport – is the simplest concept with the most visceral execution.

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PROWESS, POWER, GRACE, STYLE, HEART, SPIRIT AND PASSION: A still from Admit One’s ‘Football Forever’ UEFA Champions League launch promo, produced for SuperSport According to Henre Pretorius, Admit One’s creative director and co-owner, a large part of the promo’s success is due to the client SuperSport. “They always give us room to be creative and push the boundaries. It gives the team the opportunity to really showcase what we can do,” he says. The concept had originally been generated for a different project, which ultimately was not completed, but it was easily repurposed for the Champions League.

The concept highlights the characters and dramatic conflicts inherent in the highly emotional world of football: “the heroes and the villains, the stars and the underdogs, the rich and the poor,” the blending of grace and skill with passion and aggression. The design cleverly plays with team colours to create associations with the various qualities cited in the copy.

The ‘Football Forever’ promo is just one project in the now eight-year-old

company’s highly varied portfolio that includes various short-form brand activations as well as long-form entertainment projects. “We don’t like to think of ourselves as a production company,” Pretorius says. “We are a creative content agency. We’re not TV producers, we’re content creators and this, in my opinion, is the way things are going. TV is not the only platform to work on anymore. We create content and activate brands in any way, shape or form may be called for. It’s about the content, the platform doesn’t matter.”

One of Admit One’s focuses is on talent development and mentoring. The agency, which is co-owned by Pretorius and producer Ruette Steyn, actively recruits interns from the various tertiary institutions that feed the industry. “We are always eager to take these youngsters on and show them how the industry works,” Pretorius says.

Ultimately, Admit One’s work involves

applying its resources to a wide array of creative challenges. “We’re creative problem solvers,” Pretorius says. “The clients’ needs are key. What we do is come up with creative solutions to clients’ challenge of activating their brand, whether it’s through a 30-second spot to promote a particular event or programme, or a long-form series that maintains and grows a channel’s identity.”

Admit One took one other award at PromaxBDA Africa 2014. Its Vodacom Super Rugby launch promo, created in collaboration with Birthmark, won the silver trophy for Best Visual Effects and Compositing.

As far as long-form work goes, Admit One is currently in production on a new competition show for kykNet: AfriVisie, a search for new Afrikaans songwriting talent.

For more information on Admit One and their work, visit www.admitone.co.za.

PROMAXBDA AFRICA

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CSquared takes top sport promo award at PromaxBDA 2014 Johannesburg-based production company CSQUARED walked away from the 2014 edition of the PromaxBDA Africa awards with more statuettes than many of its peers. The team took the gold for Most Outstanding Design in Promotion, Best Visual FX and Compositing and Best Use of Humour in Promotion. It picked up the silver awards for Best Interactive Promo, Best Sports Campaign and Best Sports Promo. It also received nominations in several other categories.

According to Chris Dobson, owner of CSQUARED, the gratification of winning these recognitions is that much greater because the team was working with regular, annual briefs rather than any new,

16 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

REPORT

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX: A screen grab from CSQUARED’s award winning ATP/WTA tennis tour promo campaign big campaigns that would come with more capacious budgets and meatier creative opportunities. “This presents a lot of challenges because firstly, we’re not working with major budgets and secondly we have the challenge of taking a regular campaign and making it fresh, adding something new to it. The Promax awards are a validation for us that we managed to do that successfully.”

There were three campaigns that took awards for CSQUARED, all of them for pay-TV sport broadcaster SuperSport: the ABSA Currie Cup, the ATP/WTA Tour and the Barclays Premier League. Under strict instructions from SuperSport’s creative director David Martin to show him something he had never seen before,

the CSQUARED team innovated with concept, copy and design to create three promo campaigns that could make viewers look differently at their favourite sporting events.

For the Barclays Premier League launch, they had to combine two separate concepts, originally pitched as alternatives, into a single 60-second spot.

Featuring SuperSport presenter John Dykes, the copy expounds how the English football league has grown into a truly international phenomenon, with players from all over the world becoming the teams’ stars and viewers across the planet shouting for the favourite club.

This was the first concept. The second part of the spot, which won it the silver for

Best Interactive Promo, featured an invitation to fans to Instagram photographs of themselves in their team’s colours.

It was the use of humour in the ABSA Currie Cup launch that made this a memorable campaign. It consisted of three spots, each one turning its attention to one of the ‘unsung heroes’ of rugby.

The ad which took the award Best Use of Humour, was won in which a man who paints the lines on a rugby field passionately explains the intricacies of his craft. A second in the series saw a cheerleader going through her preparations for the next game.

Collectively these ads took the silver for Best Sports Campaign.

The biggest winner for CSQUARED was its work for the ATP/WTA tennis tour, which won for Most Outstanding Design in Promotion, Best Visual Effects and Compositing and Best Sports Promo. For this, the team experimented with an innovative double exposure technique and the recognition they received for came as a particular surprise to Dobson, especially as it came in the BDA category.

“This is not something we usually specialise in,” he says. “We have a small effects and design team and this award is really a feather in their cap.”

The Promax- winning spots went on air at various times last year but several of them can still be seen on Vimeo.

REPORT

| PROMAXBDA AFRICA

‘Power to the people’ At PromaxBDA Africa 2014, production house Spitfire Films took the award for Best Television Image Promo for its Walking Dead promo produced for FOX (DStv Channel 125). The promo, directed

by Peter Heaney, featured Trevor Gumbi on a hilarious quest for someone to watch the popular action-horror series with him.

While this promo was tongue-in-cheek and comedic in tone, another campaign produced by Spitfire near the end of last year, took a more serious, heartwarming approach to its subject matter.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Akin Omotoso, the campaign, which consisted of an advert and two short documentaries, was created for the Vodacom Foundation, the mobile telecoms operator’s corporate social investment organisation. The advert played on the idea that, with each call Vodacom subscribers make, they connect, not only to their friends and loved ones but, also to the Foundation’s various projects and facilities around the country that help to uplift the lives of South Africans. Through their Vodacom subscription therefore, ordinary South Africans are making a contribution towards making their country a better place.

The campaign singled out two

particular projects in impoverished areas of the Eastern Cape. The first, in the remote town of Lady Frere, was an ICT resource centre installed at the local school, providing computers and internet connectivity for teachers and students.

The second was the foundation’s intervention at the Provincial Hospital in Port Elizabeth, facilitating plastic and reconstructive surgery for children. In particular it offered assistance to Smile Foundation, which is dedicated to helping children born with various facial conditions. Aside from helping to supply much needed surgical equipment to the hospital, Vodacom also provided internet connectivity that enabled hospital staff to interact with their peers in overseas hospitals and gain access to webcasts, in which certain procedures not usually seen in South African academic hostpitals were filmed and made available for viewing by surgeons across the country.

The advert visualised the notion of the interconnectivity through the very simple but powerful image of a human chain. At the beginning of the spot, a Vodacom subscriber makes a call, prompting a Vodacom staff member to take her hand.

He, in turn, holds hands with another person, who holds that of another and on and on, forming a chain that ultimately

MAKING CONNECTION: A screen grab from Spitfire Films’ Vodacom Foundation ad campaign, directed by Akin Omotoso

links to the caller’s mother on the other end of the line. The chain stretches across the country, incorporating South Africans of all shapes, shades and sizes until it reaches the ICT centre in Lady Frere, where teachers expound the benefits of being able to access new skills via the facility and teach their pupils in new and engaging ways. The two documentaries created as companions to the ad focus on the two facilities and describe how the foundation has helped to uplift the lives of needy people.

Simple yet effective, and charged with a heartfelt humanity, the campaign’s success is mostly due – says Spitfire executive producer Liesl Karpinski – to the charisma and sensitivity of its director, Omotoso. The filmmaker and actor evidently left many of the locals in the

shooting locations a little star-struck but his strength was in connecting to the individuals that form the subject of the ad and documentaries. There are no actors in any of the pieces and Omotoso managed to draw authentic and moving performances from these ordinary people who had no prior experience of being in front of the camera.

While the spots are intended to showcase the work of the Vodacom Foundation, Omotoso effectively shifts the emphasis to the people who have been its beneficiaries. It is the children, the teachers, the medical practitioners and other people involved on the ground who become the stars of the show, giving credence to the claim made in the ad copy that Vodacom is a ‘network that gives power to the people’.

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 17

PROMAXBDA AFRICA

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REPORT

Stick ‘em up!

Before time-shifted viewing, PVR and a multitude of devices on which to consume content, people used to talk about their eyes being glued to the screen – meaning they were utterly absorbed in what was on the tube at the time. Perhaps this is where the term ‘sticky breaks’ has its roots.

Today broadcasters are faced with a growing epidemic of viewership ADD, and getting audiences to ‘stick’ around during ad breaks without flicking channels or hitting the fast-forward button is no easy task. So much so that the CEO of Fox has declared it the networks biggest challenge, after experiencing a 40% drop in revenue due to the rise of time-shifted viewing.

Alan James has made this his forte as co-founder of James&Wilkinson Media, a company which advises broadcasters on how to realise the full potential of their promotional airtime. At the 2014 edition of PromaxBDA Africa he shared some ideas on how to drive audiences to live viewing and keep them tuned in during breaks.

According to James, research done on viewer behaviour shows that clever, catchy on-air continuity can retain viewership by up to 55%. In other words,

18 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

REALISING FULL POTENTIAL: Alan James

creatively scripting and directing continuity voice-overs could keep viewers from leaving the couch.

James added that time prompts might also influence whether or not a viewer stays on a channel and referenced a method used in some Chinese markets where a time countdown is featured in

the top right corner of the screen during breaks. “Viewer decisions change when they know how long to expect for an ad break. Elasticity of viewer patience is the key measure,” says James.

“Rewarding viewers in breaks will also engage an audience,” James continues.

“You can intrigue your audience with a

mid-break treat or the promise of an exclusive promotion if they stay tuned.”

John Lewis, a UK chain of department stores, did just this when instead of airing a typical Christmas commercial they released a moving short animated film, The Bear and The Hare. Viewers were intrigued by the story and it sparked debates and discussions over which brand it represented, as this was only revealed at the end of the clip.

Driving viewers to watch live TV can also be instigated through social media engagement and apps. James referenced an app in Italy geared at the children’s market which rewards viewer loyalty. The more they watch the more they can earn stars which are cashed in for additional content and prizes.

Some shows have a huge Twitter following and channels are increasingly using the platform as a way to communicate with their audience – creating suspense by interacting about future episodes, asking what people think, running live polls and then announcing the results live at the end of a show.

“Personalised, tailored advertising is more effective and more likely to be viewed. In this new world, flexibility and innovation is key,” James concludes, “Live TV consumption will win, but only if the experience is better.” – Carly Barnes

| COMMERCIALS

Director Speak

and that will be a big driver to come up for more honest, real and beautiful content generation from our industries.

Be it in motion, communication or live shoots, the viewer wants something that feel real. Of course streaming, VOD, SVOD and the whole fragmented viewership plays a massive role in our communications and that will be the main points that people will talk about.

rey Dela Hattingh MULTIDISCIPLINARY: Delarey Hattingh

design, myself, to save my life). But having started in the TV industry as an editor for quite a few years, and then going over into directing from there, directing is definitely my number one love.

As director and co-owner of Johannesburg-based multidisciplinary creative agency Monarchy, Delarey Hattingh has overseen the creative process on numerous brand activations utilising an impressive array of media incorporating live action and animation and working across numerous media platforms.

What brought you into this industry? Can you pinpoint a particular moment that marked your decision to work in television?

Well, I initially was going to study medicine, and a day or so before registration I knew I needed something else. I ended up studying B.Com Accounting, and then found that immensely boring, which led me to have two other majors in Marketing and Psychology. In the end that led me to full time Audio Visual Production management (at RAU as it was known then). The want and need to work in TV and advertising must have came from watching faaarrr too much TV as a kid and obsessing about every detail of the “how” behind every second.

You and your company, Monarchy are truly multidisciplinary, covering animation, post-production, live action production and more. Which of the several disciplines in which you work is closest to your heart?

I have a passion for motion-graphics, design, branding, shooting and everything we do here (although I can’t

You recently directed a project in Los Angeles. Can you briefly describe this project and your objectives on it? How did you become involved in this project?

Because we have a presence in the United States, and mostly work with Los Angeles and New York, we have great opportunities to work with great brands there. We were invited to pitch for the intro sequence on a new Darren Star (of Sex and the City, 90210, Melrose Place)- created series for TVLand. Unfortunately Darren went with another creative, but the network liked our work and way of thinking so much they asked us to do the new intro sequence for The Exes (with Donald Faison (Scrubs), Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), Kristen Johnson (3rd Rock from the Sun), Kelly Stables (Two and a Half Men) and David Alan Basche (Frasier). We pitched a few ideas and they loved the new evolution of a more dynamic and comedic approach to the current intro, which had become quite stale. The execution did ask for on-set direction of the talent, so I flew to Los Angeles and we shot parallel with other publicity setups that TVLand had, so as to get all the talent together in one place.

