Screen Africa January 2015

ORT DISCOP AFRICA 2014 REP BROADCAST, FILM, TV, COMMERCIALS, NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY NEWS

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| IN THIS ISSUE

10 New Prime Circle music video pushes boundaries

21

4

Printing: the future of movies

Breaking away from the norm

29

24 The future of African broadcasting – ‘Interesting times’

Sounds good!

Special Features DISCOP AFRICA 2014 REPORT

broadcasting licence.............................. 6

New Dookoom music

Scriptwriting

Discovery Networks includes

video sparks controversy.................. 11

Penning the road to success............. 22

The future of African

local content in 2015

The Places You’ll Go!.......................... 11

broadcasting – ‘Interesting times’.... 24

programming slate................................. 6

Five reasons why

Social media unlocks the

MultiChoice launches connected

brainstorms flop.................................. 12

potential of African content............. 25

entertainment services......................... 6

There are two sides

Fresh and feasible formats

New cinemas to open in Nigeria....... 6

to every story...................................... 13

come out on top................................. 26

TSL PAM PiCo Touch compliant

Money talks.......................................... 26

audio, loudness and logging system... 7

EbonyLife TV – providing a

VidiGo Studio Automation.................. 7

platform for African stories.............. 27

Panasonic Control Assist Camera

Making news cool............................... 27

(AW-HEA10)........................................... 7

News African documentaries in the spotlight........................................ 2

EVS IPDirector end-to-end production control system.................. 7 Datavideo CKL 300 dual colour

Locations Undiscovered Jozi............................... 23

AFRICACOM REPORT BACK Content for Africa: a multi-billion dollar market............. 28

FILM Hood tackles Eye in the Sky............ 14

Sound

Move over Hollywood....................... 15

Sounds good!....................................... 29

Necktie Youth –

A landmark year for Lalela Music... 30

A Conversation................................... 16 Selling a movie to the world............ 17 Director Speak: Engelbert Phiri....... 18

SA composer gets international nod................................. 32 Licensing music in SA......................... 32

chromakey system................................. 8

Documentary

JVC 4K cameras..................................... 8

No refunds........................................... 19

NFVF resignations an opportunity

Intelligence, ideas

204: Blurring the lines

for new momentum.............................. 9

between art and reality..................... 20

and experience.................................... 33

Breaking away from the norm............ 4

ADCETERA

AMC arrives in Africa........................... 6

PRODUCTION Design

‘What you get out of life’................. 10

Golding resigns from e.tv..................... 6

Printing: the future of movies........... 21

New Prime Circle music

Siyaya TV acquires

video pushes boundaries................... 10

Africa a priority market for Discovery Networks...................... 3 Milk and Honey Films settles in to new Cape Town office................ 3

www.screenafrica.com

facebook.com/screenafrica

System Integration

Regulars Box Office............................................. 34 Production Updates................36 – 39 Events..................................................... 39 Social...................................................... 40

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News

From the editor

Target: June 2015?

As we kick off 2015, we find ourselves just five months away from the supposed deadline for Africa’s complete switchover to digital terrestrial television. At the risk of harping on about a subject of which we are all getting very tired, and though I don’t wish to give my first editorial of the year a negative tone, I feel compelled to raise some concerns in this regard.

At DISCOP Africa 2014, which took place in Sandton this past November, DTT was a topic that was expected to be at the top of the agenda. One thing that became very apparent during the discussions was that, while South Africa and Nigeria – sub-Saharan Africa’s two wealthiest nations – faced very similar obstacles regarding DTT migration, the stakeholders in those countries were dealing with it very differently.

On the second day of the conference, a large panel discussion called ‘Focus on Nigeria’ looked at how the West African nation was taking on the digital migration challenge. The eight-strong panel included the director-general of the National Broadcasting Commission and several members of the thriving Nigerian television private sector. Each was very outspoken about how they saw digital migration taking place and the roles that they and their colleagues should be playing in it. The debate was robust and informative. While no-one shied away from controversy, no-one resorted to mudslinging either. It was precisely the kind of discussion that one would expect from professionals of this level.

In contrast, discussions around South Africa’s digital migration fell a little short. The topic was broached in the two opening sessions – the first of which was a Q&A following the opening keynote by StarSat’s Mike Dearham, the second being a panel discussion that included an outgoing ICASA councillor, along with representatives of the SABC, Multichoice’s GoTV and several other private sector players. This excellent discussion, led by Russell Southwood of Balancing Act, had a more pan-African thrust and focused on how DTT can be capitalised once it is already in place. The questions addressed to Dearham were more South African-focused but, although his answers were generous and insightful, they naturally represented only one point of view. Throughout the conference, no platform existed on which several, potentially opposing views on South African DTT – and how to get there – could be aired. Why were high-level representatives of the state broadcaster, the free-to-air platform, pay-TV and the state regulators not on the stage together, as was the case with their Nigerian counterparts? Early planning for the conference had made provision for this but it did not materialise.

Let me be clear: I am under no illusion that conference panel discussions ever yield any definitive solutions – they are a platform for dialogue and that’s all. What worries me is that a lack of public discussion on this key subject at a high level could represent a larger trend in which major stakeholders in the South African broadcast and communications industry are not prepared to share a forum and argue their viewpoints. Perhaps everyone feels they have said enough on the subject. That is fair enough, except that no solution to the obstacles blocking South African digital migration has been found yet – so clearly the debate is not closed. Does this perhaps reflect South Africa’s democratic processes on a broader level – such as we have seen recently in our National Assembly, in which debate either gives way to personal attacks or a refusal to engage? If so, where does that leave the content creators, distributors, and broadcasters of the nascent digital ecosystem?

– Warren Holden

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 , Nicole Velik

SOUTH AFRICA | MADAGASCAR | SOMALIA | EGYPT | SUDAN

African documentaries in the spotlight From 19 November to 30 2014, the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) selected seven African films from South Africa, Egypt, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan and Somalia.

Best known for its canals, bikes and red light district, Amsterdam is also the place to be for documentaries. Launched in 1988, the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) welcomes 300 films, 200 000 viewers and 2 500 professionals every year. This year the South African delegation arrived with 34 filmmakers, 12 projects in development, five in production or post-production and seven available for sale.

Despite the current western interest in Africa (seven features directed by European or American filmmakers were showcased this year), the continent is still under-represented in the main competition (Egyptian Nadine Salib’s Mother of the Unborn and South African Ryley Grunenwald’s The Shore Break in the First Appearance section, Somalian-Danish Warriors from the North directed by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen in the Mid-Length Documentary section).

Thanks to the IDFA Bertha Fund, which supports filmmakers and film festivals in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, the Sudanese Hajooj Kuka, the Malagasy Nantenaina Lova and the South African François Verster were selected out of competition with Beats of the Antonov (Best of Fest), Ady Gasy, The Malagasy Way (Panorama) and The Dream of Shahrazad (Masters). Gilbert Ndahayo’s The Rwandan Night (Rwanda) and Jolynn Minnaar’s Unearthed (South Africa) were also presented out of competition. The 1975 film, The Peasant Letter by Senegalese director Safi Faye – considered the first African woman director – was screened as part of the ‘Female Gaze’ special focus.

These projects took many years to be made, underlining the recurrent struggle filmmakers face to direct, produce, and then distribute their movies. But from this selection comes a handful of brilliantly told, personal stories like one woman’s determination to fall pregnant in Mother of the Unborn, another’s struggle against an Australian corporation in The Shore Break or a man’s fight to take his son out of the Al-Shabab

SCREENAFRICA Publisher & Managing Editor: Simon Robinson: publisher@screenafrica.com

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A scene from François Verster’s The Dream of Shahrazad movement in Warriors from the North.

In a way, African filmmakers are looking closely to their fellows instead of reverting to the sensationalist subjects western audiences are used to. They interrogate everyday lives in communities such as those of Madagascar, who produce treasures out of nothing in Ady Gasy, or Egyptian, Turkish and Lebanese people living their passions for music and storytelling in The Dream of Shahrazad. By observing the surroundings, these movies give voice to the ones who are usually not listened to, like the survivors of genocide in The Rwandan Night, the inhabitants of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains in Beats of the Antonov or the people of the Karoo region in Unearthed.

Confronting the complexity of our contemporary societies searching, on one hand to be as developed as Western countries, and on the other to preserve the environment and traditional way of life, the African films in attendance at this year’s IDFA were the perfect reflection of a continent searching for its own identity.

Ady Gasy, The Malagasy Way by Nantenaina Lova – Madagascar/France – 84min. Contact: Laterit Production Beats of the Antonov by Hajooj Kuka – Sudan/ South Africa – 66min. Contact: Big World Cinema The Dream of Shahrazad by François Verster – South Africa/Egypt/France/Netherlands/Jordan – 107min. Contact: Spier Films Mother of the Unborn by Nadine Salib – Egypt – 85min. Contact: Hassala Films Peasant Letter by Safi Faye – Senegal – 95min.

Contact: Cinémathèque Afrique The Rwandan Night by Gilbert Ndahayo – Rwanda/Switzerland/USA – 115min. Contact: Rwanda The Movie The Shore Break by Ryley Grunenwald – South Africa – 90min. Contact: Marie-Vérité Films Unearthed by Jolynn Minnaar – South Africa/ USA/Canada – 93min. Contact: Stage 5 Films Warriors from the North by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen – Somalia/Denmark – 59min. Contact: DR International Sales – Claire Diao

Advertisement Sales: Marianne Schafer: marianne@screenafrica.com Michael Cronje: sales@screenafrica.com 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

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Africa a priority market for Discovery Networks Discovery Networks, home of the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC Entertainment and Discovery ID among others, sees Africa as a key market and is taking steps to better understand and cater to the continent’s audiences.

James Gibbons, senior vice president at Discovery Networks, remarks: “For us as a media business, the pace of change in Africa and the things you read in the news every day about how platforms are changing, how media consumption is changing, how DTT is coming, the growth of mobile and the growth of the middle class – all of these factors and the sheer scale of the different markets, makes us believe that there are long-term prospects here. We would very much like to be part of that as a media brand that is serving factual entertainment and more broadly, TV entertainment.”

Part of this expansion means a shift towards localised programming, which

has already been implemented in South Africa where Discovery Networks has been established for over 15 years.

Dedicated Africa feeds for flagship channels TLC Entertainment and the Discovery Channel have recently been applied in order to specifically serve audiences the kind of global content which has proven to resonate with them.

Though the company is one of the world’s biggest producers of African content in the sense that many of its shows are filmed on the continent by international crews, Gibbons says using local filmmakers and production companies to produce shows using their own authentic perspectives has been a serious topic of conversation for some time and will most likely be implemented in the near future. “That’s something we would really love to do – to show documentaries filmed by African filmmakers – and it’s very high on our list

of priorities,” comments Gibbons. “But it needs to be done in the right way – it’s not meaningful to be done as a token

here and there. We need to figure out how to do it in a way that’s going to showcase it properly and really bring value to the audience.”

In the last decade factual TV content across many major international networks has veered sharply towards non-scripted, reality genre programming. Gibbons maintains that though traditional documentaries still have their place on a channel like Animal Planet, and are still immensely relevant to a certain audience, the world of entertainment TV has expanded into the factual space. The main drivers for non-scripted and scripted entertainment have become the same, and so for any show hoping to attract healthy ratings it’s all about characters and storylines.

“But they each have their own unique power – there’s a reason why people watch Gold Rush or any of those reality series, for a different reason than they watch fictional drama. It’s about understanding what’s in the minds of our viewers so that we do reality in the right areas,” he concludes. – Carly Barnes

worked on fashion stills, films and TV commercials. Druce has experience working on global brands for leading creative agencies Saatchi and Y&R, and says opening a Cape Town branch was an obvious addition to the company’s existing global network.

“Clients from America will often look to Buenos Aires as a southern hemisphere option that can help budgets

work harder. Similarly for our European based clients, Cape Town is the perfect option. The Cape Town industry is long established and highly renowned; everyone in the Milk and Honey family is really excited about being able to offer it as a new destination,” says Druce.

Having lived and worked in London along with Pritchard, Druce says the two are happy to be back in South Africa, a country they are passionate about, and are looking forward to creating a successful business here.

“One of the benefits of shooting in Cape Town is that everything is within easy reach and we are in the heart of it all, from our suppliers to the best locations, restaurants, hotels and beaches,” adds Druce. “Depending on the size and location of a project we create ‘pop-up’ offices to work out of. As well as ensuring we are physically where the client needs us, it allow us to be more competitive when bidding by keeping our ongoing overheads as low as possible.”

The group’s worldwide portfolio includes work for high profile brands such as Heineken, Breitling, Jeep, Nike, Vodacom, Volkswagen and Unilever, to name a few. – Carly Barnes

DEDICATED TO AFRICA: James Gibbons

Milk and Honey Films settles in to new Cape Town office Milk and Honey Films, a global production company which provides services for commercials, feature films, TV series and content creation, has settled in to a new office just off Kloof Street in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town.

After opening for business in October the Cape Town team are already bidding on jobs and readying themselves for a busy first season on local soil.

With offices already established in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Prague and Shanghai, Milk and Honey is not only able to respond to briefs around the world,

throughout the year but is also able to offer clients a range of locations at competitive rates. As heads of the new office creative producer Sarah Druce and executive producer Sean Pritchard believe they are able to offer clients both a strategic and creative point of view on projects.

Pritchard carries 10 years of Capebased production experience and has

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Breaking away from the norm Cape Town director Jacobus Kriel has adopted a business model that trades local flavour in for the opportunity to capitalise on international markets.

Though a South African creation, family-friendly adventure movie Trailer-Made was conceptualised with the principal intention of being exported internationally.

Produced by Kriel’s production company JaC Productions and Innovation Films, the film features American leads Tyler Pongratz and Merle Schenk alongside supporting local actors Kwezi Kobus and Zukhanye Sigwela and tells the story of a father and son who travel to South Africa and subsequently find themselves staying in a junkyard. In search of ideas for a film script the two embark on a journey of imagination which reconnects them as family.

Kriel began working on the project strictly from a producer’s point of view, which meant focusing on producing a product which would appeal to

4 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

opportunities to South Africa and to incorporate more local actors and themes in his films, but for now he says passion projects will have to take a back seat.

“Writers normally have stories in their heart that they want to tell. But those stories get shelved because investors want a return on their investment. If you want to get a story out there you need to start by thinking like a producer.”

– Carly Barnes

Production details FAMILY ADVENTURE: Behind the scenes of Trailer-Made international distributors, executing production on a skinny budget so as to offer his private US funder a low-risk investment, as well as establishing valuable relationships with global partners.

“You have to learn the rules in order to break them,” says Kriel, “you can only get more creative once you have established relationships with distributors that are keen to sell your work. My theory is to rather start off getting money in the bank and in time, once relationships are established and there’s an element of trust, you can stray from the model and start playing.”

Traditionally local filmmakers have

been encouraged to produce films that are culturally relevant and that maximise on the many untold unique stories which exist in South Africa and the continent at large.

That said there is an increased awareness in global markets as to the influence which international territories hold on box office earnings and in recent years there has been a greater effort by Hollywood studios to appeal to these audiences. This can be seen in films like GI Jane which purposefully included a foreign friendly cast to dilute the strong US military theme.

Kriel maintains that the ultimate plan is to be able to bring more work and

Production companies: JaC Productions and Innovation Films Director: Jacobus Kriel Producer: Pieter Pohl Screenplay: Stefan Enslin and Jacobus Kriel Music: Julian Wiggins Cinematography: Paul Henry Nel Costume and wardrobe: Zelda Minnaar Art director: Werner Von Caues Editor: Elmien Fourie Lead cast: Tyler Pongratz, Merle Schenk Gear supplied by: Zulu Sierra Productions Post-production facilities: Editing: JaC Productions Grading: 744 Digital Final sound mix: Triplane Films Visual effects: Ruan Pienaar and Mohamed Moola

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AMC arrives in Africa AMC Networks International, a leading international broadcaster and distributor of 13 thematic television channels, has extended its footprint into Africa as part of a global rollout of the AMC channel. As a result, the MGM Channel has been rebranded as AMC from 1 December 2014 across sub-Saharan Africa.

Alongside the English language linear TV channel, AMC will offer AMC VOD, and ‘TV everywhere’ services to multiple devices. AMC has launched with platform partners DStv, StarSat, Zuku and Azam TV. AMC is behind some of the most acclaimed and award-winning dramas in the US, including The Walking Dead, Mad

Men and Breaking Bad. It offers exclusive original series’ from AMC Studios, including The Divide and Game of Arms.

The channel also features acclaimed movies from some of the world’s biggest film libraries including the MGM library.

Golding resigns from e.tv Photo credit: Mail and Guardian

application to stop the disciplinary hearing based on the argument that he was employed by Sabido and e.tv and not HCI, which was dismissed by Labour Court Judge Anton Steenkamp.