What challenges and opportunities do you face as a South African director when working in the United States?

In terms of challenges, the main one is easy to spot, and that is the time difference. Los Angeles only wakes up 7pm SA time, and that has the effect of stretching your days very long. That and jet-lag are the main obstacles we’ve encountered. In the same breath, the opportunities are incredible. As a South African (which has shown that we can build relationships and deliver to standards as high, and even higher, than US industry), the American market has been very welcoming to us. The feedback I’ve gotten is that they love the different approach we have to projects. Our thinking has an incredible American influence, so we understand the psyche there, but we have these great African and European-influenced ways of thinking that are very unique. The American TV industry has been very welcoming, to me and Monarchy at least.

What trends – both creative and technical – have you noted in the industry in the past year and what do you foresee being the major talking points in advertising, marketing and media in the next year?

The trend internationally is that on-air marketing is getting a smaller and smaller part of the pie, and the way we have to approach and think of executions are going to be very interesting. Personally I think that viewers are oversaturated with shallow marketing and design bull,

Monarchy took home several awards at ProMaxBDA last year – all for your rebrand of A&E’s Crime and Investigation channel. Can you talk us through that particular project, your approach to it, and what, in your view were the main aspects that led to it being deemed worthy of this recognition?

A&E’s Crime and Investigation network wanted to rebrand not only in one or two sectors of their global reach, but wanted to have a uniform rebrand across all 102 countries that the channel is broadcast in. So to come up with a rebrand that talks across culture, language and borders we went through a three- or four-round pitch process over about eight months. And with the incredible creative leadership, ideas and executions of Monarchy’s incomparable Executive Creative Director, Nicci Hattingh, we came up with the concept of ‘Converged Timelines’. This led to an imaging that was very footage-heavy, with amazing design elements and comp’ed logos that communicated the TX-information and branding. The approach of having the victim, criminal and authority figures in the same idents, lead to a great opportunity to shoot amazing setups. That, together with macro-shot setups, really gave you a stylised and 360-degree take on what crime can potentially be on a channel that specialises in the subject matter.

In terms of awards and recognition, it is always great when your peers find it justifiable to give you recognition for work that you do because it is your passion. We had incredibly knowledgeable clients, that were an absolute pleasure to work with, and making them look good is just the cherry on top.

What projects are coming up for you that you find particularly exciting and/or scary, and why?

That is always a very interesting and sensitive question.

There are a few big local and international projects in the pipelines, which I cannot talk about just yet. But we just finished launching the amazing M-Net Edge, as well as the new campaign for American Idol for Fox in America, and we are about to deliver the latest season’s marketing campaign for ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. We are also doing some interesting things with Zeiss in Germany.

Although we love the American work, in the last year we have grown incredibly passionate about what we can bring to the South African market, be it on broadcast (our first passion) or advertising, with our international experiences.

What inspires you as a storyteller and a creator of images?

This is one of those questions where you can come across as a real obnoxious creative that tries too hard. So I’ll just be honest. If I can make someone feel something, if I can give someone goosebumps, then that is enough inspiration for me to do the utmost best I can do. The people that make me feel that way, are my absurdly talented and beautiful wife (business partner and incredible CD) Nicci and our 9 month old son Benjamin.

Damn, if you can’t draw inspiration from the people and things that are closest to you, then you might need to change those things.

– Compiled by Warren Holden October 2014 | SCREENAFRICA | 19

FILM

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Elements of Cinema – Reeling Romance This is the first in a series of articles titled Elements of Cinema, in which we examine how different areas of a film’s production contribute to creating the look, mood and feel of various types of scenes.

A

cinematic love scene can reach out from the confines of a TV set or movie screen right into the heart of its audience.

The team behind South African romantic comedy Leading Lady share how they were able to produce this moment of magic, in which lead characters Jodi and Kobus dance together for the first time.

Henk Pretorius on directing: Love scenes are awkward and mechanical, so I had to make the actors feel as comfortable as possible. I think your role as a director is always to know what you want the audience to feel while watching the scene and to direct it until the picture in your head makes you feel that way. In this scene I wanted the audience to feel a sense of relief as our romantic leads finally open up to each other.

Esme Viviers on production design: Lighting sets the mood, and so practical lighting provided by the environment like the paraffin lamps used in this scene, helps the DOP justify his mood lighting. In addition, the audience must be focused on the characters so it’s important to keep the room as monotone or desaturated as possible with nothing to distract them.

Claudia Hamman on makeup: For romantic scenes I like to create a look that requires minimal makeup, with the focus on subtle lined eyes. I worked with Jodi’s natural features, using a lip tint to bring out her rosy lips for pure sweetness. Kissable lips in a romantic scene is always key!

Jim Petrak of Sound Surfers on sound design: When creating sound for a love scene I work closely with the composer to highlight key moments of connection between the characters. Using strings and violins in the music adds to the emotion of the scene, while removing elements like percussion

20 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

allows a gentle delivery of dialogue. We also kept the foleys light and touchy to compliment the flow of their movements.

Trevor Calverley on cinematography: In shooting this scene, we wanted to allow the action to unfold in front of us, without cutting too often. So we ran a track from one side of the set to the other, and then shot the master on a zoom.

This allowed rapid reframing, resets and angles changes. Once the master was set and we went in for close-ups we had the opportunity to craft a little more.

Trevor Calverley on lighting: This scene had to be cosmetic and romantic. It was achieved by using soft sources, skirted to create little soft pools that the couple could dance through. This was complimented by peppering them with more direct, harder sources. This would create a little intermittent backlight ‘ping’, separating them from the background. For the close-ups we used a silk frame and got it as close to the actors as possible to create a pleasing eye-light, while ‘wrapping’ the light around the face, dropping off softly into darkness.

Warwick Allan on editing: When cutting a love scene like this it is critical to build tension and take the viewer on a journey with the characters. When you get into the emotional core of the performance – that is when you can move people in a big way. I do this by using detailed close-ups to show what the actor is experiencing, looking for the subtlety in the eyes of an actor and building that the believability.

Henk Pretorius on scripting: In a romantic comedy you ultimately aim to fall in love with both/ all of the characters that you create, convincing the viewer that all you really need to be happy in life is your significant other. I always think the more sceptical the writer behind the film is of this myth, the more depth the film will have. – Carly Barnes

| Film

LOOK AND FEEL – An intimate scene from Leading Lady

Click on the .

icon to watch the video

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 21

FILM

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TUNISIA | EGYPT | SENEGAL | ALGERIA | MOROCCO

Carthage, the oldest Pan African Film Festival

AFRICA ON-SCREEN: C’est eux les chiens (Hicham Lasri, Morocco)

Last December, Tunisia hosted the oldest pan-African film festival on the continent, the Carthage International Film Festival.

This was the opportunity to see upcoming African movies and projects.

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aunched in 1966 by the Tunisian film critic Tahar Cheriaa, the Carthage International Film Festival celebrated its 25th edition last December. This 25th edition was marked by the now annual periodicity of the event, which was, from its creation, a two-year event back to back with the Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) which takes place every other year. “In 1966, there was a reason for that, because there were not so many film festivals.

FESPACO came after, but it was a false coupling,” explains Dora Bouchoucha, who got Carthage to turn annual and to take on a year-round team, headquarters, as well as introducing a new project, Takmil.

A post-production workshop Created with a nod to the Final Cut Venice program, Takmil is a postproduction workshop, which selected nine features from the Middle East and Africa. French film critic Jacques Fieschi, French-Tunisian scriptwriter Ghalya Lacroix, Lebanese film critic Rima Mismar, 22 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

Nigerian filmmaker Newton Aduaka and Palestinian producer Raed Andoni were members of the jury.

Winner of the Arab Fund for Art and Culture Award ($5 000) Mohamed Rashad’s Little Eagles (Egypt) is a documentary about Rashad’s father and Egyptian history from 1952 to 2014.

Awarded by the European Union National Institutes for Culture Prize (€9 000), Hamza Ouni’s El Medestansi (Tunisia) is a documentary about a poor suburb of Tunis, where most young people suffer from unemployment and frustration.

Winner of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (€10 000), Rama Thiaw’s The revolution won’t be televised (Senegal) is a documentary, which follows two artists from the movement “Y’en a Marre” which played an important role in the 2011 Senegalese revolution. Awarded by the French Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’image animée (€20 000) Tamer el Said’s fiction In the Last Days of the City (Egypt) recounts how a 35-year-old filmmaker struggles to make a film that captures the pulse of his city at a moment when, around him, dreams and buildings were disintegrating.

Workers, Students and Cows In the documentary competition a Special Mention was given Nelson Mandela, The Myth and Me (South Africa), in which Khalo Matabane asks questions about the influence of Nelson Mandela in his personal life and the lives of many others.

Hamza Ouni’s El Gort (Tunisia), about two Tunisians struggling to survive the sale of hay, received the Bronze Tanit.

National Diploma by Dieudo Hamadi (DRC) about a group of high school students, who struggled to pass their final exam, received the Silver Tanit. From Palestine, The Wanted 18, a mix of stop-motion animation, drawings and interviews, directed by Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan, based on the true story of two Palestinian dairy farmers hiding their herd of cows from Israeli soldiers during the First Intifada, won the Golden Tanit.

Teenagers, Old Lady and Child In the main competition, the official jury was composed of Danny Glover (USA), Selma Baccar (Tunisia), Rima Khcheich (Lebanon), Mena Shalaby (Egypt), Moussa Touré (Senegal), Nadir Mokneche (Algeria) and Renato Berta (Switzerland).

Out of the 15 short films in competition, Karim Moussaoui’s The Days Before, a stunning Algerian mid-length drama recounting carelesness of the youth before the dark events of the 1990’s in Algeria, won the Bronze Tanit.

The poetic Luck Razanajaona’s Madama Esther (Madagascar), depicting an old

lady willing to go to the seaside, received the Silver Tanit. And Kaouther Ben Hania’s Peau de colle (Tunisia), about a 5 year-old girl who wants to escape the Koranic school, won the Golden Tanit.

Family Honour, Reunion and Freedom Out of the 15 features in competition, Before Snowfall, Hisham Zaman’s road movie about a boy looking for his sister to restore the honour of his family, received the Best Actress Award (Suzan Ilir) as well as the Bronze Tanit.

The Algerian actor Khaled Benaïssa received the Best Actor award for his leading role in Lyes Salem’s historical drama The Man From Oran, which recounts the journey of one of the Algerian independence leaders, from hope to disappointment.

C’est eux les chiens directed by Hicham Lasri (Morocco), which depicts with humour and a rare narrative sense, the story of a man looking for his family after 20 years of jail, won the Silver Tanit.

The ambitious and inter-continental first feature by Dyana Gaye, Des étoiles (France/Senegal), recounting the journey of three characters through different countries such as Senegal, Italy and USA, received a Special Mention.

Lastly, the great winner of this 2014 edition was Hany Abu-Assad’s brilliant Omar (Palestine) about three childhood friends and a young woman torn apart by their fight for freedom. The movie won the Golden Tanit as well as the Youth Award, the Best Screenplay and the Audience Awards. – Claire Diao

| POST-PRODUCTION

Upstairs at the Ludus For long time veterans of the post-production industry, the world must now seem topsy-turvy, for we’re in the throes of a technology – and by virtue thereof, a content – revolution!

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ith this in mind, Cape Town-based facility, Upstairs Post, is introducing a new division of its business, which it has called the Ludus. The word ludus refers to a school or house for Roman gladiators. It was here that young talent was honed for gladiatorial combat in the thrilling spectacles of the arenas.

This concept references the ‘bloody battle’ of business which is to come – where the select few will find fortune and favour, while the rest fall on their swords. It’s about becoming the best, getting the crowd to call its name, giving them something new, something spectacular, a new arena with new gladiators – an entirely new experience.

The post-production services industry is at an interesting juncture. Driven by the squeeze in production budgets, it’s facing low margins, slow growth and operational complexity.

Trying to adapt, conventional offline houses all now offer grade / online in many weird and wonderful forms – some seem to work but lack capacity. They may be taking a stab at individual survival but collectively they’re merely adding to the erosion that’s being felt industry-wide, the world over. Something needs to change.

What all of these business models do, both good and bad, is that they all erode the market share of the BIG guys; they all chip away at the pie. The inevitable result will be that the offline editors will cause the death of the traditional online facilities – as they get better at what they do, we will see more and more of the market share dispersed.