According to the Mail and Guardian, Golding released a statement internally to the group explaining his resignation: “I deny these charges. I am of the view that the manner in which HCI intended to conduct my hearing as well as the circumstances which led to the decision to bring charges against me has rendered my employment relationship with HCI intolerable.”

Golding maintains that his transaction was carried out “in good faith and at the time believed to be in Sabido’s best interests” and has said the disciplinary action, which he believes was driven by HCI directors John Copelyn and Yunis Shaik, is as a result of his refusal to permit political interference with editorial content.

Marcel Golding

Siyaya TV acquires broadcasting licence Siyaya TV, new pay-television provider and owners of the television and radio rights to broadcast all national football team fixtures, has been issued with a broadcasting licence.

Spokesman for the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Paseka Maleka said that on 14 November 2014 the authority resolved to have Siyaya TV issued with a commercial subscription broadcasting licence following their submission of additional information that had been requested previously.

In May 2015, Siyaya TV’s R1 billion six-year deal with the South African 6 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

Photo credit: http://www.gearhousebroadcast.com

Following a dismissed appeal against disciplinary action charges brought by Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), chairman and e.tv CEO Marcel Golding has resigned. The charges related to Golding’s purchase of shares in Ellies, a JSE-listed company, which he was accused of doing without board approval.

Golding submitted an urgent

Discovery Networks includes local content in 2015 programming slate Discovery Networks Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) has announced its 2015 programming highlights, which include a local talent search for lifestyle channel TLC Entertainment and the commissioning of Discovery Channel’s To Be King, which reveals violence, deception and the struggle for power within South Africa’s Mapogo lion pride.

“We are hugely excited to present our 2015 content slate to the African market,” says James Gibbons, SVP and country manager, emerging business, Discovery Networks CEEMEA. “Next year our programming portfolio is better than ever, with new series from our most popular presenters and even more local content filmed right here in Africa.”

New shows which will feature on Discovery Channel (DStv channel 121), TLC Entertainment (DStv channel 172) and Animal Planet (DStv channel 183) include: • Three new Bear Grylls series on Discovery Channel (The Island with Bear Grylls, Bear Grylls: Breaking Point and Running Wild with Bear Grylls).

• TLC Entertainment’s search for a South African host who will win the chance to present the brand new series Top 10 TLC. • More African content for Animal Planet with four landmark series filmed across the continent.

MultiChoice launches connected entertainment services DStv’s Explora decoder is now connected to the internet, affording Premium customers an extended library of content on Catch Up. In addition DStv Explorer customers with PVRs are able to make use of the new Remote Recording function and DStv Premium customers with PVRs have access to the DStv NOW app.

DStv Catch Up instantly allows viewers to access a spread of content which is automatically delivered via satellite. The new DStv Catch Up Plus library adds a further 300 titles to the 300 already loaded on the Catch Up platform.

DStv WiFi connector slide Up to 25 titles from the DStv Catch Up Plus library can then be downloaded to the Explora, for viewers to watch when it suits them.

The Remote Recording function allows viewers who aren’t at home to set recordings from DStv.com via a laptop, smartphone or tablet. Similarly, the DStv NOW app gives DStv Premium customers with PVRs the ability to set remote recordings from any iOS or Android mobile device and access 12 channels as well as DStv Catch Up content.

New cinemas to open in Nigeria

Football Association (SAFA) begins. The company has committed to making matches accessible to broader audiences – working with established broadcasters, including the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and e.tv – to avoid a political backlash. The fear is that moving the coverage of a national asset like football to a pay-television platform would prejudice most viewers.

In April 2014 ICASA granted Siyaya TV a conditional licence pending submission of additional information including financial guarantees, research and a corporate structure.

Nigerian film distribution and cinema company, The Filmhouse, plans to open 15 new cinemas.

At the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), co-founder and managing director Kene Mkparu announced a deal with African Capital Kene Mkparu Alliance which will allow Filmhouse to open 10 more cinemas by 2015, and an additional four annually from 2016.

According to City Voice Nigeria, African Capital Alliance partner Paul Kokoricha said: “Despite Nigeria having one of the largest film industries in the world the cinema space is largely Photo credit: thenet.ng

NEWS

untapped. The world over, cinema exhibition and film distribution are key segments of the film industry and the main drivers of economic value in the sector. We are looking forward to partnering with the team to deliver on the promise of the sector.”

Mkparu added: “We are delighted with Africa Capital Alliance’s investment in our strategic plans for cinema roll-out expansion, film distribution and production. With this investment, we can scale up quickly and strengthen our position as an industry leader. We believe African Capital Alliance brings valuable local and international expertise that will help grow our business.”

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TSL PAM PiCo Touch compliant audio, loudness and logging system Offering precise audio and loudness compliance monitoring, the PAM PiCo offers several metering tools including 3G SDI, AES I/O, headphone out and more.

PAM PiCo Touch features: • Bargraphs or Moving Coil – Your choice of metering tool • JellyFish™ & StarFish™ Inter-channel relationships – Phase Security • Loudness and True Peak Logging – Document, Report & Analyse • Clear Loudness metering & readout – Instantaneous Loudness conformity • Real time True Peak PPM – Optimized level with no hidden ‘overs’ • Compliant with major loudness standards – Always hit your target • FFT Analysis – See and secure your audio from any angle • SDI 3G I/O, AES/EBU (8ch. I/O), Analogue (2 ch. In) • Flexible and User definable setup – Personalized to fit your workflow • SMPTE Reader – Readout and Log against Timecode • HDMI screen and Audio output (1024x600) • Headphone Output • USB and Ethernet Control – Logging and System Management • Multi Touch screen User interface

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Technology

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Panasonic Control Assist Camera (AW-HEA10) Panasonic’s new Control Assist Camera will launch in March 2015. It is a new remote camera accessory that allows quick and easy remote camera control. Users can control the camera by simply tapping the appropriate point on their tablet screen.

The system can be controlled via joystick, which can be used to make even the smallest adjustments to the camera’s position The ‘tap’ technique means that operators can keep up with the action in near to real time, with no delays as a result of slow camera movement.

IP image transmission allows the user to roam with the tablet, seeing areas that may be out of the camera’s view Simple operations means that there is no need for specialist camera support Can be used in conjunction with VidiGo Live studio automation system

EVS IPDirector end-to-end production control system

VidiGo Studio Automation

The winner of the 2014 IABM Innovation Award in the System Automation and Control category, VidiGo’s Studio Automation system is a softwarebased solution that heavily simplifies the production process in newscasts or similar live television environments.

It offers: • Studio automation in a box • Various degrees of automation from 0 to 100% • Easy integration with existing newsroom systems – can also be used for sports, weather and game shows • Ease of use – a two-person production crew is all that is needed for a full-scale news broadcast • The ability to create rundown automatically or manually • Composition of scenes, from simple camera shots to multi-layered events • Full preparation of show from desk • The solution comprises: • VidiGo Live hard- and software • VidoGo Live Assist software • VidiGo Translator for newsroom integration

EVS’s IPDirector integrates a full range of video production management software to create a complete, end-to-end, production suite, from ingest to play-out scheduling.

• Content production management suite • Easily ingest, log, manage, search, browse • Track, edit, create clips and highlights • Play out any video or audio content instantly • Complete and instant overview on the media sharing network, XNet2 (XT3, XS, EVS storage platforms, video tape recorders) • Control and organize any recording and live streaming actions of feeds from cameras, satellite or video tape recorders, either in high or low resolution • Simplifies logging and content association by sharing logs and descriptive data on the production network • Metadata can be transferred to and from third-party and postproduction equipment via export of XML files.

• The Xedio CleanEdit module which can access IPDirector’s nearline central storage and allows editing functions, effects transitions, audio mix down, voice-over, audio volume automation or graphics insertion.

• The IPEdit module offers complete timeline editing with no rendering process required with long form editing (for quick program fixing) and short form editing (for highlights creation).

October 2014 | SCREENAFRICA | 7

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Technology

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Datavideo CKL 300 dual colour chromakey system The Datavideo CKL-300 combines a dual colour (green and blue) LED ring and unique retro-reflective backdrop cloth embedded with tiny beads. The LED light ring is mounted on the lens of the camera and projects a highly directional green or blue light on the backdrop cloth.

Thanks to the embedded glass beads, light is then projected back to the camera creating a perfect green or blue background. This brings excellent keying results with minimal effort. The system was recently used in an advert for the South African Department of Communications.

Pule Tsoai, director of photograpy for the advert and cameraman at the video unit, remarked: ‘’ It really was easy setting up the CKL-300 kit. Three sections of cloth can be velcroed together to form a 2.5m high, 3m wide background, supported by a backdrop stand. A ring light attached to the camera’s lens with either blue or green LEDs reflects off the highly reflective special screen, providing a uniform green or blue background with minimal attention to lighting. All components of the CKL-300 kit fold up and are easily portable in a nylon carry case.”

Datavideo CKL-300 LED ring mounted on Canon camera

Features: • 3 x 0.9m (w) x 2.5m (h) retro-reflective back drop with Velcro on both sides to allow users to either use one cloth on its own or join them together for a single 2.7m by 2.5m background.

• Dual colour green and blue LED ring.

• Perfect light return up to 75 degrees off axis.

• Power supply with LED brightness and adjustment.

• Remote control integration with Datavideo DVK-200.

• Light ring lens size 72mm (stepping rings 52-82mm available from resellers).

• DC 12V operated – perfect for mobile operations.

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8 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

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NFVF resignations an opportunity for new momentum A recent spate of resignations at the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) set off a wave of panic for producers with film projects in development, who, like most South African filmmakers, are reliant on the organisation’s support and initiatives to reach completion. In addition, there was speculation that the resigned staff may have left on bad terms and that certain employees felt council members had a tendency to get too involved in the foundation’s operational departments.

Among the employees departing from the NFVF are head of production and development, Clarence Hamilton; manager in charge of documentaries, Neiloe Whitehead; head of marketing, Tumi Rabanye; Thandeka Zwane, production and development manager: fiction; and policy and legal officer, Mawande Seti.

NFVF CEO Zama Mkosi has hastened to assure the industry that although there may be minor delays between December

and January while the organisation manages the employee deficit and looks to bring temporary support staff on board to assist with internal processes, structures have been put in place to ensure that no projects fall through the cracks. “The decision we made a couple of years ago to use more people from the industry in order to assist us in reviewing our projects and applications has ensured that 100 per cent of the responsibility does not just sit internally,” said Mkosi, “so when something like this happens we are able to tap into external resources and keep the ship moving without being dysfunctional.”

Mkosi maintains that the resignations, which largely affect the NFVF’s film development unit, were amicable and for the most part, a long time coming.

“We’ve been internally having conversations with different people about where they are, where they want to be over time and in fact, it so happened that it was now,” said Mkosi. Further to this

KEEPING THE SHIP MOVING: Zama Mkosi Mkosi said that employees showed professional courtesy by not only following the standard resignation procedures but, having just come out of a stressful and busy season for the organisation, ensuring their exit coincided with what is considered a period of down-time for the industry.

Whitehead remarked that she had experienced interference from the

| News council and stated, “Whilst there are various reasons why I resigned, the most significant reason is the most simple – I had simply come to the end of my journey at the NFVF. At the end of the day my personal politics conflicted too much with the direction the foundation is going in.”

Regarding the roles of the organisation’s council and executive members, Mkosi firmly believes all relevant parties have played their part in accordance with the NFVF act which is available on the NFVF website for public perusal. She adds, “This is a relatively new council which was elected in May, and as such they may have new ways of fulfilling their role – and, yes that takes adjusting. They may come in and put forward new ways of doing things, improving things and making sure we are aligned to our strategy.”

Mkosi expressed that she is sad to say goodbye to the employees who have given a valuable contribution to and remain in support of the organisation and the industry at large, but sees the transition as an opportunity to begin the New Year with a renewed energy. “If we can focus our eyes on what could be, we can put something in place that can continue, and even enhance, the great momentum we have achieved this year.”

– Carly Barnes

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January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 9

ADCETERA

| Report on the South African commercials industry

‘What you get out of life’ Life insurance is considered a necessity, but to many, it has become a ‘grudgepurchase’. The new OUTsurance TV campaign seeks to change this perception through the use of beautifully captured imagery and emotive storytelling.

Director Matthys Boshoff along with producer Leanne Sanders – both of AIR Films – and cinematographer Timothy Pike, were briefed directly by OUTsurance’s in-house creative Bryn Puchert, who developed the concept and wrote scripts for all three commercials making up the ‘What You Get Out of Life’ campaign. Boshoff was given complete creative freedom to interpret the scripts visually and turn them into exquisitely crafted visual stories.

“The brief from the client was to tell the story in three family situations over a 15-year period and to show what the OUTsurance LIFE clients did with their respective OUTbonuses,” explains executive producer Marge Hughes.

“Clients who take out life insurance with OUTsurance get all their premiums back after 15 claim-free years.”

The commercials each capture the intimate development of relationships between family members over a period of 15 years, showing the viewer how an OUTbonus can allow you to purchase

your child’s first car, send him/her to university, or even afford a second honeymoon.

Hughes explains that the casting process was somewhat tricky and extremely intensive as casting director Gaelene Lithgow was on the hunt for artists who were not only strong performers, but who could be appropriately aged over a period of 15 years with the help of make-up artist Deborah Nicol.

“In the case of the children who featured in two of the three commercials the casting director had to find three performers to clearly illustrate the passing of time,” says Hughes. “For the ‘University’ commercial, a three-year-old girl was cast, then a 12-year-old look-alike and finally an 18-year-old look alike.”

“Matthys used devices like spectacles as a linking device across the 15-year time span and Sue Steele the production designer cleverly used colour and props to show continuity within the passing of time,” she continues.

The commercials were shot over three days in July of 2014 in and around Johannesburg on the Arri Alexa, with DOP Tim Pike carefully selecting various lenses. Shooting at different times of day and night, coupled with a combination of normal and slow-motion shots further

Still from the OUTsurance ‘University’ commercial helped to illustrate the passing of time.

Theo Crous of Belville Studios composed the heartwarming original score for the campaign while Andrew Traill from The House Post Production edited the commercials.

AIR Films was launched in 2010 and specialises in the creation of TV commercials and broadcast-related branded content. Run by Hughes and Boshoff, ‘AIR’, is an acronym for ‘An

Improbable Relationship’, describing that which exists between Hughes, who is a producer with many years of experience, and Boshoff, who was a budding director when the two met. With only four years in the industry, AIR Films’ enviable client list includes Coca-Cola, Hollard, Clover-Danone, Edgars, Pick ‘n Pay and Cipla. – Chanelle Ellaya

New Prime Circle music video pushes boundaries Prime Circle recently dropped their new music video for their latest single ‘Doors’, taken off the band’s new album Let the Night In. The band members chose one of South Africa’s most innovative music video directors – Ryan Kruger of Enigma Ace Films – and trusted him completely to develop and execute a concept of his choice for the video. This is the second music video Kruger has directed for the band and this time, he opted for a truly cinematic feel: “…to the extent of a US blockbuster movie,” he says.

The concept for the ‘Doors’ music video is based on one of Kruger’s favourite ‘70s flicks Capricorn One; he explains: “I like to incorporate local stories into international concepts, like with the previous music video I did for the band. This time the narrative follows the first three South Africans on their mission to Mars. But all is not what it seems as the astronauts are pulled from the shuttle seconds before the launch due to technical problems.”

10 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2014

Screen grab from Prime Circle’s ‘Doors’ music video Fearing the disappointment of a nation, the head of the space programme decides to fake the Mars landing and keep the astronauts held captive. The video comes to a close with one star astronaut escaping captivity and sharing the truth with the public. The message of the video is simple, Kruger says: “Don’t believe everything you see and hear on television.”

Produced by Tash Montlake as well as Kruger, the new music video has an authentic cinematic feel, complete with drama, emotion and strong imagery.

Kruger says that DOP Faheemah Hendricks shot the video on the Red Epic camera but to make sure the final product looked as cinematic as he had envisioned, ample time was spent scouting the

perfect locations. “Each scene needed to complement the next, which was pivotal for creating a convincing story for me. We didn’t have a movie budget so it was all about creativity and how we could achieve stuff without spending money,” Kruger comments.

Shot over two days, in and around Cape Town in October 2014, the Doors music video includes some VFX. Kruger explains: “…In one part of the video we see a shuttle going up into the sky with people watching from the stand. The shuttle going up and leaving the ground was footage we bought and basically re-mastered, adding flares and the South African flag blowing in the wind.”

To add to its cinematic credibility, the video features an all-star cast including a

string of popular South African actors such as Brandon Auret from District 9, Sean Cameron Michael of Black Sails, Robin Smith from The Fall, Joe Vaz of Dredd and Graham Clarke of The Villagers.

“I really wanted this video to show producers in the country what we are capable of doing and that we can make big projects like this in South Africa and not just the same old stuff we always see,” Kruger concludes.

In addition to Kruger, Montlake and Hendricks, the remainder of the production team included Blake Prinsloo, who was responsible for the VFX, and the very talented Stephen du Plessis from 2+3 Post who edited the video.

– Chanelle Ellaya

| ADCETERA

New Dookoom music video sparks controversy Dookoom’s music video for their contentious new track ‘Larney Jou Poes,’ has been stirring up much controversy since its release in October 2014. The lead single off their new EP A Gangster Called Big Times, ‘Larney Jou Poes’ and its accompanying video endeavors to serve as a blunt indictment of the plight of farm workers in South Africa and more especially in the Cape.

“Farmer Abrahams had many farms/ Many farms had Farmer Abrahams/ I work one of them and so do you/ So let’s go burn ‘em down,” goes the opening lyrics of the song. The video features the group’s menacing frontman Isaac Mutant, along with Dookoom’s three other members and an entourage of irate farm workers – pitchforks and tyres in tow – riding on a tractor through a farm, evidently seeking violent revenge.

Director Dane Dodds from Sirius Tales, who developed the concept for the video, is the 19-year-old son of a farmer, “The concept came from the feelings I had when I listened to the song for the first time,” explains Dodds. “It’s a strong song and I wanted to develop a concept that would stay true to the feelings of anger and frustration expressed in the song. Through my upbringing as a South African and a farm boy I know how divided the opinions and feelings on this subject are and I used that background to develop the symbolism and themes.”

Isaac Mutant and crew in the ‘Larney Jou Poes’ music video The music video is shot in black and white, which Dodds says he chose to use as a way to play with the concept of time, creating a look and feel that was raw and achromatic but ambiguous in terms of time: “I tried to implement symbolism from the past, but also use new symbols like chrome rims on the tractor…At the end of the day I wanted to create a video that was about the past and the present as well as about the real and the surreal.”

The message of the video is simply to show the viewer that these emotions expressed through the ‘Larney Jou Poes’

video are real and need to be spoken about. Dookoom and Dodds are hopeful that both the song and the music video will stimulate discourse regarding the feelings and emotions surrounding the land issue in the Cape.

DOP Diogo Domingues shot the majority of the video on a 5D MARK II, while a Movi Rig was used to capture the performance element in order “to achieve the look of controlled chaos,” says Dodds.

The remainder of the key production team included producer Niklas Berning,

editor Marte Aasen, and special effects guru Grant Birch, who was responsible for adding the band’s burning logo on the land in post-production.

Shot over three days in April 2014 on a farm in the Karoo, the ‘Larney Jou Poes’ music video certainly has sparked some discourse, as civil rights group AfriForum submitted a complaint of hate speech to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), against the electro hip-hop outfit. – Chanelle Ellaya

The Places You’ll Go! The new Engen television commercial The Places You’ll Go follows an endearing old man, on his motorcycle, as he takes a journey from the scorched plains of the Karoo to the Atlantic Ocean – a journey that has been a lifelong dream to him.

Director Kevin Fitzgerald says that the brief from Engen’s group brand manager, Lesley McDonough, was to create a TVC that reinforces the brand’s long standing philosophy – ‘what matters to you, matters to us.’ The ad was conceptualised

by FCB Cape Town and Egg Films.

“The concept explores the relationship between Engen and its clients,” Fitzgerald explains. “A relationship that goes beyond the short encounters at the service station. Engen has become a part of our lives, and a part of our dreams.”

The lead character is played by an elderly man who lives in a remote part of the country. Fitzgerald explains that the casting process was simple and direct as the casting agent was on the lookout for an old but fit male who was also a strong motorcycle rider, “The lead character had, first and foremost, to be an accomplished motorcycle rider and have

Screen grab from Engen’s “The Places You’ll Go” TVC a steely determination in his eye. He needed to be fit and strong and be willing to spend hours on the bike.”

Tempted to turn the TVC into a short ‘road movie’, Fitzgerald explains that while the focus of the commercial is on the elderly man following his dream, in order to make it visually moving and appealing, DOP Alard de Smidt shot the commercial “using the landscape in a supporting role.”

Shooting primarily in the Karoo and the West Coast beaches, Smidt made use of the Red Epic and a Movirig, “The idea

was to retain some of the roughness of the journey and not smooth the picture out too much. We put the camera onto a Movirig and had it on a short arm off the back of a tracking vehicle,” says Fitzgerald.

“Engen is a business built around people, and with this commercial we wanted to focus on the important part that our products and services play in the lives of our customers,” says group brand manager McDonough. “We wanted to demonstrate that we are always alongside them on their journeys, wherever they

might need to go.”

With serene visuals that celebrate South Africa’s splendid landscape and a moving soundtrack –written and performed by Theo Crous and Arno Carstens – the new Engen spot is both uplifting and inspiring to the viewer.

Working alongside Fitzgerald was producer Brad Logan and art director Henri Du Rand who made up the remainder of the key crew that brought this touching TVC to life. – Chanelle Ellaya January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 11

ADCETERA

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OPINION

Five reasons why brainstorms flop

By Nicole Velik

– founder of the Ideas Bodega

People often think brainstorming is a complete waste of time and often it is.

However, it can also be an exciting experience where the room is buzzing and great ideas are almost bouncing off the walls. Here are five key reasons why brainstorms flop and what to do…

The facilitator is just scribing If the facilitator is just scribing, they are crazily trying to capture all the ideas and what’s happening behind their back is that one or two extroverted people are shouting out all their ideas and dominating the session.

The facilitator needs to control the room, keep extroverts at bay and make sure everyone is contributing. My trick to getting around this is to simply say: “Who haven’t I heard from?” In that moment the extroverts will pipe down and amazingly the quiet ones always start speaking up with lots of great ideas. Make sure you ask someone else to be the scribe while you facilitate the brainstorm.

The challenge isn’t defined People often get lazy and kick off the brainstorm by reading through a three-page brief. After reading through the whole brief they then settle on the business objective to be the brainstorm challenge.

Firstly, when you get your whole team together in a room for an hour, that is a luxury, so don’t waste it by reading through a brief that could have been emailed in advance.

Secondly, the business objective is usually something like how to raise awareness or how to sell more units.

Going into a brainstorm with such a dull, business-like challenge will not spark creativity. Find a way in and craft a challenge statement ahead of time that is fun, juicy and makes participants excited about the brainstorm.

12 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2014

Nicole Velik An example from a recent vitamin brand I worked on: rather than the brainstorm challenge being how to get people to take brand X vitamins first thing in the morning, a more specific and inspiring challenge would be: “How to become as important as a morning coffee.”

The challenge is too broad If the challenge is too broad you will get ideas that cover a lot of ground and the brainstorm will jump from idea to idea with not much structure. You will finish the brainstorm with half-baked ideas rather than some fully fleshed out big ideas.

Make sure you break your challenge up into mini challenges and tackle them separately.

Ideas are shut down prematurely Nothing innovative ever sounded normal when it was first thought of. Think about the iPhone – imagine the first time someone said we are going to create a mobile phone with one button rather than the normal 13 buttons. Seemingly ridiculous ideas can often be brilliant ideas if you let them breathe.

No divergent techniques are used It can be hard to get people in a room and expect them to come up with brilliant ideas. Often the first 15 minutes are good and then the ideas can run dry. Ideation techniques can be great for taking people’s minds where they never would

have gone and helping them come up with highly creative ideas. An example of a technique that I love is ‘Brands we envy’ – have people choose a brand that has nothing to do with the challenge. (Nike, Redbull, The Body Shop). They must come up with ideas for the challenge based on the way that other brand would solve it.

Please keep these five things in mind next time you facilitate a brainstorm.

Nicole Velik is a Creativity and Innovation Speaker, Trainer and Facilitator and owner of The Ideas Bodega. She spoke at PromaxBDA Africa in November 2014. In her talk she discussed better brainstorming techniques and gave the audience some tools to combat the common mistakes.

| ADCETERA

There are two sides to every story

Screengrab from the Honda Civic ‘The Other Side’ campaign On 30 October 2014, Honda launched a new interactive online film called The Other Side. The film – which is just short of three minutes long – comes ahead of the much anticipated 2015 launch of the new Honda Civic Type R. The Other Side develops in two parallel narratives, one set during the day and the other at night. The daytime narrative shows a father – in a white Honda Civic – picking his daughter up from school and driving her to a party. The night-time narrative shows the father’s other side –

the same man, as an undercover cop in a red Civic Type R, driving thieves to a police set-up.

Honda UK spearheaded the campaign, investing in large-scale media support across digital and social channels throughout November 2014. Creative director Scott Dungate from advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy London headed up the creative team that worked alongside the client.

Directed by Daniel Wolfe from production house Somesuch in London,

the film begins with the daytime narrative, with titles prompting the viewer to press ‘R’ on their device in order switch to the night-time narrative. The two contrasting stories mirror each other perfectly in their composition with seamlessly matched scenes. By pressing ‘R’ the viewer can switch between the Civic and the Type R narrative throughout the interactive film giving him/her a sense of what it would be like pressing the ‘R’ button to activate ‘Race Mode’ on the new Civic Type R. According to digital production

Head

company Stinkdigital, there were also two sides to the technical development, with desktop users being directed to Honda’s YouTube channel while tablet users get to enjoy the interactive experience on a self-contained HTML5 site.

The YouTube build uses a ‘custom gadget’, designed to look like a branded but ordinary YouTube player making the interactivity all the more unexpected.

Behind the scenes, two separate video players are kept synchronised, showing each side of the film.

The HTML5 build keeps both films in a single double-width video, and uses the Web Audio API to switch between the left and right channels of a single audio file.

This tactic allows for the seamless synchronisation of the two films but is also fundamental for the interactive experience to work on iOS. Arpad Ray of digital production company Stinkdigital was the technical lead that developed the interactive experience. Producer Dougal Meese and DOP Robbie Ryan who shot on 35mm made up the rest of the key production crew, with post production house The Mill churning out the immaculate final product.

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October 2014 | SCREENAFRICA | 13

FILM

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Hood tackles Eye in the Sky Acclaimed South African director Gavin Hood was in Cape Town recently when filming began on the international Entertainment One and Raindog Films thriller Eye in the Sky starring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul and Colin Firth.

Screen Africa caught up with Hood on the final day of shooting at the SBH Cotton Mills in Epping Industrial Village near Cape Town and chatted to him about being back home.

G

avin Hood’s career has been remarkable since his directorial debut, a commercial short film called The Storekeeper, a dialogue-free drama shot on 35mm in 1998.

He made his first feature film A Reasonable Man in 1999, which he also co-produced and scripted. This was followed by Tokoloshe, the Polishlanguage In Desert and Wilderness and then the breakthrough feature Tsotsi shot in 2005. Tsotsi went on to win an Oscar in 2005 for Best Foreign Language Film.

From there, Hood became a Hollywood player, beginning with Rendition in 2007, followed by X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In 2013, his adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game was released.

Eye in the Sky is a contemporary international thriller set in the shadowy world of ‘drone’ warfare. Mirren plays Colonel Michelle Madden, a military intelligence officer in command of a top secret drone operation. Paul’s role is as that of an American drone pilot, while Firth co-stars as a British government official.

14 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

HOLLYWOOD PLAYER: Gavin Hood

Screen Africa: What impact did the short film The Storekeeper have on your career?

Hood: The Storekeeper was a low budget introduction to directing a movie shot on 35mm. This was essential as far as furthering my career on an international level and it went a long way to doing this.

The story also offered a legal question of responsibility – how much guilt is carried by a person who kills while protecting his property and possessions – particularly when the person killed is in fact not a burglar but an unfortunate victim.

Screen Africa: Are you able to tell us a little about your current project Eye in the Sky? Hood: Helen Mirren plays Colonel Katherine Powell, who heads up a secret mission to capture a terrorist group living in a safe house in Nairobi. She learns that the group plans to carry out a suicide attack and because of this her objective is changed to killing the terrorists.

Aaron Paul plays the drone pilot Steve Watts, who targets the safe house for destruction but reports that a nine-yearold girl is entering the kill zone. Powell contacts politicians and lawyers to determine whether or not to take action.

The script by Guy Hibbert offers moral

dilemmas as well as a high level of drama and intrigue.

In the past bombs were just dropped.

Now when a rocket is fired from a drone the accuracy is pinpoint and it’s a question of how many bodies there are. I know this is terrible however it does make us aware of the advances in warfare and stimulates debate.

Screen Africa: You chose to shoot the movie in South Africa – any particular reason?

Hood: Primarily because I love shooting here – it’s home and everything is familiar.

It also lent itself to this genre of movie, and several locations throughout South Africa were easy substitutes for settings in the film. We found areas that substituted for Surrey for Mirren’s character, as well as clubs that substituted Las Vegas and Beaufort West was a backdrop for the state of Nevada. There are also a lot of effects as the SACAA (South African Civil Aviation Authority) refused permission for flying drones, so these will be CGI inserts.

Screen Africa: You have experienced crews all over the world – how do South African crews and services stack up?

Hood: I am convinced that South Africa has the best crews in the world. They are hard working, professional and ahead of their game. This is not new. They always have been and it’s a real pleasure being able to work with top class people and equipment.

Screen Africa: Were you able to take advantage of any South African financial incentives offered on this production?

Hood: Indeed. I worked together with the IDC on a cooperative investment as well as the dti on the Foreign Film and Television Production and PostProduction incentive. The people are really helpful and of course these incentives really work and make shooting in South Africa far more attractive.

Screen Africa: This is your last day of shooting – how has it gone?

Hood: Amazing. We are spot on schedule and have had a trouble-free run.

This will be an amazing movie, and I would urge you all to see it. Release is scheduled for 2015. It’s been amazing to come back home and shoot a movie that I feel really passionate about.

– Andy Stead

| Film

Move over Hollywood South Africa has a lot to offer international filmmakers in terms of tax incentives and rebates, and with producers always on the lookout for ways to get more bang for their budgeted buck; the plummeting Rand value gives them just that. Added to this is the country’s diverse scenery which allows movie makers access to an extraordinary range of locations. But in speaking with French director Jérôme Salle, who spent almost a year in the country shooting the gritty crime thriller City of Violence, it’s clear that there is a certain je ne sais quoi the country has to offer, over and above its economic standing and geographic features.

Production Details Producer: Richard Grandpierre Co-producers in South Africa: Eric Vidart Loe and Juli Lotter Co-producer: Romain Le Grand Director: Jérôme Salle Writers: Julien Rappeneau and Jérôme Salle Lead cast: Orlando Bloom, Forest Whitaker, Dan Fletcher Production design: Laurent Ott Cinematographer: Denis Rouden Editor: Stan Collett Sound mixer: Nico Louw Sound designer / sound effects editor / sound re-recording mixer: Nikolas Javelle Original music: Alexandre Desplat Gear supplied by: Take2 Films

A CERTAIN JE NE SAIS QUOI: Jérôme Salle

O

riginally titled Zulu and based on the novel by Caryl Férey, City of Violence is set in Cape Town where two policemen hunt for a killer. In their quest for justice, they are confronted with unadulterated violence, conspiracies, their own demons and the concept of forgiveness.

Hollywood heavyweights Orlando Bloom and Forrest Whitaker star among a cast of South Africans, convincing even the most discerning viewer they are born and bred locals. Much of this realistic portrayal can be attributed to Salle’s immersive directorial approach and demand for cultural accuracy.

“In my first trip I spent three weeks here and I had the feeling it was a great place to shoot. More importantly I had the feeling that being a foreigner could make things easier,” he recalls.

Foreign territory After initially reading the novel, Salle wasn’t sure he was cut out to tell a South African story, especially one in which the country itself features as a character. But after connecting with the universal theme of forgiveness, and being granted a ticket to South Africa to conduct research with no set return date, he felt confident he could do the story justice. Salle admits that being an outsider actually helped him collect the valuable insight he needed to keep the story authentic.

“When you talk to people here being white or coloured or black is a factor. You have your backpack on – what your parents have done and your history – and it interferes with your relationships with people,” remarks Salle. “I’m white obviously, but the fact that I’m a foreigner made things very different because I’m not sensitive to certain things. When I spoke to people I didn’t have to think: ‘Can I say that, is that politically correct…’

I’m neutral. And that made things quite a bit easier.”

Culture shock Salle admits that even as a seasoned traveller, arriving in the Cape Flats was the first time he’s ever felt the need to roll up his window, despite having an armed entourage. He also says that truly experiencing another culture is not only what makes his job fun but was an integral part of shooting this film.

“My DOP, AD and editor were French but the rest of the crew were South African. It was very important for me to be surrounded on set by South African people. The way you walk into a room and say hi to people is different from country to country and culture to culture so I really wanted to be around that as much as possible,” says Salle who adds that he was particularly impressed with his South African crew’s versatility.

“What’s interesting is that in the winter

South African crews work on small local movies with no money at all, so they know how to work smart.

During the summer they work with big, high-budget Hollywood movies. That’s what makes working with these crews so great – they know how to adapt.”