Being behind the curve is bad; but so too being too far ahead of it. Perhaps synergy and capacity can be built with collaboration – with like-minded people creating and re-imaging how post-

A RE-IMAGINED SPACE: The Upstairs Ludus premises under construction production fits their lives, their existing businesses, rendering it less conventional and more inclusive?

Smart businesses Currently, post-production consists of big machines, many owned copies of software and lots of storage hardware. In the future, we will only need interfaces.

Smart businesses are already preparing for this future destination. At the same time, Upstairs Post Production needed to re-invent. To offset the creeping change where offline houses compete with online houses, Upstairs Post Production tried a different approach – it worked, attracting top online and grading talent, offering clients added value and disrupting the Cape Town post industry.

The Upstairs Ludus is a Johannesburgbased post-production facility reimagined – a facility that caters for the needs of production houses, directors and agencies and where stakeholders have a vested interest in the business.

The Upstairs Ludus offers a creative, cost-effective route, with fresh talent and little risk.

Traditionally, all post services were split between different companies, which means extra cost – in the form of additional human capacity, fees, mark-ups, etc. Not conducive to working with today’s constrained budgets!

new facility. After searching everywhere from Bryanston to Rosebank, the Upstairs team settled on a 400-square-metre space on the corner of Republic Road and William Nicol Drive, close to both the Sandton and Randburg CBDs. Opting for a ‘reimagined space’ somewhere between the traditional ‘old house’ and ‘industrial warehouse’ models that are common in the industry, they conceptualised a fusion space which is sophisticated, contemporary and honest.

It’s a clean space which promotes

creativity and productivity.

At the heart of the model is the idea that the people who work in The Upstairs Ludus actually own a piece of it. The logic behind this is that The Upstairs Ludus becomes a vital support for their own core models, giving them longevity in an ever-changing industry.

Johannesburg-based Upstairs Ludus will open on 1 March 2015. For more information on the venture contact producer Ashleigh Lambson at: production.upstairspost@gmail.com.

The Upstairs Ludus is a one-stop shop, offering: • Offline • Grade • Online • Vfx/animation • Audio • Tele-stream With all these services being housed in one convenient space, the benefits to the client include: • Reduced overall cost • Less time wastage • One contact person – no mess, no fuss!

• One invoice – post budget from beginning to end Location was a key factor in setting up the February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 23

Documentary

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EGYPT

Jihan El-Tahri: ‘We have not told our stories’ This year, the Egyptian filmmaker Jihan El Tahri, currently a permanent resident of South Africa, was the only African jury member of the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA). The director of Cuba, An African Odyssey and Behind the Rainbow – a probing look at South Africa’s ruling party – spoke to Screen Africa about her latest film, a threehour documentary on Egyptian history, as well as her views on the current state of African cinema.

Screen Africa: What do you think about IDFA as an international platform for African films?

Jihan El-Tahri: IDFA is undoubtedly the most important documentary film festival and film forum worldwide. It is a reflection of our world in many ways. There is very little space for Africa. (Not because they don’t want it, but because it is a platform that is aiming at different national TV station where the concern is ‘what will my audience think?’) The existing African space is for films that manage to sell their ideas as a universal mechanism. And it is getting harder and harder.

In the past, I used to think that with time there would be more place for African films. I’m not sure this is the case.

But I guess that it is our job, as African filmmakers, to articulate our ideas in a universal language because our stories are universal. The space at IDFA for Africa does exist but is limited.

But they made a special focus on women with a ‘Female Gaze’ section.

I’m anti-ghetto. I think there’s always a desire to create little boxes and labels and I hate that. I’m a nomad; I don’t know in which country I live. I try my best not to fit in a box and I think I succeed quite well, maybe to my own detriment. I think that trying to pin down why we are different is the first step towards segregation. And I’m against segregation in any of its forms. What about doing a ‘Male Gaze’ section? Female and Male Gaze, that would have been interesting to compare. It just looks as though we were seen to be those still underdeveloped: “so let’s help them and see what they can do.” No! There is no reason.

24 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

Screen Africa: As a permanent resident of South Africa, living in and out of the country since 1999, what do you think about the film industry here?

Jihan El-Tahri: The SA industry is a really interesting one. It has all the good intentions but fails to learn from other people’s mistakes. The SA industry wants to go to the top: Hollywood where feature films are concerned and on a level that is very difficult to reach. I think they set their standards really high which is good because they put their money where their mouth is but at the same time, I’ll say: “Look at your own treasure.”

Screen Africa: You were involved in many pan-African organisations such as FEPACI and the African Filmmakers’ Guild. Even if those experiences disappointed you, do you still believe in African cooperation?

Jihan El-Tahri: I’ll quote Thabo Mbeki: “as improbable as it might sound, Africa is going to prosper.” I might be mad, but I absolutely believe that it is going to be a next step.

Most of the hard work of European filmmakers is to sit and write applications and get funds to make their films. As African filmmakers, we work three times harder! We face far more obstacles but we definitely have the will and the stories.

Because of new technologies, the space is opening up. I’m not going to say that it is a level playing field yet, but there is potential to have that. There will be many

PROJECTING AFRICA: Jihan El Tahri

more unexpected African films in those future spaces. For example, I have burnt DVDs of my movies to give to professionals. But people do not have DVD players on their computers anymore.

They need to go straight to the internet.

And young African filmmakers who cannot get to international forums are on the Internet. So their chances are much better than they used to be. Now, it is part of our job to rise up to the standards and I’m not sure we’ve done that. So, yes, I have hope for African filmmakers.

My biggest problem with the milieu of African cinema is that it has been planted in our brain that the cake is not big enough for everyone. The competition and the attempt to make one star rise and the other crash remains the modus operandi. Whereas the truth is the opposite: the more we are, the bigger the cake will be and our voices become heard.

We still try to compete against each other – competition is healthy – but we have to help each other. There are little initiatives like the Sudan Film Factory where people are really helping each other. That was also the case in the South African documentary industry but it cracked. Now they are two different

organisations and I sincerely hope they will not compete to negate each other rather than building on both of their strengths.

Screen Africa: What is the story of your new project, Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs?

Jihan El-Tahri: My documentary is trying to follow the thread of how visionaries fell into the trap of dictatorship. It’s in three parts: one is about Nasser, one about Sadat and one about Mubarak.

I honestly believe that each one of them came with a vision of returning to Egypt’s glory and bringing Egyptians out of misery. Each one came with a sincere desire to change the reality of oppression and squalor of Egypt. And each one fell into the same trap: turning the country into a police state, the military holding on everything and the gap between rich and poor growing until some people could barely live and some others did not even know what to do with all their money.

What I am trying to do is to dig out the thread that allows me to follow the process of how that vision of transforming a country into its glory falls into the same trap. Each time it is the same: “now is not the time to allow that kind of democracy.

EGYPT

Let us develop first and then allow people to talk.” What do they do? They muzzle opposition, they get the police to get all these rebels to shut up, they choke everyone in prison, they create divisions inside the society, and they blame an ideology. A country like Egypt has always been middle-of-the-road, secular and modernised. It was the Paris of the Middle East; watch the movies of the 1950s. Egyptians were polarised because of political interest, not because of who they were. I think that no African country ever had time to figure out its postcolonial identity. Now that we’ve struggled and kicked these people out, who are we? None of us has successfully moved beyond. Maybe the South Africans but even they’re still struggling.

We need national dialogue among ourselves to know who we are. We cannot come out from decades of colonialism and pretend that nothing happened.

Screen Africa: After Cuba, An African Odyssey and Behind the Rainbow about the ANC, what brought you back to Egypt?

Jihan El-Tahri: It is a funny thing. I’m obsessed by stories of heroes who stand up against colonialism that seemed unbreakable then, once they break it, what happens? I can’t understand where the shift happened. Most of my films are around the same question. Cuba, An African Odyssey is about the moment of independence. Behind the Rainbow is about the moment of transition of a

liberation movement into a ruling party and the process of losing dreams. After this film, I didn’t want to make movies anymore. My Egyptian film was compelling, not because it’s my country – I did not want to work in Egypt – but because for me, it is the final chapter of a trilogy. In 1961, placards were saying ‘Bread-Freedom-Social Justice’ and having the same 60 years later showed, for me, the failure of the post-colonial state. That psychology of postcolonialism must be re-thought. But I think this movie will be my last one.

Screen Africa: Why? Jihan El-Tahri: Because I’m not going to make a film just to make a film. These big stories (Cuba, ANC, Egypt) are complex issues. I don’t want to simplify them. The main issue is their complexity. I really appreciate that Arte exists because their demands are not about audience but they’re becoming more like that. That’s why I think a dinosaur like me does not have much future left. I honestly make films because there is something I want to say, in my way. And if that space doesn’t exist, I will find something else to do.

Screen Africa: The Egyptian cinema industry was the first on the continent in the 1940s. What do you think about its current state?

Jihan El-Tahri: In my new film, I am using Egyptian features as part of the illustration instead of archive or as part of the narrative. I have watched almost 180

features from the 1950s onwards. And it boggles my mind that we could have done so much without being able to impose ourselves internationally. We used to, but Egypt is in a phase where – maybe because we are 90 million people – selfsufficient; we don’t look beyond our borders. And I think this impoverished us quite severely. Since just before 2011, a new generation of filmmakers – specifically from the documentary scene – came out of Egypt and I am really hopeful for them. The feature scene should stop resting on their laurels because Egypt’s past glory can only remain if we don’t take it for granted.

Screen Africa: You worked as a journalist before becoming a filmmaker. What space do you think cinema offers to people who want to express themselves?

Jihan El-Tahri: Cinema is an amazing thing. I think I’m part of that not-so-manypeople who have certain skills to tell certain stories – I don’t want to sound pompous – so it is part of my obligation to tell our stories. We have not told our stories. Someone else tells every historical, political piece about my region.

They can do that as long as we exist too.

They cannot have the monopoly of that space. But because most filmmakers believe that these historic, political stories are not sexy, nobody wants to do it. They prefer to make observational films, personal films, and nobody wants to look at this legacy we have that no one has

| Documentary

touched yet!

Cinema has a massive role. As I have said, I am using Egyptian features in my film because that was the only space for things that was not censored: “Since it’s fiction, let them talk.” There are so many real episodes in our history – not specifically about Egypt but the whole continent – that could be told in fiction but that do not exist in images or sound, that do not exist at all: they were wiped out of our history! So, thank God cinema exists.

Screen Africa: As the African youth stood up against governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Senegal, Burkina Faso… do you think the same wind can blow through cinema?

Jihan El-Tahri: I don’t know. It’s not about our youth having that wind – of course they have. As long as our funding remains dependent, who will be let through the door to access that space where they can show that new wind? I’m not sure that’s going to happen. That’s part of my frustration with pan-African organisations. Where is the African Fund? It was signed in 2004. Where is it?

And why has it not happened? The point of an African fund is to give power to people to voice their opinion but when there is African money, it always goes to the ones who are in the system. The political will to give power to the ones who have different opinions is not there yet.

– Compiled by Claire Diao February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 25

Africa

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iVORY COAST

NEW DISCOP EVENT: Abidijan

Introducing DISCOP Africa Express In January, Basic Lead, the Johannesburg and Los Angeles based event organiser, announced that it would be adding a new DISCOP event to its calendar. In addition to its Johannesburg event, held every year in November, content buyers and sellers on the continent can now also look forward to DISCOP Africa Express, the first edition of which is coming up in June 2015 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

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O

ne might have seen this development coming after the 2014 edition of DISCOP Africa, which featured a focus on Francophone Africa and named Ivory Coast as its country of honour, even featuring the Ivorian minister of communications, Affoussiata BambaLamine. In this decision Basic Lead appears to be on top of a trend that is currently taking more concrete shape in Africa’s creative industries. While South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya have long been seen as the primary hubs of television and film content on the continent, no-one could ignore the market that has always existed in the Francophone countries.

Ivory Coast, with its long history of fine filmmaking and the massive investment that the government has recently injected into the industry, appears to be fast

becoming the movie and TV hub of Francophone Africa. Those with an interest in tapping into that market are setting their sights on Abidjan and Yamoussoukro.

A companion to DISCOP Africa DISCOP Africa Express will certainly not replace the existing annual Johannesburg-hosted event. It is intended as an extension and a companion to the South African expo and conference. According to DISCOP Africa founder Patrick Zuchowicki, many of the event’s regular visitors and clients had commented that just one gathering per year was not enough, that more regular meetings were necessary to close deals and keep up business relationships. At

the same time, the call of Francophone Africa could no longer be ignored.

At the official announcement of the event Zuchowicki said: “Our annual Johannesburg based market continues to exceed expectations each year as more key international players recognise the importance of Africa and its strong potential in the global content distribution industry. Following a survey of a cross-section of our participants in November, it became clear that the time is right to establish a second dedicated market, at the heart of Francophone Africa, to further the growth of this important region and become an essential partner in our thriving Johannesburg event.”