Shoot simple City of Violence was a coproduction between French companies, Eskwad, Pathé and M6 Films and South African company Lobster Tree. The film was shot between 24 September and 7 December 2012 and was finished in time for the Cannes Film Festival in May 2013. While some scenes were filmed in Namibia, the majority of filming took place all over Cape Town – from the city bowl and residential neighbourhoods to the townships and the gang riddled Cape Flats.

In working with DOP Denis Rouden, whose camera of choice was an Arri Alexa, Salle made the decision to disregard the stereotypical slick and polished Hollywood look, opting rather to give the film a look of raw ‘realness’.

“I used a crane a little bit but mostly I tried to keep it simple and get close to the characters. This is a rough story which takes place in a rough country so I wanted it to be gritty and real.” – Carly Barnes January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 15

FILM

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Necktie Youth – A Conversation

TRUE DEPICTION OF REALITY: Still from Necktie Youth (previously titled Territorial Pissings)

Growing up in the affluent suburb of Sandton in Johannesburg, as part of the first generation of ‘born-frees’, Sibs Shongwe-La Mer was constantly in observation of the cultural confusion synonymous with the youth of his day. “A youth raised on American television heroes, Disney and designer labels, in a land of Zulu mystics, racial/ tribal tensions, mass poverty, rugby and biltong.”

Born Frees Shongwe-La Mer is the writer, director and editor of the film Necktie Youth, a narrative he first wrote at the age of 15 – one which, he explains, he didn’t choose, but rather chose him: “When I was 15, my then girlfriend committed suicide, I wanted to analyse the situation and understand it and I suppose that got me thinking about where we were as a generation in Africa.”

In 2013, nearly eight years later, Shongwe-La Mer revisited his lost narrative, deciding that it was a story that needed to be heard. “I was compelled by introspect to conduct an examination into what it means to be a black South African youth now,” he comments.

“What is this generation’s identity and place in a cosmopolitan world? As a member of the first free generation of youths as well as a son born to a family that places itself among the first of the Western educated and globalised, middle-class black South Africans, I found 16 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

myself positioned in a space not often synonymous with Africans.”

“More and more the photograph of a promising generation of globalised, educated and integrated youths slipped into a snap shot of drug abuse, alcohol dependency and suicides,” he explains.

Independent Filmmaking Compelled by an urgent need to have this story heard, Shongwe-La Mer set out to make a short film – Territorial Pissings.

With only a treatment in place, which he admits was “really more of a visual statement,” the film was shot in just four weeks and cost “about R10 000 to make.”

A set of short vignettes shot in black and white, exploring conversations among youth in suburban Johannesburg on 16 June 2013, the film is a tribute to what it was like growing up for ShongweLa Mer and his peers. “The popular thought is that suburbia is this strange kind of heaven on earth and kids don’t get fucked up there – especially as it relates to post-apartheid South Africa,”

he says.

“So I shot short truths. The kids with the drugs, the kid trying to have sex with some girl in the skate park, the two lovers who take life and their own problems too seriously.”

Black and White Territorial Pissings was first selected for Final Cut in Venice, where it gained much recognition, prompting Shongwe-La Mer and his team to shoot a feature film version (Necktie Youth) in 2014.

Production company Urucu Media, producer Elias Ribeiro and cinematographer Chuanne Blofield had full faith in Shongwe-La Mer’s vision, allowing him to tell the story the way he wanted to – including shooting the film in black and white. “I shot in black and white because it made a lot of sense for me, firstly because I wanted to shoot a film the way I like watching films – I enjoy classic cinema,” explains Shongwe-La Mer. “And secondly we were shooting a youth culture film about a space that’s totally undefined, so I thought why not make it mystical and undefined.”

Film Festivals and Financing Financed by a combination of soft grants from the Gauteng Film Commission, tax incentive from DTI and private equity, the feature film Necktie Youth has been making waves internationally, with Shongwe-La Mer being named one of the top 25 emerging filmmakers of the world at the Locarno Film Festival Academy in Switzerland where a first assembly of the film screened to mentors and was awarded a special mention by the jury of the Locarno Open Doors, a

co-production market.

Producer Elias Ribeiro says that the film will be submitted for its world premiere at Tribeca (NYC) and Berlinale film festivals with plans for the South African premiere to take place at DIFF 2015. “It has been a true challenge to finance a black and white film that contemplates suicide, with a 23-year-old director. But the work has so much integrity and Sibs’ unique voice and point of view has been recognised time after time now that we have the film in the can,” says Ribeiro. “We also applied for funding from Hubert Bals, World Cinema Fund and Doha – all these institutions grant post-production support, but unfortunately we did not get one positive answer. That does not reflect on the quality of the work as we have already received invitations for official competition on two of the top 10 International Film Festivals in the world.

Our last bit of hope is the NFVF, who delayed announcement of grants for the last cycle of 2014.” Ribeiro explains.

“We are still on the run for funding from Hubert Bals in the Netherlands, World Cinema Fund, Doha and the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) – all these institutions grant post-production support,” Ribeiro explains.

Proposing a Reality Shongwe-La Mer hopes that Necktie Youth will stimulate conversation among audiences as it is a true depiction of reality. “I wrote the film from situations that I was familiar with, for people that I knew who I cast as themselves,” he explains. “It’s not an easy film to deal with…I hope to propose a reality and let cinema be what I really think it should be – a conversation.” – Chanelle Ellaya

| Film

Selling a movie to the world Director and filmmaker Scottnes Smith attended the 30th edition of MIPCOM with The Association for Transformation in Film and Television (ATFT).

As the industry’s largest event where major players from TV and film converge in Cannes during October, it is the perfect platform to expose South African filmmakers to the business side of film, television and production. In this Q&A we explore the world of movies and business through his eyes.

Why is MIPCOM important?

Smith: As a platform it allows people from around the world to engage around key issues facing the film and television industry, ultimately making more opportunities for us all. For a South African filmmaker such as myself it provides the incredible opportunity to see how business deals get made. More importantly how to participate in those business deals.

What was the highlight of your trip?

Smith: The highlight for me was the spontaneous meetings that we had with very influential and significant people, both from a business development point of view, creating work, as well as a relationship point of view. You get to sit down with someone you’ve probably been trying to get a hold of for two to three years, pitch an idea to them and have them say yes or no on the spot. You immediately get a sense of how easily businesses deals can be made when in principle you agree there and then, from there all the other aspects of the production line kick in.

It is also interesting from the point of view of getting access to people who are ordinarily in a different stratosphere – like Simon Cowell and the creators of Maker, an online web series that has recently been bought by Walt Disney, which is huge.

What was the most significant deal you made?

Smith: The most significant thing was that we got credibility with a really big dance film franchise that in principle have agreed to introduce our film Hear Me Move – SA’s first dance movie – to the

world and the established chain of American dance films.

How was Hear Me Move received?

Smith: Formally we would talk about the film in a theoretical sense but when showing the trailer people immediately opened up and could relate and understand our vision. They were surprised by the quality of the picture, the acting and the dancing and spent more time with us due to how well we packaged the trailer.

How do you sell to this audience?

Smith: You have to have something really good to sell to make the business of selling easier. You need to package your film in a way that will resonate with them – you have to make the reason for making the film and how it will resonate with audiences your central focal point.

One of the things that we as filmmakers often fall victim to in South Africa is that we try to make films for ourselves, or we focus on where we come from and how as an individual we want to share that with the world. But it is more about making the best film, not the best South African film, but the best work that we can and inevitably people will be drawn to that.

Then when they realise that it’s South African, they will think “wow that’s great, I’m really interested,” but they are really interested in the fact that it’s great work that is globally competitive.

What can you share with other SA filmmakers out there?

Smith: You have to dream big; it is very important that you remove all of the obstacles in your own thinking about

OPENING UP OPPORTUNITIES: Scottnes Smith what your vision is. It’s really important that your vision is global and that you remove your own identity. Yes I am an African, yes I’m based in Johannesburg but actually I produce movies for the world. Once you understand that, your whole thinking shifts and you realise that you are not only speaking to your people but to all the people in the world.

Therefore you have to be deliberate about how you use the tools of your artistry, the tools of cinema, people management and the tools of business, to make sure you reach as wide a group of people as possible while staying authentic to the carnal of the story that you want to tell.

Something life altering happens when you open yourself up to the possibility that life has to offer you as soon as you say “there’s nothing standing in my way from being the greatest”. People are immediately drawn to you and in Cannes people being drawn to you can change your life. I had one such conversation which will change my life and the prospects for Hear Me Move; unfortunately I cannot share the contents of that conversation just yet.

Who is the most interesting person you have met?

Smith: I met two really fascinating individuals.

One runs an online channel on YouTube that has millions of subscribers and whose videos regularly get 2.5 million hits. I saw a video of his that had 140 million hits and thought “wow that is the size of South Africa and everyone it four times over”. Again the takeout for me was that we should make good movies foremost; if we make good stuff people will go and see it. It doesn’t matter where you are making it from: this person is currently based in India but his stuff speaks to the planet.

The other person I met on the plane on my return. He turned out to be the captain of a 330-metre long oil tanker.

He explained that he deals in emotional intelligence. “I make sure that my team is working together and that we remain responsible because any mistake we make will affect the planet for 15 years.

If an oil tanker runs underground that ecosystem will be affected for 15, 20 even a 100 years.” How true is that!

January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 17

FILM

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Director Speak

director Phillip Noyce. In my opinion it may be the best Australian film ever made. This film about Australia speaks an emotional truth that is impossible to ignore.

Dream location to shoot at?

The Karoo. It is by far the most versatile and beautiful place on earth. The open plains scattered with ironstone koppies on the horizon make for a very picturesque setting. The former frontier town of Colesburg is hauntingly beautiful. The run of the mill type motel accommodation saluting you as you venture inwards might not look like much. But as you move inwards you start feeling the soul of the town, the complex face of the town’s identity, and the architecture, the beautiful churches and the Cape Georgian architecture

rt Engelbe Phiri

What has been your greatest challenge as a director to date?

The hardest thing is finding and deciding on whether an idea that l have makes for a story ‘that really needs to be told’ – a story that has universal resonance and universal truths. A story that is able to travel. Secondly, filmmaking is also an expensive business. It is not easy to attract financial resources to get a project made. It’s always a challenge to get the relevant people to believe in your story and your filmmaking voice.

RENAISSANCE MAN: Engelbert Phiri

From advertising to film and sometimes even photography, Engelbert Phiri is the definition of a true storyteller…

What made you want to become a director? Has it always been the dream? l knew that l wanted to tell stories from a young age. I just didn’t know then what medium l was going to use to tell stories. I prefer calling myself a creative. I just want to create regardless of the medium. Whether it’s through film, stills photography or whatever. I explore new worlds in my quest to express my innermost feelings or interrogate my own opinions about the world around me.

What inspires you as a storyteller?

As a creative and a storyteller the Renaissance man inspires me. Polymaths whose expertise spans a number of different subjects or artistic disciplines, men like Leonardo da Vinci. I believe that this multi-disciplinary approach is the future. I am a very keen observer of the complex nature of human beings and the world around me. I think my senses are unnaturally heightened. I see, smell and feel things. Sadly though, the worlds that l envision in my mind outstrip my means to create them.

If you had the opportunity to choose one international cinematographer to work with who would you choose and why?

Pirjo Honkasalo, a native of Finland. I think she is cinema’s Renaissance woman, and an auteur par excellence. She approaches her work with a high degree of artistic sensitivity.

18 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2014

Your project won an award at the Durban Film Mart, tell us a bit about what the experience has been like since?

It was a great feeling winning the award in Durban. It was a validation of sorts on the potential of the project. The award meant that my producer (Guy Bragge) and l had an amazing opportunity to present the project to important exponents of the international film industry at the New Cinema Network, which is the Rome Film Festival’s co-production market. Firstly l was humbled to be in the hauntingly beautiful Rome, a city brimming with splendours of antiquity and artistic expression. Secondly, I was honoured to be in the midst of some of the most interesting and original auteurs on the international scene. These included Italian director Giovanni Maderna and Austrian Markus Schleinzer whose previous film Michael, was presented in competition at Cannes in 2011 amongst others. All were great and accommodating human beings.

What has been the highlight of your career as a director to date?

I don’t think there have been any major highlights as yet.

It’s still a long journey that l am yet to walk. I am still getting to trust my own eyes. Still getting to be more open to learning from and being inspired by others. I am opening myself to trusting more in what l find complex but equally beautiful and that which will lead me to discovering my own singular filmmaking grammar.

What are your top three favourite films and why?

Generally, I find French movies amazing in their storytelling style; in their realness and honesty. At number three is Delicatessen (1991), directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It’s a cinematic film set in an apartment building in post-apocalyptic France of an ambiguous time period. The director masterfully manages to weave a subtle sense of humour into a world of cannibalism. At number two is The English Patient (1996) directed by Anthony Minghella. It’s a great human story of survival in a time of war; more in an emotional sense than a physical one. A multi-layered story told by different people who all experience love, loss and ultimately the sense of oneself – the true price of war. At number one is Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), by Australian

If you weren’t directing films, what would you be doing?

Trying to direct films is just one part of who l am.

I also hold down a full-time job as a senior creative at one of South Africa’s leading advertising agencies based in Sandton. I believe that my endeavours in film help sharpen my conceptual and storytelling strengths and creative delivery for my advertising side. And vice-versa, the discipline and the craft that comes from my advertising work at the agency feeds back to film. Storytelling and narrative at the end of it all is storytelling, whether short form for advertising or long form for film. I think it’s also an apt time for me to thank the wonderful management team at the advertising agency that affords me time away from work to travel to the different film markets and pitching forums on a regular basis. For that, l am perpetually grateful.

What do you think are some of the defining characteristics of the South African creative industry now? Where would you like to see some growth and in what way?

I don’t think there are any one or two defining characteristics of the South African industry right now. But what stands out is that the country is blessed with a solid creative and amazing technical skills set. All these people are continuously applying great creative solutions across different disciplines; advertising, technology, film, music or social issues. All this against the same variables or constraints – constraints like money, time, manpower and others.

What does the future hold for Engelbert Phiri? Hopes and dreams?

The future for me l think is just me working very hard to challenge myself and challenge convention and break through the ceiling enforced on me as a creative and creator. And finally, to lead a balanced life.

– Compiled by Chanelle Ellaya

nigeria

| Documentary

No refunds The Supreme Price, a new documentary by American filmmaker Joanna Lipper, tells the story of Nigerian activist Hafsat Abiola and her mother Kudirat, who have both dedicated their lives to Nigerian democracy and the struggle for the rights of Nigerian women.

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illed with intrigue, tragedy and hope, The Supreme Price highlights the close link between the West African regional power’s democratic development and the daily struggles of its women and girls.

As a prologue to the story of Kudirat and Hafsat Abiola, it is perhaps worth touching on the final years in the life of MKO Abiola, husband of Kudirat and father of Hafsat. In 1993, Nigeria was under the rule of its sixth military government, led by General Ibrahim Babangida, who had finally bowed to pressure after nearly 12 years in power and allowed democratic elections with the promise to hand the reins of power to the winner.

Abiola, a well-known businessman and philanthropist, was undoubtedly the most popular presidential candidate and seemed certain to win the election. As it turned out, Babangida made an abrupt about-turn and annulled the election without announcing the results but it is generally accepted that Abiola was the clear winner. Babangida’s rule gave way to that of an even more repressive and corrupt military dictator, Sani Abacha.

Abiola bravely insisted that he was the rightful president with a mandate from the Nigerian people. Accordingly, in 1994, Abacha charged him with treason and dispatched no fewer than 200 police vehicles to arrest him at his home in Lagos. Four years later, he died in detention under suspicious circumstances, less than a year before Nigeria made its 1999 democratic transition.

It was the lesser known story of the role that MKO’s wife and daughter have played in the fight for Nigerian democracy and women’s rights that attracted Joanna Lipper’s attention.

There is more to the outrage experienced by the Abiola family at the hands of the military dictatorship. In 1996, Kudirat,

AGENT OF CHANGE: Hafsat Abiola leads a voter education rally in a scene from The Supreme Price who had been a vocal advocate for her husband’s release from prison and claim to the presidency, as well as equal gender rights and the final removal of military regime, was murdered by military assassins while she sat in the Lagos traffic.

Lipper first learned about the family’s tragedy from MKO and Kudirat’s daughter Hafsat, who forms the focus of The Supreme Price.

Channelled rage “When Hafsat stood up and told her family’s story I was impressed by the way she channeled her rage and mourning into determination, tenacity and activism, calling upon knowledge, integrity, courage and persistence to oppose corruption and senseless violence,” Lipper says.

“Instead of being a victim of circumstances Hafsat is a courageous agent of change.

Through telling the story of Kudirat’s life and martyrdom and examining how her legacy shaped her daughter’s goals, dreams, values and identity, I aimed to present intergenerational portraits of two women, both of whom understand the urgency of fighting corruption, dictatorship and the oppression of women. More broadly, I wanted to examine the enduring relevance and impact of Kudirat and MKO’s legacy in Nigeria’s pro-democracy movement.”

The Supreme Price tells Hafsat’s story in the context of her parents’ struggle, as well as Nigeria today, 15 years after its democratic transition. The struggle for democracy did not end in 1999 when Olusegun Obasanjo was elected president. Women in particular still have a hard road in terms of participation in the society, economy and politics of the country. Kudirat did indeed pay ‘the supreme price’ for her struggles in these areas but Lipper’s film suggests that her martyrdom was not the only cost. The supreme price continues to be paid by millions of Nigerians.

“The title also refers to the risks and emotional conflicts that politically ambitious Nigerian women inevitably confront when struggling to balance their

roles as mothers and wives in the private sphere, and with their efforts to be politically active in the public sphere.

“There have been over 160 political assassinations since the transition to civilian rule in 1999. On a deeper level, the title refers to the price society and the world will pay if the legacies of past generations of human rights heroines are not respected, honoured and upheld,” Lipper says.

Shot on various locations around Nigeria, the production went relatively smoothly. “The many challenges inherent for me as an American woman producing and directing a film on the ground in Nigeria were mediated by the warm welcome, guidance, hospitality, security and support I received from my Nigerian collaborators,” says Lipper.

The help of production manager Steve Aborisade and well-established Nollywood filmmaker Tunde Kelani – who came on board as a co-producer through his company, Mainframe Productions – ensured that the local filmmaking network put its weight behind the film.

Around 20 Nigerians in total worked behind the scenes to bring Lipper’s vision to fruition. Lipper and American compatriots Rick Sands and Lisa Rinzler shot the film using a range of cameras that included a Canon 5D, Canon 7D, Sony EX1 and Canon G-12.

The female gaze One important facet of The Supreme Price is that its story is told from a woman’s point of view. A man’s perspective, no matter how skillfully made and however well researched and intentioned, would have been unlikely to have the same impact. “My identity as a woman in the role of film director, producer and cinematographer was an asset in situations where women were assembled privately and it would have been more intrusive for a man to be filming,” Lipper explains.

“I think there are many shots of women in the film that have a real sense of unguarded depth and integrity and a sense of up-closeness and intimate proximity in locations like the maternal

health clinic we visited in Ogun State. In these types of settings my gaze as a female director looking through the camera lens brought a nuanced, perhaps less often observed dimension to what was captured on film when it came to portraying the lives of Nigerian women and girls in both public and private spheres.”

Made with the support of the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), The Supreme Price is distributed in North America by Women Make Movies, while international sales are handled through Cinephil.

In the months leading up to its international premiere at the Human Rights Watch Festival in New York in June, the lives of Nigeria’s women and girls were pushed into the international spotlight when the militant group Boko Haram abducted 250 girls from the northern Nigerian town of Chibok.

This event, Lipper says, underscored many of the key themes of the film: “the need to protect, educate and empower women and girls; the need for increased numbers of women leaders in political positions of power to represent their best interests; the violent backlash in the face of progressive change when it comes to traditional gender stereotypes that involve the oppression of women; and the complete absence of a Nigerian government that is accountable to the masses.”

After its premiere, the documentary went on to screen on five continents, and has been generally well received. The Nigerian premiere took place at the Lights, Camera, Africa!! Film Festival, held in Lagos in September. At the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), held in Calabar in November, it was named the best film in the Documentary category.

Critical and audience response in Nigeria has been generally positive.

Alongside her roles as a filmmaker, author and photographer, Lipper also lectures at Harvard University, teaching a course on ‘Using Film for Social Change’.

The Supreme Price, it seems, puts the principles she teaches into practice.

– Warren Holden January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 19

Documentary

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204: Blurring the lines between art and reality

STRANGER THAN FICTION: Screen grab from 204: Getting Away with Murder

On 24 October 2014, the controversial local documentary feature, 204: Getting Away with Murder, directed by Warren Batchelor and produced by Tony Miguel, was released in South African cinemas.

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or those who aren’t aware, ‘204’ refers to section 204 of the Criminal Procedures Act which awards full and permanent indemnity from prosecution in exchange for truthful testimony.

Truth will prevail “Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains to bring it to light.” This famous quote by George Washington opens the documentary.

The story of mining magnate Brett Kebble is one that truly seems stranger than fiction. Kebble was a well-known South African businessman who enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame and fortune in the mining world, with close ties to the ruling African National Congress. He was involved in one of South Africa’s largest orchestrated fraud cases to the tune of some R27 billion. Kebble’s business dealings resulted in his death on 27 September 2005, when he was shot dead on a street near the M1 highway in Melrose, Johannesburg.

Three men – Mikey Schultz, Nigel McGurk and Faizel ‘Kappie’ Smith – were held responsible for his murder, which was later described as an apparent 20 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

realised that the making of the documentary would provide a platform on which all sides of the story could be voiced.

“Over a period of four years this list of interviewees grew and grew until we had most of the major role players telling their story on camera,” he comments.

Docu-drama ‘assisted suicide’. All three killers were acquitted of murdering Kebble in exchange for testifying for the state in the trial of drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti, who also had close links to Kebble and appeared to be the mastermind behind the murder. The investigation that followed revealed Johannesburg’s dark criminal underworld, and its links to South Africa’s big business and political spheres.

Stranger than fiction Like the rest of the country, filmmaker Warren Batchelor found himself astonished by the outcome of the investigation, prompting him to make a film out of this ‘stranger than fiction’ story.

“The film would dig deeper into the ‘Kebble saga’ and the involvement of the three killers,” Batchelor explains.

“Upon doing in-depth interviews with Shultz, McGurk and Smith, I started to realise there was a far bigger picture and story involved that seemed more and more incredible,” he says.

Eager to unearth all sides of the story, Batchelor approached the key role players involved in the investigation to see if they would speak on camera. To his surprise, one by one, they agreed as they

The documentary sets about profiling the organisations, characters, financial climate and events leading up to Kebble’s death, and then seeks to unravel the debateable legal proceedings and unresolved issues that came to light in the aftermath.

204: Getting Away with Murder features in-depth interviews with the likes of Kebble’s family members, strip club owner Lolly Jackson, convicted drug dealer Glenn Agliotti, former national police commissioner and convicted fraudster Jackie Selebi, former NPA head Vusi Pikoli and of course, Kebble’s self-confessed killers – who not only share their side of the story on camera, but re-enact the murder, exactly as it occurred.

Blurring the lines between art and reality, DOP Douglas MacFarlane captured all re-enactments in a highly dramatic fashion with the most basic of HDV cameras and the addition of the Canon 5D later on. All interviews and re-enactments were shot over a period of four years – from 2010 to 2014 – in various locations in and around Johannesburg, including The Grand Club, Brett Kebble’s old house and the actual location of Kebble’s shooting.

Batchelor comments: “Being a filmmaker and not a documentary filmmaker/journalist, I always knew I wanted this to be a visually stimulating and cinematic experience for the audience, hence the way the recreations were shot.

“This is a cinematic production, which is gritty and graphic, with an original score,” he continues. “I wanted to blur the lines between a documentary and a feature film and create a unique viewing experience for our audience.”

Moral implications 204: Getting Away with Murder seeks to question the South African justice system as well as bringing to light the role of politicians and key business systems in Johannesburg’s criminal underworld.

Batchelor explains: “There are many moral issues which are tackled in this film, the killing of Brett Kebble being just one of them. The state did many highly questionable deals with arguably immoral motives which allowed many of the alleged criminals in this saga to walk free.

Section 204 of the Criminal Procedures Act was used as a tool in this.

“This is a filmmaker’s dream as it offered me the opportunity to be able to create a world first by having the actual killers not only describe what happened on that fateful night but actually re-enact it as it happened according to their version. As everyone knows a lot of things went wrong that night and we portray it all extremely graphically, holding nothing back,” he concludes. – Chanelle Ellaya

PRODUCTION Design | Stunts & Effects

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Photo courtesy: Stratasys Ltd

Printing: the future of movies

THIRD WAVE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: The suit used in the 2014 remake of RoboCop – created by 3D printing

3D printing is essentially what it sounds like. It is the process of laying down thin layers of polymer resin to create a 3D copy of a scanned object, or a digitally designed one. Its practical uses include surgical tools, machine parts and dental care, but it’s the movie and audio industries that are making the most creative use of the technology now regarded as ‘the third wave of the Industrial Revolution’.

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pecial effects production company Legacy Effects, well known for its work on Avatar, Iron Man, The Avengers and Twilight has been involved in the utilisation of 3D printing since early in its introduction. While in production they use 3D printers to show concept design by printing their maquettes (a small scale or rough concept draft model) and subsequently create master patterns to 3D print characters, creatures, suits, speciality props and collectibles for special effects in film, commercials or entertainment.

Additionally, 3D printing is used to create exact stunt doubles as well. With today’s clever 3D scanning technology, a scan can be taken of both the actor and the stunt double’s face. The contours of the stunt double’s face are printed to the inside of a life-like mask, with the exact copy of the actors face on the exterior.

This removes the need for stunt doubles to look similar facially, requiring only a body type match.

3D printing has caused a very significant change from the film production of yesterday and has allowed movie producers to ‘push the limits of design’ and will undoubtedly change the making of films, games, and even commercials, forever. Take 3D printed props for example: in Skyfall, for the James Bond series’ 50th anniversary, the legendary Aston Martin DB5 was featured. During the movie’s climax, the car was completely destroyed but destroying an Aston Martin DB5 for art’s sake would have been unforgivable…so the producers had it 3D printed. German special effects company Voxeljet, using their VX4000, a high-end 3D printer,

3D printed glove used in Iron Man 2 recreated a 1:3 scale true to life version of the DB5 and destroyed that one instead.

Leading film studios and model builders all over the world favour 3D printing. High-resolution printers can create lifelike objects or entire makebelieve worlds using a process that is rapid, cost-effective, true-to-scale and realistic, while staying true to detail.

And speaking of detail, vinyl records have been making a strong comeback to the music industry since 2006. The reasons are many, but they primarily break down into two: a person’s resonance with collecting something tangible to establish a sense of ‘ownership’, and their perception that it sounds better. The 3D printing revolution, while really still in its infancy, is showing constant proofs-of-concept regarding the technology’s usefulness. It only makes sense that it would intersect with the vinyl resurgence and the first prototypes are already starting to pop up. Back in December 2013, a pop-up shop (only open for two days) held a record release party in central London.

This particular phase of the project

involved not only the creation of a new track, but an entirely new way to distribute it: via 3D printed phonographic record. Sure, 3D printed records aren’t quite ready for prime time yet. But the technology is there, the concept is proven, and the market would seem to be ready. Should the technology reach the point where the quality and resiliency of printed records reaches or exceeds the standards set by vinyl, it may mean the full obsolescence of the last few vinyl cutting shops left.

Chinese company, Stratasys Ltd, is the world’s biggest 3D printer vendor. It’s their technology that allowed producers to print the ultra-sleek suit in RoboCop (2014). 3D printing offers smoother workflow and greater flexibility over traditional production methods, allowing the modellers to work in symmetry, enabling them to build an entire left side of a suit, then mirror it and output the right side as well, all from one file with the click of a button, saving about 50 percent of the cost and time compared with traditional methods.

And what of the future of 3D printing in film production? Well, the multi-material use of 3D printing is expanding, allowing printers to utilise materials other than polymer resin and a new process called FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) technology is rapidly being developed, offering more layers during 3D printing to create finer details from a wider variety of materials, from plastic through to metals, glass and sugar. As Hollywood continues to release high octane, big budget action movies, the demand for 3D printing will only increase within the industry.

– Ian Dormer January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 21

Scriptwriting

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Penning the road to success So you’ve got this great idea for a film (said every filmmaker that ever was) and you’re certain investors will queue up to commission your award-winning screenplay.

This may very well be, but before you rehearse your Oscar acceptance speech, consider this: a screenplay is probably the most crucial and underestimated element in the filmmaking process for a number of reasons you haven’t even considered.

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ven top South African filmmakers like Jahmil X.T. Qubeka whose film Of Good Report won the 2014 SAFTA for Best Writing Team of a Feature Film, and Donovan Marsh, an award-winning director and the wordsmith behind critically acclaimed local film iNumber Number, will tell you that writing a good movie script is an art which has taken them years to get right, and one which they still get wrong – often.

This is because as a filmmaker you are faced with the daunting task, not only of penning a brilliant idea with commercial credence, but ensuring that your story is stylistically tight and in line with South African budgets.

Marsh, like many writers, follows a number of screenwriting techniques – the Hero’s Journey, the Three Act Structure and his own personal mantra: creating stories which are surprising but inevitable.

But before he gets started, Marsh ensures he can sum up the essence of his film in a concise logline, and compiles a second version which he uses to pitch his idea to potential commissioning entities.

Anneke Villet, commissioning editor for kykNET, has some key criteria in mind when reviewing scripts, including gripping characters, sound structure, accurate grammar and originality.

Moreover Villet says that the most important lesson for local filmmakers is patience and willingness to collaborate in the development of a film. “The average amount of time it takes to develop a screenplay in Hollywood (from concept to production) is about seven years,” says Villet. “It’s shocking to me that filmmakers often come to us with a first draft script that they finished just last week. And yet it happens disturbingly often. There’s an apparent ignorance and even arrogance to those kinds of filmmakers that can be quite infuriating.”

“Generally we spend months, sometimes even years, putting the screenplay through several drafts. We provide script coverage and constructive

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notes to the writer and support them along the process – the aim always being to make the screenplay as good as it can possibly be,” she explains.

This is a practice to which Qubeka also subscribes. He comments: “Filmmaking is a collaborative process. And as an individual you can never see and be everything. No matter how talented you are. Filmmaking is about people coming together to help manifest a common cause, a common vision.”

Beyond the creative process, Marsh believes that collaboration and writing within a budget and for a specific market, is equally crucial. “A lot of people say you must write from the heart, that’s not how I write – I try to have a total view. It’s just the nature of the industry. Filmmaking is not only an art, it’s a business and so it should be treated as such,” says Marsh.

As the cornerstone of a film, a screenplay influences a number of different production elements which need to be thought out. According to Johan Drotske of Times Media Films, a budget model which he sees working in the South African market is in the range of four to six million. He is of the opinion that filmmakers should write according to these financial constraints, and he is not the only one.

Harriet Meier, chair of the Writers Guild of South Africa says: “A fantastic story which is too expensive will rarely get made, but neither will a cheap project that sucks. It’s a delicate balance, and writers should be aware of what works at the box office and what the recoupment cap is for the genre of movie they are writing.”

A script is also one of the first documents requested for review when you apply for a completion guarantee or production insurance. Approval for these processes is largely based on what is outlined in your screenplay and if this accurately relates to your budget, production schedule and a number of filming logistics.

“Without a script, no one has any idea what the film is and whether it is a feasible concept or not,” remarks Thandeka Zwane, business manager at Film Finances SA. “We essentially enter into a completion agreement with a production company which says that based on the script and budget they have submitted, we will help them to make sure that the film is delivered to their distributor/sales agent so that it can be exploited. We also enter into a completion guarantee with the investors saying that we ensure that the film that they have bought into will be

delivered and no unsanctioned budget excesses will be encountered. All of this is impossible without a script that can be broken down, scheduled and budgeted accurately.”

Though the production in its entirety is what will be reviewed when assessing the risk of a production, Denise Hattingh, owner of KEU Underwriting Managers says some of the initial elements she considers are first and foremost introduced in the screenplay. These include whether the film contains stunts and/or special effects, whether the finalisation of the film (or bond requirement) relies on one person (essential element), what locations are going to be used and if there is use of children or animals. “Keep risk in mind when putting pen to paper,” Hattingh advises.

Getting your story from paper to production, and ultimately into cinemas and people’s living rooms, depends largely on your ability to craft a compelling idea in a way that ticks all the technical boxes, makes business sense, easily attracts an audience and interacts seamlessly with all other production workflows. All things considered, these fundamentals are a lot less simple than you may think. – Carly Barnes

| Locations

Undiscovered Jozi

LESS EXPLORED CORNERS: Hillbrow

Yeoville

When South African filmmaker Lebogang Rasethaba set out to study his craft he kept one philosophy in mind – taking a step back from your immediate world can allow you an entirely new perspective on it. After completing his filmmaking degree in China, he returned to South Africa to direct compelling documentaries and commercials, and is constantly searching for stories with grit, filming locations that steer away from stereotypical imagery; and authentic themes.

Bertrams

Bertrams

Hillbrow

Yeoville

As we drive into Bertrams, a residential area behind Ellis Park stadium, Rasethaba jokes that it’s “the area Die Antwoord want people to believe they are from.”