The new event, say its organisers, will “present an international market with a strong focus on the African content industry, alongside an educational programme and networking hub. It will play host to producers, distributors, pay-TV and mobile operators and alternative distribution platforms from throughout the region and beyond. It will serve as an important new Afro-centric industry gathering in the market calendar, enabling attendees to meet, connect and do business in this vibrant region on a bi-annual basis.

The inaugural edition of DISCOP Africa Express will be held at the Sofitel Ivoire Hotel in Abidjan, Ivory from 2 to 4 June 2015.

Africa

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IVORY COAST

Welcome to ‘Babiwood’ Abidjan, the commercial centre of Ivory Coast is gearing up to host the first edition of DISCOP Africa Express. In recent years, following the end of the Ivorian Civil War, the city has become a commercial hub in the region and the centre of the Francophone African audiovisual industry.

Like Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi, it is a city that any professional in the film and television industry in Africa ought to become familiar with.

GEARING UP FOR DISCOP: The RTI building in Abidjan Lacôte, achieved international recognition when it became the first Ivorian film to enter the competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The state broadcaster, Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), has been making sizeable investment in the creation and distribution of new local content, and the government of President Alessane Ouattara has begun investing considerable time and money in television and film, under the watchful eye of communications minister Affoussiata Bamba-Lamine.

Ivorian Renaissance

RTI Distribution

Ivory Coast is no stranger to the audiovisual world; in its postindependence years, it developed a thriving film industry. In the 1970s and 80s, French-influenced auteurs such as Désiré Ecaré and Henri Duparc created cinematic classics that put the west African nation on the map. Abidjan, at one time the country’s capital, endowed with a cultural sector that saw it dubbed the ‘Paris of West Africa’, was the centre of this industry. Working with micro budgets and exercising a sensibility that owed much to the French New Wave, Ivorian filmmakers pushed themselves to the forefront of African cinema. That all gradually ground to a halt with the economic crisis of the 1980s and the political unrest that followed the death of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Naturally the industry was further sidelined during the Civil Wars of 2002-2007 and 2010-2011.

Now the efforts of filmmakers, the state broadcaster and government are pushing the industry back towards its former glory. In 2014, the Ivorian film Run, directed by Abidjan local Phillippe

RTI recently formed a distribution arm charged, not only with helping to stimulate the production of homegrown Ivorian content, but with selling it to overseas territories. It aims to put Ivorian culture, and by extension Francophone African culture under the spotlight.

Although it focuses on the development of fiction films, documentaries and short films are also encouraged. RTI actively

28 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

A scene from the acclaimed Ivorian film Run

seeks co-production opportunities with Ivorian private producers, ensuring that a portion of the funding invested in the state broadcaster is passed on to the private sector.

Search for co-production partners For Minister Bamba-Lamine and her team attending DISCOP Africa in November 2014, one of the main objectives, apart from simply making the Ivorian industry known to the world at large, was to search for co-production partners among Africa’s filmmaking nations. Just prior to the expo she was asked her opinion on the vitality of Ivorian audiovisual production. She replied: “Compared to Nigeria, Ivory Coast’s production is still feeble. However, Ivorian production is diverse and the rise of digital terrestrial television (DTT) could help to give it a boost. Efforts have been made by the government to support and encourage those who choose to become

professional producers. Ivory Coast (by the way, Côte d’Ivoire is the correct, official name and the government refuses to recognise the English translation) can count on the talents of its producers and actors, who are renowned worldwide.”

And so toward ‘Babiwood’…

The city of Abidjan stands at the centre of these developments, and thus at the centre of the entire audiovisual industry of Francophone Africa. This city of four and half million people – seven million counting the metropolitan region, is the largest city in French-speaking West Africa and the third largest Frenchspeaking metropolitan area in the world after Paris and Kinshasa.

Creatives and technical crew are gravitating toward the city to take their place in the sun. There was once a time when the city boasted several cinemas for the exhibition of local productions and imported films. These are now disappearing from the cityscape and television and the ever growing world of new media are filling the vacuum they leave behind.

Dubbed the ‘Manhattan of the Tropics’ and marked by a thrilling combination of old-world charm and freewheeling, brash, ‘get-ahead’ modern culture that a citizen of Johannesburg would find familiar, this unique African city carries some characteristics of great filmmaking cities such as Los Angeles, Lagos and even Mumbai in its DNA. For this reason, the winds of commerce and creativity that breathed life into Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood, are blowing with full force into the city that has been nicknamed ‘Babiwood’.

Africa

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Kanal D: Bringing Turkey to Africa Among the many content providers marketing their product at the 2014 DISCOP Africa conference in Johannesburg was the Turkish company Kanal D. Having found a receptive market for its content in a wide range of foreign territories, the company is now actively looking for new opportunities in Africa. Sales and acquisitions executive Amaç Us spoke to Screen Africa about their offering.

Screen Africa: What would you say is the appeal of Turkish content to an international market? Which territories have licensed Kanal D content up to this point and what has been the main driver behind the purchase of the content in those territories?

Amaç Us: Amaç Us: Kanal D has achieved great success as a content provider. After the success of the Turkish series, first in Central Asia, and later on in the Middle East and North Africa, Kanal D has expanded to new territories such as CEE, Western Europe, Latin America and the Far East. It has played an important role in the popularity of Turkish series around the world. Until today, we have licensed our series to nearly 90 different countries. They were mostly broadcast in prime-time slots, attracting large audiences.

Our producers and scriptwriters know how to put together an appealing show which connects with the audience. All our series have great stories and strong characters. Once you have both of these ingredients, you will have your content travel around the world no matter what language the storytelling is in. In our stories there are pursuits of hope, clashing families, forbidden romances and platonic love stories, conspiracies, betrayals… In short, all the universal elements of human life. The series are shot in HD and internationally accepted high quality standards.

If we look from the audience’s perspective, our audiences abroad find our stories, locations and cast appealing and intimate. They find our stories real and relevant to their own life-stories.

Viewers in those countries can relate themselves to the majority of things they see in our shows and are inspired by these stories.

Screen Africa: What have you seen in the African content market(s) that has drawn you to start marketing your content here?

Amaç Us: The African TV industry is growing and developing quickly and there is still plenty of room for growth. It will be a more competitive market after the digital transition is fully completed.

There will be more platforms and 30 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

channels launched. There will be more need for content and broadcasters will look for content that will differentiate them from others. As Kanal D, we will cater to this need, as we believe our series will perform great in the region.

Screen Africa: What kind of content does your offering include? It appears that telenovela-style dramas make up a large part of your package – what else do you have? Daily drama series, whether from Latin America or India, have proven very popular in African markets. How does your content compare to dramas from these territories?

Amaç Us: Our catalogue mainly consists of drama series. However we also offer comedy sitcoms, crime and investigation shows, action, bio-drama series, game shows, lifestyle programmes, cooking shows and feature films. We also offer script and format rights for most of our ready-made content. In addition to these differences, technically, unlike the Latin telenovelas and Indian drama series, our series’ episode duration is at least 90 minutes and they are shot in real locations. This brings high production value.

Screen Africa: In exploring the African market, which regions and countries are you particularly targeting and why? Which have proven to be most receptive to your offering?

Amaç Us: We are targeting all subSaharan Africa with our content as we see potential in all countries. As Kanal D, our strategy has always been to enter a new territory with the right content with the right broadcaster at the right time and that is what we intend to do in Africa as well. For the moment, English-speaking territories seem to be the most receptive.

We know for sure that once our series start broadcasting in the region and prove their success, our series will become the trend in the whole region just like they have been in most of the world like Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America (LATAM), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and others.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES: Amaç Us, acquisitions executive of Kanal D Sales

Screen Africa: You have already signed deals with pay and free-to-air operators in Africa. Are you able to discuss those deals yet, tell us which operators and which territories you have been dealing with?

Amaç Us: We have some deals that are in the execution process and some under negotiation. Once they are fully executed we would be happy to disclose the information. However, I can tell you that soon our content will be available on one of the most influential pay-TV platforms in Africa.

Screen Africa: What are some of your biggest and most popular programmes?

Being the leading free-to-air entertainment TV channel in Turkey, we have the highest rated content in our catalogue. The highlights of our catalogue are our drama series. If we were to speak about the most internationally successful ones, here are a few that I can name from our long list: • Gümüs • Time Goes By • Forbidden Love • Leaf Cast • Fatmagul • Kuzey Guney • LOVE • Secrets Screen Africa: What challenges have you faced in presenting your content to the international market and how have you overcome them?

Amaç Us: Technical difficulties have been the most important challenge for us.

When we first started licensing our

content internationally in 2006, we did not have M&E tracks for our series. In other words, if the broadcaster wanted to dub our series, they could not, because the music and effect tracks were not separated. For some of our series, back then, we did not even have scripts available.

Even though the content itself was great, we were not able to provide the licensors with sufficient materials for them to work with. The main reason behind is that we actually never thought that we would sell our content to another country and we never had the need to have M&E tracks nor proper scripts. Today, we are a major content distributor, and provide content with the most advanced technology.

For Africa, to be more specific, the major challenge we have faced and are still facing is dubbing. African broadcasters ask for already dubbed content in languages such as English and French. In order to cater to them, we need to have our Turkish language content dubbed into these languages.

This would force us to spend a large amount of money, which would not be reasonable commercially. Even though the African TV market is emerging fast, the paid licence fees are not at a level where we can cover our dubbing costs.

African broadcasters are not willing to share the dubbing costs either because of their budget. To overcome this challenge, we are trying to find different solutions. Once we find the right business model, we will be able to offer more from our extended catalogue.

Screen Africa: How are you pitching and positioning your content offering to make it attractive to your designated African market(s)?

Amaç Us: Besides all the above details I have mentioned, which explain how our content differentiates from regional competitors, I would also add that our content has proven internationally successful in many different parts of the world, which makes our hand stronger.

Our content touches people’s hearts and creates a bond with them – they become addictive. Most of our series are long running. Imagine a series with 120 episodes of between 90 to 110 minutes each: most of the broadcasters prefer to broadcast in commercial hours and split one Turkish length episode into two or three commercial hours. So, the original 120 episodes become 240 to 360 episodes depending on the duration of each episode. This makes the content a cost effective investment for the broadcaster, which helps them fill their programming schedule with high quality content for a long period of time at reasonable fees.

– Compiled by Warren Holden

Sports Broadcast

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Good sport!

In January this year the sport broadcast fraternity lost an unsung hero. Tony Verna, who passed away at the age of 81, achieved little recognition for an invention that changed sports broadcasting history.

FATHER OF INSTANT REPLAY: Tony Verna

O

n 7 December, 1963, US Army and Navy football teams squared off in their annual game in Philadelphia.

In the fourth quarter, Army quarterback Carl Stichweh faked a handoff and ran into the end zone for a touchdown.

Army fans watching at home were ecstatic. But then something strange happened. Stichweh again faked a handoff and ran into the end zone for a touchdown. The event was so disorienting that Lindsey Nelson, the commentator for the broadcast, had to explain to the audience at home that what they had seen wasn’t live. “Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again,” he said.

Tony Verna, a young CBS producer, with a 580kg Ampex videotape machine perched on a seat in the van, using an untested method of recording tone to mark an event, on a used I Love Lucy tape, performed the first ever live instant replay; a technological innovation that would change sport broadcasts forever.

The use of technology in televised games today has in many ways helped evolve sport into the multimillion dollar business ventures that it has become.

Action replays, super slow-mos, Hawk Eye, Ref Cam and 3D predictive tracking are all technologies that have become the norm, reflecting our modern-day viewing psyche, where stats, viewing angles, the size and the look of the game are what consumes our attention.

Sport broadcasting has become the life blood of television worldwide. NBC Sports in the US, for example, has drawn up a schedule of over 2 000 live sport events this year alone to provide the

34 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

schedule craved by their viewers.

Escalating viewer demand for sport continues to drive many of the technological advances in the broadcast industry. This is changing the way sport is both delivered and watched.

Traditionally, television viewing has been essentially a passive experience, with content fed to the viewer. PC-based internet has an active component and requires significant involvement from the user, and the high degree of selectivity available with modern interactive broadcasts is having a dramatic effect on consumer viewing habits, allowing viewers to effectively customise their television experience.

As content providers produce a record number of programmes in an attempt to satisfy sports fans’ appetites, new mediums are being embraced at a rapid rate.

New media enters the game “Tweet the announcer! Text your answer to this number! Like us on Facebook!”

Across sports, social media is obviously the new frontier. The technology and means available for delivering sport to different sections of society is continuing to rapidly grow. The new media explosion does more than begin to make ‘any sport, any event, any time, any device’ a viable reality for the fan. It also begins to blur the boundary between sport, gaming and reality. Enter the age of eSports.

The League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena genre video game and while it might not be a ‘real sport’ according to certain TV executives,

eSports like this are set to break records this year in terms of live arena and television broadcasting. ESPN has embraced eSport with relish. At the World Championships 2015, 23 cameras will provide 35 hours of coverage in a real test of endurance to its 40 000 capacity stadium audience. The broadcast to an estimated 55 million viewers will be in 13 languages, with facilities that are similar to that of a regular broadcast event. The Master Control Room (MCR) will be in Los Angeles, with producers in New York and Berlin controlling the production of the broadcast. The growing popularity of eSports is so big that some US colleges have begun offering athletic scholarships to gamers.

Ultra HD waiting on the sideline Broadcasters are always focused on finding ways to bring fans closer to the action and players. The undoubted staple remains visual – new cameras and new angles. ESPN’s annual X-Games have long been an incubator for new television technology and their planned use of drones this year marks the first time the aerial devices are being used to cover a live sporting event. The natural progression for 2015 has to be 4K. Sport is one area where 4K technologies could really improve the viewing experience. With instant replays in Ultra HD, audiences might be able to judge whether a player has dived for a penalty or really was brought down illegally or if the ball has crossed the try line in a game of rugby. With sport looking to be the best way forward for

4K, both BT Sport and SKY Sports are developing their systems to try and fully utilise the technology’s full potential. BT states that it could start broadcasting Barclays Premiership matches in Ultra HD as early as the 2015-2016 season.

Towards the end of last year the BSkyB team took the opportunity of the fortuitous timing and giant scale of the Ryder Cup Golf Tournament to put together a major trial of 4K UHD technology in a live environment across the broadcast chain.

Technology experts Virtz have long been developers of powerful onscreen graphic engines. With today’s datadriven and interactive technology, graphics are also the easiest and most cost-effective method to covering the action as it happens. Vizrt were involved in the successful BSkyB trials.

Vizrt executive VP sports Dr. Stephan Würmlin Stadler comments: “Graphics are something that can make the switch to 4K extremely quickly and easily – mostly owing to the fact they’re vector-based and therefore scalable.

Customers who no longer want just one or two tools to create specific graphics but instead want a complete creative suite to create immersive and innovative graphics. This way, sports broadcasters have more than one way to tell a story.”

So bigger and better is the long term forecast. As long as viewers demand it, and technical ‘wizards’ can dream it up, it seems the sport broadcast industry can deliver it. Perhaps one day broadcasters will develop virtual reality viewing that puts the viewer on the field of play. Can it be done? Sure, if you want it… we’re working on it! – Ian Dormer

Studios

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There is something about a studio

I love studios. Always have, ever since becoming involved in the film and television industry in the early 1970s. There is something about this custom-made building that is both awe-inspiring and fascinating. It’s a structure where dreams are made, fantasies fulfilled and magic is enacted.

It is a marvel of technology with the ability to allow sweeping camera moves on a leveled surface, whisper quiet air-conditioning, sound-proofing par excellence, lighting grids and sufficient space and height to handle even the most daunting shots.

It is indeed a rare and fascinating environment.

36 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

M

y first experience of studios was in London in 1974. The famed Ealing Studios were shooting a popular comedy Porridge and I went to see a recording while studying Film and Television technology in London. Not the largest studio in England of course, but well utilised for both television and film productions.

Later, on return to South Africa, I built a television ‘animatic’ studio for a local advertising agency and moved on to other studio based facilities including Video RSA, then based in the studio complex in Highlands North. Here, under the new name of ZSE TV, a deal was concluded with M-Net to provide studio services for South Africa’s first daily drama (or soapie as they are internationally known).

This deal was the result of a tour of several international studios shooting daily dramas at that time. The intention was to determine whether South Africa could produce an episode of high quality television programming a day – five days a week – hitherto unheard of. As part of the research team which included producer Franz Marx, and M-Net’s head of local productions at the time, Leon Rautenbach, we visited studios in South and North America and England.

South American telenovelas produced by companies such as Rede Globo and Rede Manchete were legend even at this early stage, both companies produced at least one episode a day of high drama television. Likewise at ABC studios in New York an episode of the hugely popular soapie Loving was taped in a day. The drama series The Bill in England differed in that it used a set of buildings in Artichoke Hill, Wapping, East London for the shoot. The series Brookside also differed from other soapies as it was filmed in real, brand-new houses, in a real cul-de-sac, situated off Deysbrook Lane in the North West city of Liverpool.

Armed with this essential information, upon return to South Africa, a second

studio – stage 5 – was commissioned and built on the Highlands North site and both this and studio 2 were equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, and Egoli first aired on M-Net on 6 April 1992.

Egoli’s final episode was broadcast on 31 March 2010, after 18 years of acting from South African and international actors. This was truly South Africa’s first and arguably most loved soapie.

Of course other studios existed at this stage, and the national broadcaster SABC had some of the finest studios available at the time, including a 600sqm wonder – but its use was generally limited to internal dramas and the like. The studios have been upgraded and modernised over the years (and indeed burnt down!) and there is talk of upgrading to HD in the near future, but information from this quarter is sketchy.

The old SABC studios in Commissioner Street, which were also technology’s finest in their day, are now run by Global Access that continues to offer studios and facilities. According to Amelia Thiart, head of television broadcasting, they have been busy and prospects on-going are good.

Likewise most of the studio based facilities are bullish. Panalux SA, who have studio facilities in both Milnerton (Cape Island Studios) and Midrand (Gold Island Studios) report a good year in 2014, and that 2015 has kicked off with both complexes showing a healthy bookings sheet.

Telemedia in Rivonia are currently hosting Cliff Central, Mzansi Insider for SABC and their ever popular Phumelela Horse Racing. Since their studios are running at 90% occupancy, an additional studio is in the planning stages.

SuperSport senior manager production services, Johan Chandler, explains that in recent months the studio business was restructured after being transferred from M-Net to SuperSport Outside Broadcast, and all studios are now integrated into one department – Supersport Production

Services. Some of the best – if not the best technical and operational skills in the country – are employed by SuperSport and are available to service this environment (facilities used to turn around and enhance externally produced live sports feeds) Studio 1, 3, 4 and 6, studio 1 and 6 being used for Supersport HD productions. Studio 2 has been moved to the sport broadcaster’s sister company M-Net to house local productions.

Sasani Studios continued to thrive over the years, and now offers an amazing array of studios with more to come. All of Sasani Studios on site are international standard television/film studios. “We have seven operational studios fully occupied at the moment,” says Sasani’s Neil Van Heerden. Sasani are currently building two new studios.

These studios will be completed by the end of the first quarter 2015.

Sasani of course host Isidingo as well as Skeem Saam, Rhythm City, Scandal, 7de Laan and the past six seasons and current seventh season of EKASI Stories and Mzansi Love Stories. They have also provided studios for seven years of Big Brother shows, the last one being Big Brother Angola in 2014.

Waterfront Film Studios are busy.

They have several international productions using their studios: Wallander for the BBC, Dominion – an NBC series and Eye in the Sky, directed by our very own Gavin Hood. 2015 is also positive with a number of local feature films planned for Cape Town.

I have had the good fortune of either visiting or working in all the South African studios mentioned and some things have not changed. Studios are still magic and have lost none of their mystery and intrigue. And the outlook is good. Both local and international productions will ensure the viability of these structures for many years to come.

– Andy Stead

Studios

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Out of the ashes…

Near the end of 2014, Sasani Studios, home to several of South Africa’s most popular daily drama shows, experienced some real-life drama of its own.

Its original studio, Stage 1, which was prepped for the current season of Big Brother Africa, was destroyed by a fire.

Yet, in only a few months of this massive loss, CEO Eileen Sandrock and her team were already turning the situation around, with plans for two impressive new studios on the site where Stage 1 used to stand.

Then, just as the plans for the new studio space were getting underway, the Sasani team was augmented by the arrival of its new managing director Baxter de Jager, a long-serving veteran of the MultiChoice group. So, on the heels of a major setback came two positive developments which, according to Sandrock, will lay the foundation for unprecedented growth at the east Johannesburg-based studio complex.

As Sandrock explains it, de Jager’s appointment was a long time coming.

The two of them had been colleagues at M-Net and years later, when Sandrock took the position of CEO at Sasani, leaving the MD post open, she began considering de Jager for the job. De Jager’s history as an experienced technical and operational manager with an MBA, broad engineering knowledge

and an appreciation for the content creation side of the industry, made him the perfect candidate for the job.

Although Sandrock had successfully handled the responsibilities of both CEO and MD for a number of years, she felt that the time had come to bring someone in to help manage the increased workload.

“In 2007 we had two soaps, Binnelanders and Egoli, and we have now been fortunate to grow into the position where we are have five soap operas in production: Rhythm City, Scandal, Isidingo, 7de Laan, and our newest soap Skeem Saam. With the increased workload and the projected future growth, I felt it was necessary to bring in an MD who had the ability to take full control of the operational side of things and take a more executive, hands-on role,” she explains.

For De Jager, the move offers him the chance to move further towards the creative side of the production value chain, which he finds very exciting. “It’s a very different world to the multi-channel broadcast side of things, where I was for such a long time. It’s closer to the front end of content creation, whereas I was always more at the processing and packaging end. It’s quite different, but very positively so, to now get closer to the

BUILDING A LEGACY: Sasani staff on the construction site of Stage 1 and 4. origination of the content and the creatives themselves.”

When De Jager arrived at Sasani on 1 October, less than a month after the fire, the basic concept for the new studio space was already in place. The process continued through several drafts of building plans and consultations with various experts – including architect Julian Michaels and fire engineering specialist Dr Philip de Vos – and most importantly, Sasani’s clients. Finally as 2014 drew to a close, the construction crew began digging the foundations for the new structure.

So what can we expect from the new facility? It will consist of two stages – one 900m2 and the other 600m2, as well as a 600m2 storage area and 900m2 of offices and support infrastructure. By comparison, the original Stage 1 had only 360m2 of studio space. The building will be interconnected with the existing

Telemedia set to expand studio facilities The studio facilities at Telemedia in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg, developed primarily as an extension of the company’s core business in the supply, installation and maintenance of broadcast equipment. Yet, what began as more of a side service has shown impressive growth, prompting continuous expansion.

Founded in 1981, Telemedia divides its business into six focus areas: broadcast fibre network, projects, sales, SNG microwave services, teleport facilities and transmission services, which include studios.

The Telemedia campus is well equipped to handle production and broadcast on site, complete with a sophisticated network of fibre, microwave and teleport facilities, as well as a range of broadcast equipment from lights to cameras. It seems only natural therefore, that it would end up playing host to a number of productions.

Its oldest resident is the horseracing channel, Tellytrack, whose set occupies Telemedia’s first studio space of 100m2.

The channel runs for 18 hours a day from 38 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

CONSTANT GROWTH: Telemedia’s newest studio space, currently home to the SABC talk show, Mzansi Insider this hub, which is referred to as the Studio Domestic. Alongside the main set, which includes the presenter desk and a smaller chat show style setup, are fully equipped control rooms and voice recording booths. The control rooms handle not only the live studio work, but also the numerous feeds coming in from racing events across Sub Saharan Africa and abroad. The audio booths enable the provision of fresh commentary, often in a different language, to accompany the footage being fed into the studio before it is sent out to the channel’s many dedicated viewers.

The long residency of Tellytrack is consistent with Telemedia’s preferences regarding its studios. While Telemedia will certainly do its best to accommodate short-term clients, the company prefers to lease studios on its premises for longer periods of time. This saves on costs and

lightens the logistical load. Telemedia is therefore a good base for long-running shows, with studio requirements that are likely to remain relatively constant, which need a permanent or semi-permanent home. The facilities are also ideally suited to emerging broadcasters for DVB-T muxes.

Not far from Studio Domestic, also in the original Telelmedia building, is the second studio, built as its business in this sector began to expand and become more viable. This space provides seating for an in-studio audience. Telemedia is relatively flexible in terms of how much is provided for its clients. It can either offer just the shell or it can fully equip the production with all necessary gear.

Just a short walk down the road from the Telemedia hub is its new studio building, operational since early 2014.

This houses two studios: downstairs is the

studios, allowing for sets and heavy equipment to be moved easily from one to the other. Acoustic engineer Ivan Lin has been recruited to design the soundproofing of the stages.

“It’s about versatility,” De Jager says.

“It’s big enough to accommodate any production’s needs and there are such varying combinations that you can really do anything with it. That was the high level objective. It’s not just a box, it’s a fully equipped soundstage that can be customised to suit the client’s needs.”