Not a minute goes by without one of us pointing out a possible script premise or a unique character for a story. A burst pipe in the middle of the road will no doubt provide hours of playtime when the nearby school bell rings, a whiteowned spaza shop doubles up as a tattoo parlour and three youngsters with too much time on their hands glare at us ominously from their stoep.

As we arrive in Rasethaba’s childhood home in Hillbrow, a woman emerges from a pile of discarded belongings on the pavement. Before being evicted she had lived in the building, and remembers Rasethaba and his family. We leave the same way we arrived; obvious outsiders with only a souvenir of modern inner city living in our minds. Looking into the rear-view mirror I can’t help wonder what kind of cinematic treasures might be lying dormant, beneath the paint-peeled walls of these empty structures.

Driving into Rockey Street and approaching the Central African Food Market, I find it nearly impossible to imagine the stories my mother has told me of clubbing and coffee shops in the then trendy suburb of Yeoville. We are surrounded by contradiction; Jacaranda trees that peer down on utter chaos, familiar smells that intertwine with those of exotic foreign fruits and spices and just beyond the taxi rank, a park with jungle gyms and playing children. Adjusting to the sensory overload, I think about how contrasts like these could present the opportunity for unique characterisation, interesting narrative tension and rich visual complexity. – Carly Barnes

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ebogang Rasethaba aims to encourage filmmakers to reach further than the refurbished districts of Maboneng and Braamfontein for shooting locations and narrative inspiration. Screen Africa’s Carly Barnes accompanied the Jozi local on an excursion to the less explored corners of the city, which offer a smorgasbord of texture, history and stories that you just can’t make up.

Rasethaba comments: “Cinema is a powerful tool, it can attach a sense of importance to an image; it can breathe life into a space and charge it with it a certain type of energy. Only when we start documenting every corner of Johannesburg with an equal amount of respect and honour, will all the corners of our city come together and form part of the same narrative.”

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Africa 2014

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Africa’s slow and troubled movement towards DTT and the looming June 2015 deadline for the completion of this migration, came under the spotlight at the 2014 edition of DISCOP Africa.

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lot of problems – few solutions, or to put it another way, lots of opportunities with few concrete ways to take advantage of them.

This, in a nutshell, was what emerged from the first panel discussion held at DISCOP Africa 2014. Titled ‘The Future of African Broadcasting – May you live in interesting times’, the session was chaired

by Russell Southwood, publisher of Balancing Act and was aimed at probing ‘potential content production and distribution-related obstacles related to a scheduled full digital TV switchover by 17 June 2015.’

Southwood began the discussion by addressing the impending digital switchover in Africa, which the entire continent is expected to complete by June 2015. Despite the empty ‘can-do’ assertions made by authorities across the continent, Southwood said that his organisation’s research indicated that only five African nations will meet the deadline. Current appearances indicate that the continent’s two regional superpowers – South Africa and Nigeria – will not be among those five. He also mentioned the need to avoid going the kind of route that Tanzania and Rwanda did, which was to simply switch off the analogue signals without first waiting for all viewers to make the transition. Those left without set-top boxes simply ended up without television.

Not only did this leave at least 15 to 20 per cent of these countries’ TV audiences unceremoniously cut off, it also took a sizeable bite out of much-needed advertising revenue. Savvy advertisers took note of the diminished audiences and insisted on advertising costs being reduced appropriately. There were not many winners in this scenario.

Clear destination, uncertain paths So despite the potential advantages of 24 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

Photo by Trevor Ou Tim

The future of African broadcasting – ‘Interesting times’

LOTS OF OPPORTUNITIES: Russell Southwood, Bernard Azria, Vusi Sibaya, Rodney Benn, Melt Loubser, Wanda Mkhize, Craig Kelly and William Stucke digital migration, Africa currently faces two major sets of drawbacks in its digital terrestrial television (DTT) project. Firstly, we have cases, such as those in Rwanda and Tanzania, where the process has been completed but in such a way that has been disadvantageous to content creators, broadcasters and the public.

Secondly, various obstacles exist in other countries that are set to prevent actually making the transition in the first place.

William Stucke, a former Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) councillor speaking in his private capacity, outlined the South African situation as a prime example of this second problem. DTT, he said, will offer more than 140 channels on an efficient, single-frequency spectrum, “more than enough space for every current broadcaster to have its own multiplex, space for community broadcasters and for new pay and free-to-air broadcasters.”

Yet switch-on has not happened for reasons that those following developments in this area over the past few years will be all too familiar with. The industry is still fighting over the functionality of set-top boxes (STBs).

Government intransigence, exacerbated by frequent comings and goings of Communications Ministers and now the splitting of the Communications department into two, have helped only to stall the process, which currently remains in limbo.

Even if everything was well coordinated, which it is not, the chances of completing switchover by June 2015 are slim to non-existent. Stucke used the example of the United Kingdom to demonstrate this. It took the country 12 years to complete its switchover. The majority of Africa has only six months.

What do we do once we get there?

Even if DTT is finally and effectively set up, what will this mean for content

creators, rights-owners and distributors?

Southwood said that this comes down to a “struggle between paid-for, commissioned content and the idea of African broadcasters as a kind of taxi service for content. We all know that in many African countries, in order to get your programme on TV, you pay for that privilege. They don’t pay you, you pay them. Now unless that changes then the filling of all these channels will be an impossibility.” This expressed a concern that seemed common to all the panelists: how will all the new channels created by the digital migration actually be filled, especially when broadcasters are struggling to fill the channels they already have, and how can stakeholders monetise the new system?

Craig Kelly, CEO of content distribution company Africa XP, said: “Africa has 54 countries and, at the last count, a total of about 523 broadcasters. Yet the size of the economy is about the same as the United Kingdom or less. So if you have 520+ platforms operating in an economy of this size, the only conclusion you can come to is that there are too many platforms to be sustained by the amount of revenue. To add to that television in African markets has historically had a low share of advertising spend and advertising as a percentage of GDP has been fairly low as well. So there are a lot of people chasing a small amount of money.”

“The advent of DTT,” he continued, “will actually make this problem worse because you will have broadcasters who didn’t have enough money to fill their channels in the first place, now under pressure to fill 20 channels instead of only one.”

To combat this situation, Kelly proposes a ‘fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’ model, which would involve selling content to as many broadcasters and platforms as possible at an attractively low price. This has been a problem in the past, he said, because of the costs of distribution, which used to

involve the duplicating and delivery of tapes. This problem can now be eliminated, he says, because content can be delivered over the internet.

A route worth following?

In his introduction Southwood also mentioned that there would be more options available to disrtibutors than ever before because of the proliferation of platforms that DTT would bring. One could choose any of the established platforms, as well as the new ones that could arise – or, most importantly, one can simply go online. In their closing remarks, both Stucke and Eutelsat’s Vice President for Africa, Rodney Benn, both made the point that ‘the internet is coming’. Regardless of the progress of DTT, the internet is becoming a more and more popular means for consumers to access their content. Traditional TV broadcasters, whether they make use of DTT or direct-to-home platforms, will have to be mindful of the rise of new media as an alternative content platform. At the moment, the trend is for second and third screens to supplement rather than challenge TV. But how long will that trend last when a poorly constructed or delayed DTT infrastructure actually impedes the public’s access to content?

The next day, another panel discussion, ‘Close-Up on Nigeria’, examined the West African country’s issues with DTT. One of the important points raised in this discussion was whether or not Africa should be racing to meet this international deadline at all.

Shouldn’t we instead be trying to establish a unique system that is better tailored to the continent’s needs and abilities? Considering Africa’s specific economic and technological circumstances and the sword of Damocles now dangling over its broadcasting industry, that is a fair question. – Warren Holden

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Africa 2014

Social media unlocks the potential of African content One of the discussions at DISCOP, From YouTube to the Big Screen, revolved around opportunities which the platform is able to offer content creators.

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hanaian Nicole Amarteifio, who spoke at the session hosted by Macej Sojka, head of YouTube Partnerships CEE, Middle East and Africa for Google, shared the success story of her web series An African City which has be selected by CANAL + to be produced as an episodic television show.

Remarkably, An African City is Amarteifio’s first TV project. The self-taught Ghanaian began learning about the medium of film five years ago when she came up with the idea for the show.

“I was tired of the single story of Africa being about poverty, disease and war. I wanted to show other stories, that the continent can be so much more. I wanted to show that African women are beyond a single story, but are universal – African women have stories that women around the world can relate to,” she explains.

The mostly self-funded first season of the series went live in March 2014 and was promoted through social media platforms. The response was unprecedented and by the time the third episode had aired online, it was clear the series had captured the hearts of the African diaspora. “Online fans would be tweeting and Facebooking us requesting the following episodes. We would put a new episode up on YouTube and the online notifications would be instant. By the time we released the season finale, we had over a million views on our YouTube channel,” recalls Amarteifio.

Amarteifio used YouTube to host the content, Facebook to give it exposure, Twitter to alert fans of new episodes and Instagram and Pinterest to engage fans interested in the fashion of the show,

which has been described as the African version of Sex and the City. There was also ongoing interaction between the fans and cast members, who directly engaged with viewers through their personal Twitter pages. Amarteifio said this was an equally important contributing factor to the show’s success.

Sojka remarks: “I don’t think Africa can compete with Germany in making cars but there is a huge creative spirit on the continent. More talents need to emerge faster and using traditional media to do this will take too long allowing other countries to outrun you. But by using platforms like YouTube Africans can begin to create business locally and compete on a global scale.”

An African City has attracted audiences from around the world, generating online viewership from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and France. In Africa top viewership comes from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal.

Amarteifio credited the series’ success to its ability to offer viewers a new take on Africa and says: “People were ready for something new, something fresh, something different.

“I guess, like Oprah says, its luck if the definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparation. But, that preparation involves a lot of hard work! This project is several years in the making, but the goal it was trying to achieve is centuries overdue. There were Africans around the world who were adamant that it was time for other stories, An African City is one of those many other stories that needed to be told.”

After receiving volumes of viewer emails alerting them to the series’

OTHER AFRICAN STORIES: Nicole Amarteifio popularity, various networks executives began to show interest in the series with CANAL + approaching Amarteifio to produce Season 2 as a TV show. This means a doubled-up workload for the crew and cast who are used to producing 10- to 12-minute episodes for the web as opposed to the 26-minute format required for TV. Amarteifio and her team, which includes production company 6 Miludo, business partner Millie Monyo, director Dickson Dzakpasu and DOP Eric Oppong are busy with pre-production on Season 2 which is set in Accra, Ghana. In terms of content ownership for the second season, Amareteifio says negotiations are still underway but that, as is the case for most content producers, ownership is the ultimate goal.

MaameYaa Boafo, Esosa E, Nana Mensah, Maame Adjei and Marie Humbert are the five stars who portray beautiful, successful African women in the series. Upon returning to their home in Africa they come together to share their experiences about love and life.

Season 1 can be viewed on the series website (www.anafricancity.tv) or YouTube page (www.youtube.com/ anafricancity). Viewers can also watch episodes on iROKOtv, EbonyLife TV, CANAL+ and The Africa Channel.

– Carly Barnes

Tweets about An African City Sandra Appiah @Ms_SandraAppiah: “Girls compete with each other.

Women EMPOWER one another.”

Looking forward to the next season of #AnAfricanCity nam kiwanuka @namshine: @ DreaDay @RoamingAkiiki @ GobezMedia Forget Carrie. It’s all about these ladies @AnAfricanCity Nana Serwaa @mzserwah: This an African city youtube series got me dying! we finally get perspectives of young ghanaian americans living in Ghana Josephine Opar @viewfinderSS: Who needs tele when you have such entertaining #Youtube shows? #TIA @AnAfricanCity #Makarao @ LindelweN @Koodzi Makho Ndlovu @makhondlovu: Have you guys watched #AnAfricanCity!? Such a clever, funny & chic show! I LOVE it! So hooked!

January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 25

Africa 2014

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Fresh and feasible formats come out on top There was an immediate shift in energy as Grant Flynn completed the presentation for his format #Hashtag Friendorsement at the DISCOP Africa TV formats pitching competition.

Among the five promising projects put forward, it was clear that both the audience and the international judging panel very quickly bought into Flynn’s idea: an uplifting show featuring celebrities which use their influence on social media to make dreams happen.

Flynn’s project went on to take the top spot, earning him a prize of US$2 000 in development funds, with Kenyan Emily Wanja securing second place for her travel format My City, My Swag.

Both Flynn and Wanja’s concepts stood out above other content producing hopefuls because they picked some great starting ingredients for a recipe that is decidedly hard to crack. According to

INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Grant Flynn and Emily Wanja Michel Rodrigue, CEO of The Format People, the first step in creating a great format is a perfectly timed fresh idea – something current and engaging in one’s country, right now. But he added that the main ingredient in an appealing format is ultimately structure. “If you plan to make a format to sell in other countries you have to have a strong structure and you

have to know how to transfer the expertise,” he explained. “What people are buying is not just an idea – it’s success. The reason they pay to license a format is because they understand that they will be able to do it without spending time and money on development or rewriting anything.”

There are a number of things that

producers get wrong when conceptualising a TV format; the first being the golden know-thine-market rule.

“They don’t monitor the market, they don’t know what’s out there and they don’t know what competition they face,” remarked Rodrigue. Rodrigue also advised that ideas be registered, protected and finally, tested among friends and family. “You have to test it to see the interest, to see if it works and if it generates interest,” he added.

But even for South African producers who successfully pitch and produce a format which goes on to have a successful broadcast run locally, packaging a show with potential to be bought in other territories comes with its own challenges.

Once a producer calls wrap, they must meticulously compile a manual to recreate the show and its success in other countries. “It’s a myth that a manual comes before the show – in the movie business you write manual and then produce the film, in the TV and format business we build and structure the format, produce the show and then we write the manual for the next guy to produce it in another country. That’s the instrument used to transfer expertise,” he said.

“Anyone can have a good idea; anybody can present a good idea. But who can put it together is the big question. An idea is always just an idea until it’s executed,” concluded Rodrigue.

– Carly Barnes

Money talks At DISCOP Africa, a group of media professionals discussed an age old question which plagues content creators in countries all over the world – ‘how do I find the money to make my film?’ But producers in Africa are presented with a further set of unique challenges which add to the complexity of this issue.

Immersed in an industry bursting with untapped creativity and talent and undergoing a trying technological transformation, the pros offered some pointers and perspectives for ‘Finding the right kind of money’.

AGE OLD QUESTION: Russell Southwood, Eddie Mbalo, Steven Markovitz, Tendeka Matatu and Omar Essack

Knowledge is power “Don’t just rock up with a good idea. Do the work and do the research,” said Steven Markovitz, CEO of Big World Pictures, who reiterated that it is important not only to understand the content which a producer hopes to finance and the market it is being created for, but to have a clear understanding of who a project is being presented to.

Further to this Eddie Mbalo, executive consultant for StarSat added: “Know your market – that way you can determine the kind of budget you need. Think about how much you should be spending to cover those costs and still make money.”

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Omar Essack, CEO of Kagiso Broadcasting, advised from an investor point of view and said: “Identify where there is a gap in the market and show me how I can get a return on investment.”

Be tenacious Asking for money in any way, shape or form is no easy feat – it takes persistence and hard work, as Markowitz explained: “There is someone out there who will support this film; it’s your job as content makers and producers to find them and convince them.” But he also added that it’s equally important to be upfront and

paint a realistic picture of a film for potential investors.

Tendeka Matatu, CEO of Ten 10 Films, echoed this sentiment but encouraged filmmakers not to lose sight of their dream projects and project ideas which are perceived as less commercially viable, “Don’t stop pushing. Don’t just do what the market wants to get your bread and butter. Make your bread and butter – but you want a bit of jam on there as well.”

Get soft-core The term ‘soft money’ refers to project funding from governments and other

organisations which is on a once-off basis and doesn’t need to be paid back. This, along with other alternative financing avenues, is where producers should be focusing their efforts according to Matatu.

“There is finance to be found in strange places – private sector, soft money, rebates…

“Trying to reduce the amount of commercial finance needed in any project and instead focusing efforts on finance that doesn’t have to be paid back gives you, as a producer, a chance of seeing some money in that project,” he remarked. – Carly Barnes

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EbonyLife TV – providing a platform for African stories EbonyLife TV – Africa’s first global black entertainment and lifestyle network – had its official southern African launch on 6 November 2014, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.

Offering over 1 000 hours of original African programming across a variety of genres, EbonyLife TV has grown to become a prominent platform for premium entertainment with Afro-centric perspectives.

The makings Attending the southern African launch was CEO and founder of the network, Mo Abudu. A true powerhouse, Abudu grew up in England, in a small town called Tunbridge Wells in Kent. “I dealt with many challenges growing up as a black female in the UK. There were literally just a handful of black people in the town that I lived in.”

When Abudu was 16-years-old, a new

2012, four years after first approaching the pay-tv operator, a channel agreement for EbonyLife TV was signed with MultiChoice Africa.