“With the team we have working on this, and learning from previous studios that we have recently built, I’m confident that this is going to be one of our best studios,” Sandrock concludes. “We’re building a legacy here. This studio will still be standing long after we’re all gone.”

Sasani’s new studio is set to be operational by mid-2015.

largest facility the company has (180 square metres), which currently hosts the SABC chat show Mzansi Insider. Upstairs is the domain of Gareth Cliff’s operation Cliff Central. Cliff and his team customised the space they found to their own needs, to the extent that they turned the original facility completely around.

The space originally intended as the studio is now a large, open-plan space complete with desks and couches for the company’s creatives and executives. The actual studio is now situated in the much smaller area that was originally intended as an equipment room. This is indicative of the kind of flexibility that Telemedia can offer its long-term clients.

Just next door to Cliff Central is a building containing a number of much smaller studio spaces which are generally rented out to smaller-scale productions on a short-term basis. Here Telemedia can offer only the shell or a fully equipped FCC. In the same building are several playout facilities – many of which are utilised by churches. Here content is downloaded from locations overseas and packaged for broadcast to local audiences. Much of the content is being received or sent using store and forward techniques over wide band internet fibre connections Only a year after the new studio was launched, it seems that further growth is on the cards. Telemedia’s facilities are currently around 90 percent occupied, meaning that more space will soon be needed. Plans are currently underway to add more facilities on the seemingly ever expanding Telemedia campus.

Studios

|

Visual Impact Studio offers complete production workflow Visual Impact is well known in its capacity as a gear rental house – both in Johannesburg and Cape Town. What is less well known is the studio facility it offers at the Media Hive building in Gardens, centrally located in the Cape Town city bowl, within walking distance of Parliament.

The 120sqm studio is ideal for commercial and pack shot production.

Soundproofed to BBC standards, it offers an infinity curve, three-phase power and break-out boxes and a high gantry for high-angle top shots. The drive-in door makes it perfectly suited to car shoots.

The five-metre high space also features a double-storey room for studio control equipment.

The studio forms part of the complete production offering available at the Media Hive. With Visual Impact equipment rental right upstairs, a production that has made its home in the

40 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: Visual Impacts’s studio with infinity curve studio need not go far to find the gear necessary to complete the shoot. The sales division ensures that consumables are also available on site. Crucially, data wrangling and other digital solutions are also available inside the Media Hive. HD post-production can also be accommodated. Therefore the complete

production workflow can be accommodated under one roof. Plus, the optional in-house catering service provides to keep cast and crews fed economically.

Located in the heart of Cape Town, the studio is a short drive away from a range of favourable exterior location shooting

sites. For an excellent view of the cityscape with Table Mountain looming in the background, one need only head for the roof.

For more information and bookings, visit www.visuals.tv or contact Nurahn Shabudin on 021 468 6000 or nurahn@visuals.tv.

G O L F

D A Y

2 0 1 5

The Annual Screen Africa Golf Day will take place on Tuesday 5 May 2015 at CMR Golf Club in Maraisburg, Roodepoort.

A cocktail party and prize-giving is held at the CMR Clubhouse following the competition, which provides great networking opportunities. Hole sponsorship costs for 2015 stay the same as 2014.

Secure your sponsorship and 4-ball by 5 April 2015.

Date:

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Venue:

CMR Golf Course

Sponsorship:

R6 800 (Hole 1)

Halfway House:

R5 250 (all other holes) (Sponsorship is excluding VAT) For your own account

Green Fees:

R270 per player - includes VAT, cocktail snacks and prize giving

Start:

Shotgun Start @ 12pm

Contact: Ellen Oosthuizen Cell: +27 (0)83 268 6868 Fax: +86 (0)86 670 6809 e-mail: ellen.oosthuizen@pixie.co.za

Studios

|

EQUIPMENT SALES AND RENTAL

Big Brother makes itself at home at Red Pepper The well-publicised destruction by fire of the Big Brother Africa house in September 2014 was a major blow for all concerned. It was all the more difficult for the broadcaster, M-Net and the production house, Endemol to pull off a quick recovery because they were only days from broadcast. Although the launch was postponed, a speedy plan B was required to get the production on its feet again. This came in the form of Red Pepper Pictures’ studio space just up the road from the its headquarters in the Johannesburg suburb of Linden.

According to Endemol’s Anton Burggraaf, they were very lucky to find the location.

Although there was still plenty of work to be done to prepare the house for the show, there was already enough in place to make the daunting task possible. In a turnaround time of just 14 days, technicians installed two Yamaha CL5 audio mixers, three Rio 3224 stageboxes and one Rio 1608 stagebox. Thirty Sennheiser radio mics were set up. A total of 32 cameras, including 22 Q-Balls, four Meerkat pencil cameras and ten Sony manned cameras were installed. 36 Effects microphones were placed all around the house for ambience and

around 5000m of video, audio and data cabling had to be laid.

“The fact that the house is adjacent to Red Pepper Pictures, with all its existing infrastructure, made it a particularly strong option. Our alternative was to find a house anywhere and rig it for the show.

That is a massive undertaking. We had done it before in Nigeria but there was no way that we could do something like that considering the time constraints we had on this project. We had an agreement with M-Net that we would spend no more than four weeks getting the house ready.”

The connectivity infrastructure set in place at the Red Pepper hub, by sister company Media Cloud, was another plus.

This would facilitate smooth live transmissions to the broadcaster.

According to Red Pepper’s Big Brother project manager, Leonie Fourie, the project is a major collaborative enterprise, with Endemol as the main driver as the production company creating the content, M-Net the supplier of the technology and production equipment, and Red Pepper supplying the facilities, the home base, which includes the house itself, production offices, MCRs and post-production facilities, as well as the

TO THE RESCUE: Red Pepper Pictures in Linden, Johannesburg venue nearby.

Following the success of Big Brother Africa, Big Brother Mzansi Season 2 is set to start on Sunday 29 March. The ‘miracle’ that the three partners in the venture managed to pull off in such a short

A welcome return The South African film and television industry was pleasantly surprised late last year by the news that Frank Meyburgh, a well-known name in the gear sale, rental and servicing sector, had returned to the country from the United Kingdom and set up shop once again in Johannesburg.

Meyburgh, the man behind gear rental houses Magus Visual and Digitalfilm, is a respected industry figure, who established a formidable reputation when he first began trading in 1990, upon his return from a 11-year exile in the UK during the apartheid era.

There are few people working in the industry, particularly in the camera and equipment rental fields, who don’t know his name. In 2013, after selling Digitalfilm, he bid farewell to South Africa for what many assumed would be the last time, heading off to resettle in the UK. Barely a year and a half later, the word spread that he was back, with a new business, called the Magic Lightbox Company, operating in Bryanston.

The reason for Meyburgh’s return is quite simple and pragmatic. “I found myself travelling back and forth between the UK and South Africa because I was doing a lot of consulting work here. In the end it just made sense for me to come 42 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

BOUTIQUE OPERATION: Frank Meyburgh with technician Zettie Khumalo

back permanently,” he explains.

The Magic Lightbox Company continues in the equipment rental vein but on a smaller scale than that of Meyburgh’s previous enterprises. He describes it as a boutique operation focused on personalised service and with the needs of the ever-growing number of camera owner-operators in mind.

Meyburgh accepts that more and more camera operators are acquiring their own cameras but does not see this as a threat to the rental business. An owner-operator may have his or her own camera, but still requires an assortment of accessories.

Purchasing these ‘knickknacks’, as Meyburgh calls them, doesn’t always

make sense, making rental a necessity.

Rental houses can thus benefit from stocking these odds and ends, even if they don’t hold the cameras for which they are designed. It is this portion of the market that Meyburgh is particularly set on targeting with his new set-up.

That is not to say that Magic Lightbox doesn’t stock an impressive array of cameras – both for rental and sale. Its inventories include a comprehensive set of Sony cameras such as the PXW-X160 and 180, the AS7 and the new FS7. The ever popular Canon 5D MkIII can also be obtained from Meyburgh’s stocks.

Alongside the cameras, a large selection of LED lighting and all manner of

turnaround time in September and October 2014, and the successful season that followed, has served as an ideal showcase of Red Pepper Pictures’ infrastructure and capabilities.

accessories are available.

One of Meyburgh’s abiding interests is archive footage. All over the country, in old warehouses, garages and storerooms, both privately and publicly owned, are hours upon hours of archive material wasting away on a variety of obsolete formats from 16mm film to U-matic tapes, to VHS. Meyburgh believes strongly in the preservation of these resources and has also noticed a demand for the means of playing back and preserving archive material. Accordingly he holds a selection of legacy playback equipment, including Beta machines, projectors and U-matic decks, that can be used for digitising these materials for further use or simply for posterity. This is another of the Magic Lightbox Company’s focuses.

Central to the Magic Lightbox Company’s work are an emphasis on personalised service and a strong community spirit. Meyburgh understands that in an industry like this, no individual or company is an island and a synergistic, reciprocal network of relationships among all participants is essential to growth and prosperity. The equipment rental world, with its web of cross-rentals, loans and other collaborations, is a perfect example of this.

Meyburgh says that he has been overwhelmed by the welcoming and generally positive response he has received since his return. “To be given a second chance is a privilege and I don’t take that for granted,” he concludes.

| Box Office

Figures supplied by SAFACT

Goodness and heroics prevails at the South African box office Top earners combat forces of darkness at the local box office this January…

Taken 3

The Seventh Son

Director Olivier Megaton’s third installment in the action-packed Taken saga, maintains the top spot in its second week at the local box office. This time we see Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) avenge the death of his wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), for which he has been framed. Taken 3 raked in R11 295 054 nationally in two weeks since its release.

Based on Joseph Delaney’s Wardstone Chronicles, The Seventh Son follows Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges) and Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) in a battle against malevolent witch Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) and the forces of darkness.

Receiving mixed reviews both nationally and internationally, The Seventh Son earned R4 040 584 locally in three weeks.

Tinkerbell and the Legend of the NeverBeast

Imitation Game Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley star in this intense and haunting World War II drama, which sees Cumberbatch play the complicated mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Written by Graham Moore, this moving true story debuted at number two at South African cinemas, garnering R867 929 in its opening weekend.

Paddington Described as “a total delight” by The Telegraph, the new Paddington film drops one spot to number 3 in its fourth week running. Director Paul King and co-writer Hamish McColl received rave reviews across the globe for their witty and charming portrayal of the beloved Paddington bear. Starring Ben Whishaw, Nicole Kidman and Sally Hawkins, Paddington brought in R620 153 in its fourth weekend at local theatres, bringing total gross national earnings to R8 371 751.

Disney’s latest fairytale, directed by animation heavyweight Steve Loter, maintains a spot in the top five at the national box office in its third week running. The film, which received harsh reviews from critics, brought in R545 827 in week three on home soil, a whopping 41% drop in earnings on the previous weekend, bringing total national earnings to R4 411 438.

Big Hero 6 Directors Don Hill and Chris Williams won critic’s praise across the globe for this heartwarming Disney and Marvel animation team-up. Big Hero 6 follows Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit), a gentle, chubby balloon-man who’ll stop at nothing to patch you up, physically or psychologically. The fuzzy family flick earned an impressive R17 411 945 in five weeks running at the local box office.