“We had nothing, we had nothing but ideas,” Abudu comments, “it’s been a journey and a half, but look what we have accomplished.”

EbonyLife TV is now home to 100 percent African content, 80 to 90 percent of which is made by the network and the rest is licensed content. “We are broadcasting in all of sub-Saharan Africa, in just a year and a half,” Abudu beams.

An African first AFRO-CENTRIC PERSPECTIVES: Behind the scenes of Moments with Mo – Bolanle Olukanni, Mo Abudu and Marcy Dolapo Oni television series – Fame – grabbed her attention, not only for its strong narrative, but because it had numerous AfricanAmerican performers in it. “I remember it giving me such a sense of confidence to see something on TV that had a number of black characters that were not being stereotyped as criminals or prostitutes.”

“I think since then, it has been buried in my subconscious that it is important to make content that speaks to me and to people like me,” Abudu explains.

After having an extremely successful career as head of human resources for a large oil company, starting and running her own recruitment consultancy firm (which still runs today) and dabbling in the hotel business, in 2006 Abudu decided it was time to get acquainted with the

Making news cool

THE NEW WAVE OF NEWS REPORTING: Phil Molefe and Ryan Grim

At DISCOP Africa, managing editor of Vice Media Ryan Grim and Phil Molefe, journalist and former SABC group CEO, gave workshop attendees the low-down on alternative news reporting – a new wave of broadcast journalism that has people all over the world totally gripped.

Most news presented on mainstream

Africa 2014

media platforms is brief, superficially reported, and skimmed over in a slick packaged 90-second slot. This is not only the opinion of the media professionals tasked with delivering stories to the public, but the very consumers it seeks to reach. Today audiences are exposed to a plethora of online news aggregators

media business. “I’d done all these amazing things and then I decided I want to do a talk show called Moments with Mo,” she comments.

“People were baffled as to where this was coming from but it was about building a platform, and using that platform to tell African stories.”

Three rejected pilots later, M-Net agreed to license the talk show but could not commission it, leaving Abudu to source funding on her own. Steadfast in her belief that ‘quality African homegrown programming’ needed a platform, Abudu secured advertisers and sponsors and turned Moments with Mo into a success.

A few years after the talk show gathered some momentum, she returned to DStv with the idea for a channel. In

In a first for the African continent, Disney and EbonyLife TV have partnered to make Desperate Housewives Africa, taking this all-American story and localising it. Airing in February 2015, the series has an authentic African cast.

“Everything that happened in the original series will still happen but it’s how it happens that changes,” Abudu explains.

“We have our own traditions, our own cultures, our own values. It’s important to tell these stories, the world needs to realise that there are African stories that need to be told.”

With plans to expand into the Caribbean, Canada and Australia in the near future, EbonyLife TV is taking Africa’s story to the world. “Even if it’s one man in those communities, he must have something that is of reference to him, that is the goal,” Abudu concludes.

– Chanelle Ellaya

unafraid to scratch below the surface of the underreported, the gutsy and the sometimes only whispered about issues in our society.

These independent entities use leads from non-traditional sources like social media and citizens to deliver news which is unaffected by what former e.tv CEO Marcel Golding recently described as: “interference with the independence and integrity of editorial content,” by government or commercial investors.

Vice Media is one of the alternative news pioneers but a number of influential people have since jumped on the bandwagon. Comedian and celebrity Russell Brand is one of them, describing his YouTube channel The Trews as “a new frequency of truth”. Vice, which started 20 years ago as a magazine in Montreal, has in the past few years exploded as a global phenomenon which hosts its own YouTube channel and HBO-backed TV show.

Grim commented: “A lot of coverage of the African continent in the US can be very narrow. CNN or Reuters wouldn’t take on a hairy story or go there but that’s Vice’s MO – go someplace dangerous, live there for a while and cover the story.”

Vice’s short documentaries expose pertinent issues like oil pirating in the Nigerian Delta and fattening camps for young girls in Mauritania, but they also report on interesting and edgy culture

trends like eco-friendly condoms, DIY weed doctors and why rap lyrics are being brought into courtrooms. The concept is more than appealing – it’s Emmy Award winning.

Bringing this into the context of South Africa, Molefe was inspired by the potential of alternative news and said: “My take is that news rooms need to adapt to these forms of storytelling – if we combine the experience of Vice and new news gathering formats, we can actually have a vibrant circulation of news in our society. We are breaking down the barriers of entry – historically to be a storyteller you had to go a school of journalism but now everyone can tell stories about what’s happening in their environment.” However, Molefe pointed out a number of issues around the moderation of content, surrounding ethics, quality and the upholding of editorial standards, which he maintained, merited consideration.

The session generated a scintillating debate among media professionals in the audience who felt the big challenge faced by local news crews is that the necessary funds to produce content with chutzpah do not yet exist and, that until such a time, any story connected to a potential funder may remain untold. – Carly Barnes January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 27

AFRICACOM REPORT BACK

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Content for Africa: a multi-billion dollar market The African continent needs more media channels and more homegrown content to satisfy increasing demand on the continent, speaker after speaker told delegates to the AfricaCast stream at AfricaCom 2014.

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fricaCom has become one of the most important events on the continent, focusing on delivering for a ‘digital Africa’ with a host of events, expo space, networking, surveys, business intelligence and conference streams covering the telecoms, media and ICT marketing in Africa.

As broadband, technological infrastructure and mobile penetration are constantly improving, speakers at AfricaCast, were positive about the opportunities on offer in a potential media market of more than $300 billion currently. The AfricaCast stream brings together African broadcasters, content owners, pay TV and cable companies on the broadcast challenges and opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa.

There is a lot going on in Africa and we hear often that it is ‘Africa’s time’. Here are the facts: Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 1.1 billion people; seven African countries fall into the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world; it has a strongly-aspirant emerging middle class; it is a babybooming continent with the fastest growing youth population in the world; and 16% of people are using the internet (about 160 million people) and this number is rising. That equates to a 27% growth in household internet penetration annually between 2009 and 2013.

(Sources: AfricaCast; Forrester Research; The Deloitte Report, 2013.)

One of Africa’s leading filmmakers and media moguls, Nollywood Global CEO, Charles Igwe’s central message was, “Africa is in the picture”. His company produces over 2 000 Nollywood movies a year – up to 60 in their busiest weeks. The Nollywood film industry is now worth $5 billion and is a three percent contributor to the Nigerian GDP, with a massive cultural impact that spans borders.

Igwe believes the future is convergence. “All content is going digital, there is therefore an explosion of film content, in all forms. Big telecoms companies will have to improve delivery and they will become broadcasters.

Smartphones will get smarter, and fibre optic penetration will lead to higher bandwidth. Whose content will be inside

28 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

those pipes?

“Creating the capacity to make content is imperative if we are going to exist in this space,” Igwe emphasised.

Pierre van der Hoven, CEO of Tuluntulu, a newly launched mobile content multi-channel broadcaster, said the challenge was to provide personalised content on mobile devices for African consumers and a targeted advertising solution for advertisers. The problem currently is that a free African advertising delivery platform with reach and analytics does not exist. Plus, most mobile streaming services only operate on 3G or Wifi. Solutions have to include low bandwidth steaming.

Charles Igwe

Van der Hoven told broadcasters and service providers that this is what the consumer in Africa wants: • TV on their smartphone or tablet (Android, iOS).

• They want it to work anywhere (no buffering, 3G).

• Content they can relate to (emotional connection, local).

• Ease-of-use (single app, relevant content, simple UI).

• Free (free app download, no subs).

• Cheap to use ( low data costs, accessible via Wi-Fi).

• Wi-Fi everywhere (free at work, home, in public areas).

• Share and interact (IM system on same screen).

• Not to be excluded because they do not have a credit card or are not a part of mobile money.

George Twumasi, deputy chairman and CEO of ABN, stressed that the media landscape in Africa was still underdeveloped, but that improvements in technology infrastructure had put Africa on the radar in a major way.

Twumasi said there was a need for ‘design thinking’ to create new ways of collaboration to create profits. “We need to unleash creativity. Rebranding can only happen if creativity is unleashed, Nollywood is one structure. A lot more wealth is there to be tapped through media coming up to speed… over $300 billion.”

Van der Hoven said advertisers also

DIGITAL AFRICA: George Twumasi needed to understand how to be on message for African consumers, providing targeted messaging that met a need, such as educational Ebola health videos. “People like brands and they like local content,” he reiterated.

Igwe is driving an Africa-focussed global initiative to develop more Nollywood-styled content to meet consumer demands and is looking for multiplayer collaboration: “Create your own stories. What we need is your stories, your content. What we are looking at is

providing the material to connect people, to the material technology needs.”

Twumasi agreed that the market was nowhere near saturation point and the race was on for broadcasters and their telecom and tech partners to come up with new business models to meet demand.

The 18th annual AfricaCom 2015 will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre once again, from 17 to 19 November 2015: www.africa. comworldseries.com. – Louise Marsland

Music

| Sound

Photo courtesy Pinewood Studios Ltd

Sounds good!

SONIC STATE: Post-production suite at Pinewood Studios, UK, equipped with Dolby Atmos facilities

The audio industry has witnessed major innovative and creative changes in the past few years. From sound post for film, television, video games or new media to the preservation, restoration and archiving of media assets and full digital content services, industry leaders have come up with a combination of award-winning technology and just plain simple ideas to overcome all the challenges.

F

or millions of years, sound was a natural phenomenon; only existing in the moment and time it was produced. Then came the development of technology, allowing the recording and reproduction of those audible moments we could hear around us and hence the development of radio,

cinema and television.

There is a saying that “sound is half the picture” or “70% of what you see”. Audio is undoubtedly most important in television and film production but, being human we decided to abuse the very technology we created and soon excessive and inexpedient use of

compression, limiting and maximisation caused audio to suffer considerably. The greed of a few, whose desire it was to ‘pinch’ more and more of the spectrum, led to a war in the television industry resulting in a bold effort to bolster audience comfort, particularly during commercial breaks.

Over the past year or two, new broadcast standards have been introduced inciting the said ‘loudness wars’ and after heavy battle, we are finally at peace and – with new equipment that allows for compliance with these standards – production, post and broadcast professionals now have a valuable and efficient set of tools in the ongoing fight against the said loudness.

With these new standards, cross-genre programme material can finally co-exist, and volume knobs and remote buttons can expect a longer life, while audiences will get a far more pleasant listening experience.

Changing times The audio post-production market has changed quite dramatically over the past five to eight years. Overall there are fewer productions and budgets have been tightened as a result of the ‘world economic decline’. There has certainly been a decline in independent post facilities; those without their own production arms rely solely on third party product to keep their doors open. Some of the major studios that have sound facilities have an advantage over these independent post facilities. They support their own needs and requirements creating creative content for their studio’s releases.

In 2014 Warner Brother Post-Production Services and Warner Brothers Game Audio department launched the world’s first-ever virtual production stage. The new state of-the-art facility offers a 250 squaremetre space with Optitrak motion capture January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 29

SOund

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facilities and audio capability to enable the actors’ voice performances to be recorded for post live, thus eliminating the need to lay in audio tracks later. The majority of production in the new facility is for the games market.

New console technology and increasing resources in PCs have made significant amounts of processing power and memory available to games and other interactive applications and thus an upsurge in audio production in the gaming industry. Previous trends in game audio revolved around squeezing audio solutions into low memory and designing effects with minimised processor usage.

In contrast, current trends arise due to the vast flexibility available for interactive audio given by high processing power and more memory. While interactive audio was dominantly the domain of games, wider availability of high-level audio application programming interfaces (APIs) have opened up more possibilities for research, training and educational applications. The use of HD formats and widespread acceptance of multichannel audio has led to 5.1 and 7.1 channels becoming a standard specification on many computer games and developers are even looking to new possibilities including the potential application of ambisonics in games. The full-sphere surround sound technique was developed back in the 1970’s but it is only

now that off-the-shelf hardware is close to allowing its possible use in gaming.

Emerging technology trends Audio coding has emerged as a critical technology in numerous audio applications. In particular, it is a key component of mobile multimedia applications in the consumer market including wireless audio broadcast, Internet radio and streaming music, music downloads, storage and playback, mobile audio recording and Internet-based teleconferencing, on a variety of platforms including digital audio broadcast radio receivers, portable music players, mobile phones and personal computers.

The frontiers of compression have been pushed further, allowing carriage of full-bandwidth signals at very low bit rates to the point where recent coding systems are considered appropriate for some broadcasting applications, particularly relatively expensive wireless communication channels such as satellite or cellular channels.

In television and broadcast, there is considerable research activity exploring audio presentation that is more immersive than the pervasive consumer 5.1 channel audio systems. The industry has applied the label of ‘3D Audio’ to

A landmark year for Lalela Music Production music library Lalela Music recently celebrated its fifth birthday at a glittering affair in Johannesburg.

In just five years, the high quality library has emerged as a force to be reckoned with.

Production music libraries provide a majority of the music used on television in South Africa today, and were previously dominated by international libraries brought in by local distributors. Lalela has almost single-handedly reversed that trend.

With more play on South African 30 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

A MUSICAL JOURNEY: Lalela Music founder Alan Lazar television than any other individual South African music library catalogue, Lalela is 100% South African owned, and at least 50% of its tracks are commissioned from South African composers. “It’s been

such explorations, since the common thread is the use of many loudspeakers positioned around, above and below the listener.

It’s a big story, so big that the European Broadcast Union (EBU) has founded a work group for 3D audio or Immersive Audio and the MPEG Committee has begun work on ‘immersive sound’ coding.

In the cinema world, Dolby Laboratories’ Atmos is the name of a surround sound technology taking immersive audio into the silver screen theatre at a whole new level. Atmos technology allows for an unlimited number of audio tracks in theatres for optimal, dynamic rendering to loudspeakers based on theatre capabilities.

Atmos enables the audio engineer (using a special version of Pro Tools) to designate a particular location in the theatre, as a three-dimensional volume, where each dynamic sound source should seem to be coming from. During playback, each theatre’s Atmos system mixes and renders all dynamic sounds in real-time to make it seem each sound is coming from its designated spot, in a manner customised to that particular theatre’s speaker configuration.

By way of contrast, traditional multichannel technology essentially burns the audio tracks into particular channels

during post-production, which means the re-recording mixer has to make up-front assumptions that may not apply very well to a particular theatre (to the extent its playback capabilities differ from the mixing stage where the mixer was working).

The first generation cinema hardware, the Dolby Atmos Cinema Processor, supports up to 128 discrete audio tracks and up to 64 unique speaker feeds. The technology was initially geared towards commercial cinema applications only, but it was announced late in 2014 that it is going to be adapted to home cinema as well.

And already products are being offered from well-known brands such as Denon, Marantz, Pioneer and Yamaha.

The technology and process is well supported in the US and some European markets and is in the planning stage in South African as well. Distributors are confident with the technology and apart from movie releases; several Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos releases will be available in store from the beginning in 2015, with numerous releases of both current and catalogue titles.

Just as 3D offers added visual dimension, Dolby Atmos creates a virtual reality of sound, which fully immerses the audience in the aural journey and a sound experience previously only ever dreamed of…sounds good! – Ian Dormer

rewarding to hear the excitement from some of our South African composers when they hear their music played on television for the first time,” says Tanya Douman, Lalela’s Executive Manager. She oversees Lalela’s Cape Town office, and has personally sourced many talented young South African composers.

Lalela complements its South African sounds with a selection of tracks from top Hollywood composers like recent Emmy nominee, Jeff Russo and SESAC Award winner, Matt Mariano. Lalela CEO, Alan Lazar, is based in LA and has built the business internationally from there. Alan’s career began in Mango Groove, and he also wrote Vicky Sampson’s ‘African Dream’. Moving to LA on a Fulbright scholarship, he branched into film and TV music, scoring hit US shows like Sex and the City and Real Housewives, as well as South African classics like Jerusalema.

“Music libraries have become ubiquitous worldwide, and are now associated with high quality music for multiple uses. As a composer, I was excited to explore this growing area of the business, and jumped at the opportunity to build a production music library,” says Lazar.

That library is now more than 150 albums, with a range of styles for film and TV use, ranging from comedy and drama, house and hip hop, intense trailer music, tailor-made documentary tracks, unique African influenced tracks, and a ton more.

Lalela’s Volume 12, slated for February 2015 release, features albums like Tribal

Big Beats, Marimba Drama and Dramedy, Business, African Jazz, African Hymns, Afro Trap, Mzansi House, Mzansi Chill, African Trailers and Maskandi. “We develop our new albums based very specifically on client requests. Our music is truly tailored for use on film and television,” says Douman.