– Compiled by Chanelle Ellaya

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 43

PR ODU CT IO N

UPDATES

FOR FURTHER DETAILS VISIT www.screenafrica.com

Those productions in red are newly listed this month Production Updates Order of Information 1. Title 2. Production company 3. Director 4. Genre

IN DEVELOPMENT 69 BODIES/SHARPEVILLE Tamol Media Prod: Thabang Molibeli Feature 80 MINUTES Periphery Films Dir: Simon Taylor / Julia Taal Feature A Bank in Krugersdorp (Working Title) Panda Broadcast Prod: Sam Groenewald Feature Film

AFTER MARIKANA – PART 2 OF A TRILOGY Uhuru Productions Prod/Dir: Rehad Desai Documentary ANTHOLOGY Journey, Home & Treasure Prod/Dir: Feizel Mamdoo Feature Are Aganeng/Asakhaneni Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni Talk Show AT THE CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE Zen Crew Prod: Laura Tarling Documentary BREAD AND WATER Periphery Films Dir: Simon Taylor / Julia Taal Feature Documentary

BIG LITTLE FRIEND Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV movie CHILDREN OF FAMOUS ACTIVISTS Current Affairs Films Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Feature CINDERELLA Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker Feature

JIVA Tamol Media Prod: Thabang Molibeli Feature KING SEKHUKHUNE / EVERYONE’S LAND Sukuma Media Prod: Leonard Sekhukhune / Bonginhlanhla Ncube Feature Film LEKKERKAMPPLEKKE Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Variety

Cybervisions Writer:Tawanda Murimirwa Completed Sci-Fi Screenplay

MANCHE, THE AFRICAN SAINT Get the Picture Prod/Dir: Jacky Lourens / Fiona Summers Documentary

DE BRAZZAVILLE A JOHANNESBURG Site et Sons Media Productions Feature Film

M/A/N/D/E/L/A P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature

DIE VERHAAL VAN RACHELTJIE DE BEER Nostalgia Productions Prod: Brett Michael Innes Feature

M-NET/CARTE BLANCHE CURRENT AFFAIRS FILMS Current Affairs Films Dir/Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Current Affairs

Die Vervoerder Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Feature

MONDAY MAN Tincup.tv Dir/Prod: Matt Torode Mini Series

ENTREPRENEURS Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Magazine

MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker Cinema Feature Film

ESCAPE Current Affairs Films Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman / Beata Lipman Feature EX-PATS Current Affrairs Films / French Connection Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Series FISTS OF FURY P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature Future Legends Phoenix Entertainment and Productions Prod: Koketso Sefanyetso TV Magazine

NONGOLOZA/ THE BLOOD KING AND THE RED DRAGON Current Affairs Films Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman / Mtutuzeli Matshoba Feature Ntomb’khona Sibongokuhle Media and Entertainment Prod/Dir: Sakhile Lushaba Corporate On the spot Karabo Shaun Productions Dir: Gugu Mbatha Film Oscar Pistorius Synergy Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Documentary

Izinyembezi Zami Inhlakanipho Films Dir: Vusi Nhlapo Feature Film

PALACE OF THE FAITHLESS White Heron Pictures Dir: Themba Sibeko Feature

HHOLA HHOLA Vuleka Productions Prod: Julie Frederikse Feature

PASSARES (BIRDISH) White Heron Pictures / Casa De Criacao Cinema Prod: Themba Sibeko Feature

High School Modeling Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni Feature HOTEL SONGOLOLO The Media Workshop Dir: Benito Carelsen Series IN SILENCE & IN TEARS Alternative Cinema Prod: Ikechukwu Omenaihe Feature ISIHLOBO ESIHLE Dogg Bite Entertainment Dir/Prod: Siphiwe Dominic Mpanza Documentary

44 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

IZINJA ZAMI P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature

Pippie se Towerkombuis Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Variety Ponte Nostalgia Productions/ Black Irish Productions Prod: Jamie Ramsay/Brett Michael Innes Feature PROTECTION ORDER P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature

Rachel Weeping Nostalgia Productions Prod: Johan Kruger/ Brett Michael Innes Feature REALITY CHECK Rainbow Pepper Prod/Dir: Helga Palmer Reality Rockville Season 3 Ferguson Films Prod: Bobby Heaney TV Series THE SAMARITANS Xeinium Productions Dir: Salim Keshavjee Series SARAH GRAHAM: BITTEN 2 Okuhle Media Dir: Chris Lotz Series Sea Monster Triggerfish Animation Studios Dir: Anthony Silverston Animated Feature SEBOKENG MPA (Motswako) Dir: Charls Khuele / Zuko Nodada Feature SHALLOW GRAVE Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Meggan Raubenheimer Documentary Sin Bin Diamond Hill / Engage Entertainment / Coco TV Prod: Sisanda Henna / Stephen Lorenzo Documentary SIXOLELE BABA Ndlondlo Productions Dir: Hamilton Dhlamini Feature SOWETO SINDERELLA P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature The Dandelion ShootAway Production Prod: Patrick Walton Drama THE DREADED EVIL EYE FROM PAST TO PRESENT AND ACROSS CULTURES Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Documentary The Exchange Engage Entertainment PROD: Stephen Lorenzo Feature THE GIFT Ferguson Films Prod: Shona and Connie Ferguson, Bobby Heaney TV Feature Film THE GREAT KAROO Current Affairs Films/ White Pine Pictures Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Series THE HITCHERS: A GHOST STORY Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Short Film The Mountain of the Night Nostalgia Productions Prod: Herman Mabizela/Brett Michael Innes Feature The Norwegian Brothers (Working Title) Panda Broadcast Prod: Sam Groenewald Feature Film

PRODUCTION The Reggies Rush Nostalgia Productions Prod: Brett Michael Innes Feature The Sales Lab Time Frame TV Prod: Vanessa Yelseth, Jasmyn Asvat Series TIENERWERELD Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Variety UMASHONISA P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo Feature UNSOLVED – THE STORY OF THE CAPE RIPPER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Johann Abrahams Documentary WAY TWO ROLL Way To Roll Pictures Dir: Freddie Strauss Feature Welcome To Art Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni TV Series Westgate Shopping Mall attack (Working Title) Media Village Productions Prod: Diane Vermooten Documentary

IN PRE-PRODUCTION ABLAND PROPERTY DEVELOPERS FC Hamman Films Dir: FC Hamman Marketing Video Alex on 7th Xcut Studios Dir: Engelbert Phiri Documentary ATTACHMENT PARENTING Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Insert BIG BROTHER ANGOLA Endemol South Africa Prod: Terja Beney, Llonka Geudes Reality BUSHPILOT – Episode 3 & 4 Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker 2 x 90 min TV movies CASE Tamol Media Thabang Molibeli Short Film De Brazzaville a Johannesburg Site et sons media productions Dir: Elvis Nkosi Feature Film Die Laaste Ure: Inconnu French Film Festival Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Producer: Jarrod de Jong Short film Domestic Bliss 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Advertising Funder Project EL ELJON PROJECTS FC Hamman Films Director: FC Hamman Marketing Video

ESPAFRIKA PRESENTS THE CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2014 ESPafrika Prod/Dir: Rashid Lombard / Yana Lombard / John Bright Documentary EXTREME CAMPERS Pro Media & Spider – Co Productions Prod/ Dir: Dee Vanzyl Reality GAUTENG PROVINCE LEGISLATOR Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Guy Sclanders Documentary GENERATION FREE Okuhle Media Dir: Jemima Spring Series GENiAS Khinc Studios Dir: Khalid EL – Jelailati Feature Film HIDDEN HOLOCAUST IN THE DUNES: GENOCIDE IN NAMIBIA Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Series LOVE MORE: POLYAMORY IN SOUTH AFRICA Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Series MARRY ME IN MZANZI Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Series MEGABOERE Khaki Productions Dir: Wynand Dreyer Documentary Series MOMCHICHI Pro Media & Spider – Co Productions Prod/ Dir: Dee Vanzyl Children’s Programme PEDAL BENDERS Pro Media & Spider – Co Productions Prod/ Dir: Dee Vanzyl Reality PHOENIX RISING...THE BUSINESS OF STYLE SEASON 2 Phoenix Entertainment and Production Prod/Dir: Koketso Sefanyetso Reality SEATBELT MEDIC FC Hamman Films Dir: FC Hamman Commercial SLENDER WONDER INFORMATION VIDEO Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Information Video SNAP JEI Co Ltd Mauritius/Jujuma Productions SA Prod/Dir: Neil Hetherington Feature SOCIAL WORKER Tamol Media Thabang Molibeli Short film STICKS+STONES (Working Title) Fireworx Media/ Tunc Prodcutions Prod: Bridget Pickering Telenovela THE MESSENGER Footprint Media TV Prod: Annalise Van Rensburg Series

U PDAT ES

Unashamedly Ethical Media Village Productions Prod: Diane Vermooten Awards and Gala Evening WHILE YOU WEREN’T LOOKING Out in Africa Dir: Catherine Stewart Feature WHIPLASH Get the Picture Prod/Dir: Jacky Lourens / Meg Rickards Feature WORKERSLIFE NETWORK MARKETING FC Hamman Films Director: FC Hamman Marketing Video

IN PRODUCTION 3 TALK Urban Brew Talk Show 20 and Free X CON Films Dir: Munier Parker Documentary 50/50 Clive Morris Productions Current Affairs 53 EXTRA M-Net Inhouse Productions Dir: Navan Chetty Magazine A BROTHER’S LOVE 1300 Pictures (Pty) Ltd Dir: Elvis Nkosi Feature A CALENDAR OF EVENTS – MEDUPI & KUSILE Betta Beta Communications Prod: Tommy Doig Documentary A MAN OF HIS OWN PRINCIPALS Sekgopha Productions Prod: Buhle Mofulatsi / Thapelo Hlagala TV movie AQUELLE’ MIDMAR MILE 2015 Media Ventures Prod/Dir: Chris Moolman Documentary AFRICA 360 eNews News Head: Patrick Conroy Current affairs AFRO CAFÉ SEASON 7 Bonngoe Productions Prod: Pepsi Pokane Music ArtsCulturex Talent 1000 Championships Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni Series Auditor General Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Brad Montgomery/Natalie Varoy Corporate BACKBONE PROJECT Global Access Creative Agency Prod: GA Creative Agency Documentary BIG BROTHER MZANSI Endemol South Africa Prod: Terja Beney, Liza Kleitman Reality BINNELAND Stark Films Prod/Dir: Friedrich / Elsje Stark Series

BRAVO! Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Magazine BONISANANI Grounded Media Talk Show Bugatti Together Lucky Fish Productions Dir: Raphaël Crombez Commercial CARTE BLANCHE (INSERTS) Modern Times Prod: Sophia Phirippides News Carte Blanche shorts TIA productions Prod / Dir: Tarryn Lee Crossman News CLAASENS DESIGNS MARKETING VIDEOS Panache Video Productions Prod/Dir: Liesel Eiselen Marketing videos

Debra Deel Khaki Productions Prod/Dir: Christelle Parrott, Wynand Dreyer Series DIMENSION DATA Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Natalie Varoy Corporate DINNER DIVAS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Series DISHONEST Inhlakanipho Films Dir: Vusi Nhlapo Feature Film Ditokelo tsa Medupi LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature DIY MET RIAAN Prod: Riaan Venter-Garforth Magazine

CLASH OF THE CHOIRS Endemol South Africa Prod: Josh Feldman Talent / Reality

EARTH BEAT Tekweni TV Productions Prod: Sandra Herrington Series

COOL CATS Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Cecil Berry Children’s Show

EASTERN MOSAIC Red Carpet Productions Prod: Saira Essa / Mark Corlett Magazine

CORTEX MINING FC Hamman Films Prod Man: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video

END GAME Fireworx Media/ Tunc Productions Prod: Bridget Pickering Dir: Akin Omotoso/ Thandie Brewer/ Thabang Moleya Feature

COME DINE WITH ME SOUTH AFRICA Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine Reality CUTTING EDGE SABC News Current Affairs

EXPRESSO (Season 2) Cardova Prod: Paul van Deventer Series

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 45

PR ODU CT IO N FACE OF GEMINI Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Series

GOOD MORNING AFRICA Planet Image Productions SA Prod/Dir: Wale Akinlabi Magazine

Facility Management Lectures (A4FM) Panache Video Productions Dir/ Prod: Liesel Eiselen Educational

GOSPEL GOLD Engage Entertainment Prod: Sthembile Mhlongu Music

Faith Today Impact Christian Media Prod: Carl Schultz TV Series FOX NEWS CHANNEL Betta Beta Communications Prod/Dir: Tommy Doig News Free State Toursim Indaba Our Time Productions Dir: Jaun de Meillon Corporate FRENZY Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Morena Sefatsa Variety GENERATIONS Morula Pictures Prod: Mfundi Vundla Series

Got It Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Guy Sclanders Corporate GROEN Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Wildlife Had Better Days Uniquely Novel Productions Prod/Dir: Deon VD Merwe Feature Film HEAT WAVE Ruby Rocket Media Dir: Eddie Edwards TV Series HECTIC 99 Okuhle Media Prod: Wilna van Schalkwyk Magazine

UPDATES HITACHI POWER AFRICA MEDUPI AND KUSILE Betta Beta Communications Prod/Dir: Tommy Doig Documentary

MASHELENG 2 LMOL Production Dir: Jonny Muteba Feature

RHYTHM CITY Quizzical Pictures Prod: Yula Quinn Soapie

MassTalk Global Access Creative Agency Prod: Brad Montgomery Corporate

RHYTHM CITY INTERACTIVE Quizzical Pictures / e.tv Prod: Viva Liles-Wilkin Interactive Platform Media

IGNITE Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Reality

MATRICS UPLOADED Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational

RIVONINGO Asi-B Films Prod: Asivhanzi ‘Asi’ Mathaba Children’s Show

IHAWU LE SISWE Provoke Entertainment Dir: Sechaba Morojele TV Series

MOTSWAKO Carol Bouwer Productions Prod: Grant Paul Roy Talk Show

iParent training clips Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Guy Sclanders Corporate

MCA Training Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Guy Sclanders Corporate

IMIZWILILI Ukhamba Productions Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music

M-NET SHORT FILMS Current Affairs Films Prod/ Dir: Jane Thandi Lipman Film

INKABA Urban Brew Studios Prod: John Kani Telenovela

MURDER OF A FORMER FIRST LADY Sabido Productions Dir/Prod: Catherine Rice Documentary

HOUSE CALL Izwe Multimedia / Urban Brew Prod: Annalie Potgieter Talk Show

In search of our own Open Window school of film arts Prod: Adriaan De la Rey Documentary ISIDINGO Endemol South Africa Prod: Pumla Hoppa, Leo Phiri Soap JOU SHOW Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Talkshow comedy KOKKEDOOR 2 Homebrew films Prod: Jaco Loubser and Paul Venter Cooking reality series KOLLIG Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Magazine KONA The Directors Team (Pty) Ltd Prod/Dir: Laurence Lurie / Cathy Sykes Series KOOLCON CORPORATE VIDEO FiX Post Production/ Marketing AV Marketing Video LATE NITE NEWS ON E.TV Diprente Productions Prod: Tamsin Andersson Series Light Girls South African Unit White Heron Pictures Prod: Themba Sibeko Documentary LIVE Urban Brew Music

MY GENERATION Current Affairs Films Dir: Jane Lipman TV Series My name is Funeka Sabido Productions Dir/Prod: Catherine Rice Documentary MZANSI INSIDER Bonngoe Productions Prod: Pepsi Pokane Magazine NET1 – SASSA Betta Beta Communications Prod: Tommy Doig Corporate NEWS NIGHT eNews Prod: Nikiwe Bikitsha Current Affairs

ROOTS Ukhamba Communications Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music SAINT AND FREEDOM FIGHTER Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Documentary SA Top Model for a Day Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni TV Series SAKEGESPREK MET THEO VORSTER SEASON 5 Dirk Mostert Camera Production Prod/ Dir: Dirk Mostert Series SAUBA IMAGOFILM Prod: Tam de Vries Reality TV Series Shreds and Dreams Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant TV Series SOUTH AFRICAN TOURISM Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine Global TV Commercial SA’S GOT TALENT Rapid Blue Prod/Dir: Kee-Leen Irvine Talent show SCANDAL Ochre Moving Pictures Prod: Romano Gorlei Soapie

Oscar Pistorius Documentary Inserts TIA Productions Dir/ Prod: Tarryn Crossman Documentary

SCHOEMAN BOERDERY – MOOSRIVIER Khaki Productions Prod/Dir: Christelle Parrott / Wynand Dreyer Documentary

PASELLA Tswelopele Productions Dir: Liani Maasdorp / Werner Hefer Magazine

SELIMATHUNZI Sikhoyana Productions Prod: Baby Joe Correira Variety

PAWN STARS SOUTH AFRICA Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine, Ed Worster, Johan Naude and Kat Weatherall Reality

SHIZ NIZ Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Allen Makhubele Variety

LIVE LOTTO SHOW Urban Brew Game Show

PHUNDEKA READING PROGRAMME SummerTime Productions Exec Prod: Phundeka (NGO) Documentary

Mandela’s Gun DV8 films Dir: John Irvin Feature

POWER COMBAT ZONE Mixed Motion Entertainment Dir: Dieter Gottert Sport

Marang Estate: Mixed Used Development Nov/ Dec Our Time Productions Dir: Jaun de Meillon Documentary

PROJECT MV Zen Crew Prod: Laura Tarling Music

MASHELENG1 LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature

46 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015

MUVHANGO Word of Mouth Prod: Pieter Grobbelaar Feature

ROLLING WITH KELLY KHUMALO Red Pepper Prod: Cecil Barry Reality

Rands with Sense 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myersin Education

SHIFT Urban Brew Talk show SISTERHOOD Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Andy Leze Variety SIYAKHOLWA – WE BELIEVE X CON Films Dir: Munier Parker Edutainment Slender Wonder Doctors Conference Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Slender Wonder Corporate Video

PRODUCTION Slender Wonder Patient Testimonial Videos Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Corporate Videos SOCCER ZONE SABC Sports Head: Sizwe Nzimande Magazine SODA AND Mayoral Awards Global Access Creative Agency Guy Sclanders Corporate STUDY MATE Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Exec Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational

WARD 22 TIA Productions Prod/Dir: Tarryn Crossman Documentary

HOUSE OF ENCOURAGEMENT Panache Video Productions Dir/Prod: Liesel Eiselen Corporate

WEEKEND AM LIVE SABC News Current Affairs

IQILI Impucuzeko Prod: Sharon Kakora Feature

YILENGELO LAKHO Prod: Nndanganeni Mudau Current Affairs ZOOM IN Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Talk show

IN POST-PRODUCTION

Joyous 18 RM Recording Prod: Lindelani Mkhize Other JULIUS HAS A DREAM Creative South Africa, Nkanyethi Productions, Jam TV Prod: Bathelemy Ngwessam Documentary

SUPERSWIMMER Media Ventures Prod/Dir: Chris Moolman TV Series

A BUSHMAN ODYSSEY Onetime Films Prod: Richard Wicksteed Documentary

KADARA Media Navigation Prod: Dan Akinlolu/ Biola Karonwi TV Drama

THE CHAT ROOM Eclipse Prod: Thokozani Nkosi Talk Show

A DIFFERENT COUNTRY Sabido Productions Dir: Lisa Henry Documentary series

Kerels wat Kook Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant Reality TV Series

THE COMMUNIST REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Jam TV, Creative South Africa, Nkhanyeti Production Prod: Barthelemy Ngwessam Documentary

A Love Letter to Luxor Shadow Films Prod/Dir: David Forbes Short Film

KNYSNA West Five Films Prod/ Dir: Maynard Kraak; Andre Velts Feature Film

THE JUSTICE FACTOR eNews Prod: Debbie Meyer Current Affairs THE REAL GOBOZA 7 Urban Brew Entertainment The Revolution Betrayed Shadow Films Prod/Dir: David Forbes Documentary THE RUDIMENTALS Periphery Films Prod: Simon Taylor Feature THE TECH REPORT Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Technology Magazine

A MOTHER’S MADNESS Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Ayesha Ismail Documentary AFROX CO2 PLANT FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video AFROX FINANCIAL RESULTS FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video AFROX RAU INSIGHT FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video AFROX SHEQ INDUCTION FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Commercial

TOP BILLING Tswelopele Productions Prod: Patience Stevens Magazine

CAESAREAN COMPLICATIONS SummerTime Productions Exec Prod: Professor Eckhart Buchmann Documentary

TOP TRAVEL (Season 3) Cardova Prod: Bradley van den Berg Series

Challenge SOS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Reality

Transnet Financial Results Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Brad Montgomery Corporate

Collide Media Village Productions Prod: Ardeen Munnik TV Series

Troopship Tragedy (Working Title) Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Marion Edmunds Documentary

CROSSBOW KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Barbara Friedman Documentary

TSHIPE BORWA MANGANESE MINE Betta Beta Communications Prod / Dir: Tommy Doig Documentary Vaseline Experience Xcut Studios Dir: Lee Anne Theron 4D AV production VILLA ROSA Spectro Productions Dir: Luhann Jansen / Andries van der Merwe/ Leroux Botha/ Isabel Smit Series Volkspele South Africa Grey Cloud Productions Dir:Jacques Brand Prod: Bertie Brink Documentary

DEBRA DEEL Khaki Productions Prod: Christelle Parrott TV Series FASHION GURU SA Pro Media & Spider – Co Productions Prod/Dir: Dee Vanzyl Reality FORMIDABELE VROUE: CISSY GOOL Khaki Productions Prod/Dir: Christelle Parrott/ Wynand Dreyer Documentary HOPE NHU Africa Prod: Vyv Simson / Donfrey Meyer Documentary

LINCOLN CLAN Total Recall Media Ltd Dir: Adebanjo Oluseyi TV Series NIGHT OF THE MASSACRE Tshepo Lesedi Projects, Mathope & Izibuko Films Dir: Charles Khuele Documentary NEW LAND Plexus Films/ Four Corners Media Dir: Kyle O’Donoghue TV Series NIGHTCLUB KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Nobathembu Stefane Documentary Nyaope Gangsters LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature PERFECT SHISHEBO Quizzical Pictures Prod: Nthabiseng Mokoena Series

U PDAT ES

MARCH 3 – 4 Arena 2015

Accra, Ghana www.arena.africa.com

5 – 7 AFCI Locations Show

10 – 12

Los Angeles www.afci.org CABSAT

Dubai www.cabsat.com

16 – 19 Satellite 2015

Washington DC www.satshow.com

16 – 21 Luxor African Film Festival

Egypt www.luxorafricanfilmfestival.com

19, 21 South Africa Film

and Television Awards

Johannesburg www.nfvf.co.za

24 – 25 The International Summit

on Digital Broadcasting

Nigeria www.bspmediagroup.com

26 – 28 Bokeh Fashion Film Festival

Cape Town www.bokehfestival.co.za

APRIL 11 – 16

nab show

Las Vegas www.nabshow.com

13 – 16 Miptv

Cannes www.miptv.com

23 – 3 May HOT DOCS

Canada www.hotdocs.ca

28 – 30 TV CONNECT

London www.tvconnectevent.com

SWARTWATER Quizzical Pictures Prod: Bianca Isaac Dir: John Trengove/ Jozua Malherbe/ Denny Y Miller Series SUPERDAD Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker TV Feature SURVIVOR Endemol South Africa Prod: Anton Burggraaf, Josh Feldman Reality

PLAY MORE GOLF FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Commercials

TELKOM: BUSINESS INSIGHTS WEBSERIES UZI Films Prod/Dir: Steven Hall Corporate

Pushi- Passion LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Series

The calling LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature

ROSA 3 Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker TV Feature

THE CODE BREAKER NHU Africa Prod: Vyv Simson / Donfrey Meyer Documentary

SAFE BET Sukuma Media Producer: Nokuthula Sakhile Mguni / Bonginhlanhla Ncube Feature Film SLENDER WONDER FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video SLENDER WONDER MJ LABS FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video

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UPCOMING EVENTS

THE FAMILY PUZZLE Site et Sons media productions Prod/Dir : Zamo Missie Feature THE LAST GREAT TUSKERS NHU Africa Prod: Vyv Simson / Donfrey Meyer Documentary The Message Reel Edge Studios Dir: David Golden TV Drama Series THE STORY OF LITTLE FOOT Paul Myburgh Film Prod: Paul Myburgh Documentary

THE TRANSPORTERS Sukuma Media/ Reality Motion Pictures Dir: Bonginhlanhla Ncube Documentary TROOPSHIP TRAGEDY Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Marion Edmunds Documentary Traffic Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant TV Series UNDER THE MOUNTAIN Plexus Films Prod: Miki Redelinghuys,/ Lauren Groenewald Short film VKB LANDBOU BEPERK FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video When I Was Water Shadow Films Dir: David Forbes Documentary XJ-1 Eternal Film Productions Prod: Marius Swanepoel/ Dana Pretorius Feature You Deserve It Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant TV Game Show

Screen Africa relies on the accuracy of information received and cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur.

E-mail production updates to: online@screenafrica.com

February 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 47

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Photos by Graham Grier

Telemedia Client Spit Braai

Ravi Bheckor (Protea Electronics), Peter Bretherick (Telemedia) and Graham Rattey (Protea Electronics)

Victor Denis (Avlite), Quentin Barkhuizen (Telemedia) and JC Vermaak (Alcom)

Urban Brew’s Rolanda van Rensburg, Sam Clark and Darien Naidoo

Dimakatso Nkoana, Esther Matlou and Essie Miles (SuperSport)

Andy Louis (Telemedia), Christi Hough (Connecting Africa) and Jacques Daniell (Connecting Africa)

Damon Kalvari, Mike Flax and Rina Broomberg (Cliff Central)

Photos by Graham Grier

Two Choices premiere

Thepo Nakedi (Shine), Mbali Nkosi (Yahwe Productions, writer and producer of Two Choices) and Marvelous Nzitshe (Yahwe Productions)

Mmapure Madiseng (Molefero)

Author Nke Serobe

Director Eugene Snyman

Thabang Mnisi (Yahwe Productions)

Les Lisibana (Molefero)

Dineo Moeketsi and Linda Oliphant

Keletso Khaile, Mills De Carvalho and Smah Cofu

Melissa Allison, Martin Evans and Nontle Ndlovu

Mina Hira and Priscilla Chinnappa

Modiegi Mokgapa, Gugu Rathaza, Preesha Premsagar, Mamtar Ramjee, Sulatsha Sayed and Manjul Haripersad

Lelo Boyana and Tango Ncetezo

Photos by Carly Barnes

Zee World Launch

48 | SCREENAFRICA | February 2015