Lalela has built its base from South Africa, and is now distributed in more than 40 countries by the best local purveyors of production music in territories around the world. Last year it received more than 13 000 performances in international territories, according to its Tunesat data. This TV use is punctuated by use in US trailers for top movies like Gravity and Jack the Giant Slayer. Lalela’s international clients include everyone from McDonalds to the BBC. Life in the world of production music is not without its challenges though. “There are a number of companies out there giving away their music for free. This has had a terrible effect, denigrating the value of music, and this hurts composers most of all,” says Lazar, urging production companies to work only with libraries approved by new mechanical rights society, CAPASSO and SAMRO. Lalela has 60 new albums planned for 2015/16 and more international expansion in the works.

Check out Lalela’s music at www.lalela. com. The company recently invested in creating high quality metadata, so their search engine is extremely accurate and responsive.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AWARD WINNING MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN Bespoke Music Composition, Sound Design & Supervision for: Advertising Music & Jingles

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Where were you when?...Check out our ’20 Years Celebration’ playlist reels for a real blast from the past!

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STUDIOS

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201

Sound | Music

SA composer gets international nod From May to October 2014, music software company, Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL), together with Warner Bros and the Hollywood Music Workshop, held an international film scoring competition open to composers of all ages from all countries.

The competition called for composers to write a five-minute suite of original music inspired by five clips from one of two prescribed films – The Wolfman and The Strange Case of Benjamin Button. All entries were submitted anonymously. The object was not to write directly for picture but to take inspiration from the scenes.

The five-minute suite had to be divided into five one-minute movements. The first would introduce a thematic and the remaining four were to develop that thematic through a variety of moods,

FEATHER IN THE CAP: Alun Richards from action sequences to romantic moments. The entire suite needed to be played or programmed using VSL and entries were judged by a distinguished international panel that consisted of composer Christopher Young; Oscarnominated recording and mixing engineer Dennis Sands; president of the Warner Bros music department Paul Broucek; Dimitrie Leivici, president of the Hollywood Music Workshop and Herb Tucmandl, founder and CEO of VSL. Among the many entrants for the

competition was Johannesburg-based composer Alun Richards, founder of Cut & Paste Generation and Kwazi Mojo Media. Choosing The Wolfman, Richards created a suite perfectly suited to the horror/ action genre, complete with pounding percussion and discordant strings. Although he did not finish in the top three, the judges were sufficiently impressed by his work to list him among the ten entrants that only just came short of the top three. He thus stands alongside composers from as far afield as Spain,

Austria, Belgium, the USA and Russia.

The competition enabled Richards to make extensive use of his VSL software, which he has been using for several years now. This library of orchestral samples is one of the world’s most comprehensive.

Not only does it offer a wealth of instrument sounds, it also enables the composer to model each instrument to his or her liking, with an astonishing attention to detail. It also includes samples of the ambience of some of the world’s most famous recording and performance venues. Composers can thus simulate the sound of say, Abbey Road studios or Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw.

To receive recognition on such an international platform is obviously a sizeable feather in Richards’ cap and he hopes it will move him a good distance towards fulfilling his dream to score major motion pictures. “I have always wanted to score big Hollywood features,” he says.

“Having said that, I would love to score local ones too but they seldom have the budget for a full, original orchestral score.

Internationally, where the budgets do exist, there are considerable barriers to entry. It’s a closed market, and entering it depends on exposure to the decision makers. Hopefully this competition will open some of those doors.”

Licensing music in SA It’s no secret that having the right soundtrack for your production is as vital as the visuals themselves.

Music can make or break a production, which is why selecting music is a process not to be taken lightly.

Here are some options for you to consider.

Production Music When budgets are tight and deadlines loom in the near distance, one of the more suitable options is production music, also known as mood music and previously known as library music.

Production music offers a cost-effective solution, and does not usually require individual licensing, therefore eliminating the time normally spent waiting for approval. The rates for licensing production music are published annually by the Composers Authors and Publishers Association (CAPASSO) (previously known as NORM). While these rates compare favourably to commercial and commissioned works, it does come with the slight risk of another producer 32 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

using the same piece in another production. However, with over 7 100 albums available from Universal Production Music (unippm.co.za), this risk is significantly minimised. The quality and production value offered in production music today is comparable to popular commercial chart music. Many of today’s well-known contemporary artists and producers also compose and arrange music for international production music labels. In South Africa, CAPASSO takes care of the licensing and invoicing for production music. They are also available to advise users on the most effective licensing structure, such as some of the concessions and discounts available for certain campaigns and series.

Commercial Music Commercial artistes and their songs hold the key to some of the most dedicated market relationships found in any industry. Listeners count their favourite artists as part of their own personal identity. The premium potential value that this holds for a brand is significant and this is often reflected in the fees to license commercial music, so some careful budgeting is required. The licensing process can also be a learning curve and it’s important to be upfront with your requirements as early on in the production process as possible. Fees are normally quoted according to term, territory & media and take into account

various other factors. The publishers must obtain permission from the original holders of the rights and this forms part of the sometimes fragile negotiation process. Often there is more than one publisher per song and all rights holders must give permission to proceed.

Furthermore, if you are using an original recording, master rights must be obtained from the record label and the process is similar and usually the fees match the publishing (songwriting) rights.

For any quotes and queries, chat to Gavin Green (gavin.green@umusic.com), Licensing Manager at Universal Music Publishing, South Africa.

Other avenues Artists in South Africa do not only spend their time gigging and trying to sell records. Some successful bands have members who are the song-writing and production forces behind South African radio hits that can create to spec and license commercial hit-quality work. This is an underutilised artistic resource in South Africa and the result is restricted market reach. The sound that hit artistes create opens an easy door to their

dedicated followers. Research demonstrates the reliance listeners have on music for social acceptance and brands have yet to properly leverage this potential, especially in above-the-line campaigns.

The Universal Music Studio in Rosebank is a fully fledged professional studio with state of the art equipment including SSL desk. Universal Music Publishing can offer the complete package from composition through tracking and audio mixing with professional engineers and are not restricted to ‘in-house’ studio composers but have access to a host of A-list local and international writers.

Costs are extremely flexible and this option presents a middle-ground between low budget and premium budget projects and campaigns.

Whichever option you choose for sourcing your music, the varied options make it easy to find the music to make your pictures sound right.

For more information on production music options and licensing, contact Philip Jacobs at Universal Music directly: philip.jacobs@umusic.com.

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System Integration

Intelligence, ideas and experience

Since 2010, Rocket Science has been combining solutions and consulting within media rich and specialised IT environments. They are often found behind racks of high performance storage and media servers in an impressive list of customer sites. The Rocket Scientists are in the business of selling IT intelligence, ideas and experience, within the high performance storage and media server environments.

T

he current focus has been to develop new ways to handle media for a 4k world, including new intelligent methods of working with data on storage area network (SAN) as well as working with bleeding edge network attached storage (NAS) technologies in high performance environments. Project based workflow management is another topic that is currently occupying the scientists as they believe this method of taking your project from conception to archive without the use of a database activity monitor (DAM) in a collaboration tool is the one of the better ways to manage media and they are looking forward to introducing this method of asset management into the

South African market in 2015.

“We work closely with our international partners on developing solutions for our customers. We also like to introduce our customers to new ways of thinking to accomplish a more optimised environment”, says Anthony Ransom, one of the Rocket Scientists.

Rocket Science has recently welcomed back one of its co-founding members, Nuno Martins, who has returned after working at ToolsOnAir for the last seven months, developing their flow:rage storage platform, which was launched at IBC 2014. Martins will be heading the technical team again and is looking forward to pushing them to greater heights in 2015.

January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 33

Box Office

|

The glass is half full at the local box office This month’s biggest earners at the South African box office attempt to make the best out of a bad situation…

Dumb and Dumber To

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Almost exactly two decades since the 1994 release of Dumb and Dumber, the Farrelly Brothers bring cinemagoers Dumb and Dumber To. The sequel, starring Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels as Lloyd and Harry once again, debuted in the top spot with US$38.1m at the US box office. The Universal release also opened at number one at South African cinemas, earning R1 923 685.

Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner star in this comedic Disney family flick in which 11-year-old Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) experiences the most horrible day of his young life. Directed by Miguel Arteta, the heartwarming, but tedious film brought in R653 099 nationally in its third week running, bringing total local gross earnings to R2 683 061.

Interstellar

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Matthew McConaughey stars in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar.

If it’s a spectacle you’re after Interstellar delivers, especially when experienced in Nolan’s preferred 70mm IMAX format.

The flick, which has received mainly positive reviews both locally and internationally, is in the number two spot with R1 237 745 in its second week at the local box office, a 22% drop in earnings on opening weekend, bringing total national earnings to R3 606 246.

Director Scott Frank’s A Walk Among the Tombstones sees Liam Nielson in vigilante mode once again as unlicensed private detective Matt Scudder. Adapted from Lawrence Block’s novel, the crime thriller – set in 1999 – garnered R358 988 in week three at South Africa theatres, a massive 31% drop on the previous weeks earnings, bringing cumulative box office earnings to R2 489 760.

Tarzan

Laggies

In Reinhard Klooss’ modern day adaptation of this well-known tale, Tarzan and Jane Porter take on an army sent by the evil CEO of Greystoke Energies, a man who took over the company from Tarzan’s parents, after they died in a plane crash. The film opened to mixed reviews internationally and on local soil, earning an unimpressive R662 571 in its opening weekend at South African cinemas.

This warm comedy/drama starring Keira Knightley and Sam Rockwell is an inspiring ‘coming of age’ story. Receiving mainly negative reviews but winning praise for Knightley’s empathetic performance, Laggies opened with a disappointing R245 116 at the local box office.

34 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

Compiled by Chanelle Ellaya

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Publishers & Projects

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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 A LION IN THE BEDROOM Two Oceans Production Prod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker Feature AFTER MARIKANA – PART 2 OF A TRILOGY Uhuru Productions Prod/Dir: Rehad Desai Documentary AN 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 FRIEND LITTLE FRIEND Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV movie Camping Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke/Bertha Spieker Feature CAPE OF GOOD HOPE Two Oceans Production Prod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker Feature CHILDREN OF FAMOUS ACTIVISTS Current Affairs Films Prod: Jane Thandi Lipman Feature CINDERELLA Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker Feature

36 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

Cybervisions Writer:Tawanda Murimirwa Completed Sci-Fi Screenplay DE BRAZZAVILLE A JOHANNESBURG Site et Sons Media Productions Feature Film DIE VERHAAL VAN RACHELTJIE DE BEER Nostalgia Productions Prod: Brett Michael Innes Feature Die Vervoerder Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Feature ENTREPRENEURS Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Magazine 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 IN THE CASTLE OF MY SKIN The BrandWagon Productions and Digital Hawk Prod/Dir: Siphiwe H. Sibeko Documentary Series Izinyembezi Zami Inhlakanipho Films Dir: Vusi Nhlapo Feature Film HEAVEN – AFRICA 2 Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker Feature HHOLA HHOLA Vuleka Productions Prod: Julie Frederikse Feature High School Modeling Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni Feature HOEHLENMENSCH Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV movie 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 IZINJA ZAMI P.I.M.P Dir/Prod: Daniel P Nxumalo 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

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

The Mountain of the Night Nostalgia Productions Prod: Herman Mabizela/Brett Michael Innes Feature

Pippie se Towerkombuis Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Prod: Jarrod de Jong Variety

The Norwegian Brothers (working title) Panda Broadcast Prod: Sam Groenewald Feature Film

Ponte Nostalgia Productions/ Black Irish Productions Prod: Jamie Ramsay/Brett Michael Innes Feature

The Reggies Rush Nostalgia Productions Prod: 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 SARAH GRAHAM: BITTEN 2 Okuhle Media Dir: Chris Lotz Series

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

Sea Monster Triggerfish Animation Studios Dir: Anthony Silverston Animated Feature

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

SEBOKENG MPA (Motswako) Dir: Charls Khuele / Zuko Nodada Feature

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

Sin Bin Diamond Hill / Engage Entertainment / Coco TV Prod: Sisanda Henna / Stephen Lorenzo Documentary

MONDAY MAN Tincup.tv Dir/Prod: Matt Torode Mini Series NIXEN ALARM Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV movie 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 PALACE OF THE FAITHLESS White Heron Pictures Dir: Themba Sibeko Feature PARADISE Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV movie

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 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 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 Zakouma Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke/ Bertha Spieker Feature ZEN FILM CREW MANAGEMENT ZEN Film Crew Management Prod / Dir: Laura Tarling Commercial

IN PRE-PRODUCTION ABLAND PROPERTY DEVELOPERS FC Hamman Films Dir: FC Hamman Marketing Video Alex on 7th Xcut Studios Dir: Engelbert Phiri Documentary

The Exchange Engage Entertainment PROD: Stephen Lorenzo Feature

ATTACHMENT PARENTING Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Insert

THE GIFT Ferguson Films Prod: Shona and Connie Ferguson, Bobby Heaney TV Feature Film

BIG BROTHER ANGOLA Endemol South Africa Prod: Terja Beney, Llonka Geudes Reality

THE GREAT KAROO Current Affairs Films/ White Pine Pictures Prod: Jane Lipman Series THE HITCHERS: A GHOST STORY Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Short Film

CASE Tamol Media Thabang Molibeli Short Film De Brazzaville a Johannesburg Site et sons media productions Dir: Elvis Nkosi Feature Film

PRODUCTION Die Laaste Ure: Inconnu French Film Festival Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Producer: Jarrod de Jong Short film

SLENDER WONDER INFORMATION VIDEO Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Information Video

Domestic Bliss 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Advertising Funder Project

SNAP JEI Co Ltd Mauritius/Jujuma Productions SA Prod/Dir: Neil Hetherington Feature

EL ELJON PROJECTS FC Hamman Films Director: FC Hamman Marketing Video

SOCIAL WORKER Tamol Media Thabang Molibeli Short film

ENDLESS ART Imagofilm Prod: CM Small Fish Short Film

STICKS+STONES (working title) Fireworx Media/ Tunc Prodcutions Prod: Bridget Pickering Telenovela

ESPAFRIKA PRESENTS THE CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2014 ESPafrika Prod/Dir: Rashid Lombard / Yana Lombard / John Bright Documentary EXTREME CAMPERS Pro Media Productions & Spider – Co Productions Prod: D. Vanzyl Reality TV Series 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 GRIZMEK Two Oceans Production Prods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha Spieker TV Movie 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 MOMSHISHI Pro Media Productions & Spider – Co Productions Prod: J. Vanzyl Children’s Program PEDAL BENDERS Pro Media Productions & Spider – Co Productions Prod: D. Vanzyl Reality TV Series 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

THE MESSENGER Footprint Media TV Prod: Annalise Van Rensburg Series 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 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 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

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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 BODA BODA THIEVES Switch Films Prod: James Tayler Feature 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

Cnr. Frost avenue & owl street | Milpark | Jo’burg t +27 [11] 482 7111

www.atlasstudios.co.za

Carte Blanche shorts TIA productions Prod / Dir: Tarryn Lee Crossman News CLAASENS DESIGNS MARKETING VIDEOS Panache Video Productions Prod/Dir: Liesel Eiselen Marketing videos CLASH OF THE CHOIRS Endemol South Africa Prod: Josh Feldman Talent / Reality COOL CATS Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Cecil Berry Children’s Show CORTEX MINING FC Hamman Films Prod Man: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video COME DINE WITH ME SOUTH AFRICA Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine Reality CUTTING EDGE SABC News Current Affairs 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

Unit C5 RobeRtville Mini FaCtoRies 255 nadine stReet RobeRtville RoodepooRt 1709

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

END GAME Fireworx Media/ Tunc Productions Prod: Bridget Pickering Dir: Akin Omotoso/ Thandie Brewer/ Thabang Moleya Feature EXPRESSO (Season 2) Cardova Prod: Paul van Deventer Series FACE OF GEMINI Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Series Facility Management Lectures (A4FM) Panache Video Productions Dir/ Prod: Liesel Eiselen Educational January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 37

PR ODU CT IO N

UPDATES KWELA Pieter Cilliers Productions Prod/Dir: Pieter Cilliers Magazine

My name is Funeka Sabido Productions Dir/Prod: Catherine Rice Documentary

SA Top Model for a Day Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni TV Series

LATE NITE NEWS ON E.TV Diprente Productions Prod: Tamsin Andersson Series

MZANSI INSIDER Bonngoe Productions Prod: Pepsi Pokane Magazine

SAKEGESPREK MET THEO VORSTER SEASON 5 Dirk Mostert Camera Production Prod/ Dir: Dirk Mostert Series

Light Girls South African Unit White Heron Pictures Prod: Themba Sibeko Documentary

NET1 – SASSA Betta Beta Communications Prod: Tommy Doig Corporate

LIVE Urban Brew Music

1464 Vragboot Steet Cnr Vooraadskip Streets Laserpark, Honeydew

Faith Today Impact Christian Media Prod: Carl Schultz TV Series

IGNITE Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Reality

FOX NEWS CHANNEL Betta Beta Communications Prod/Dir: Tommy Doig News

IHAWU LE SISWE Provoke Entertainment Dir: Sechaba Morojele TV Series

Free State Toursim Indaba Our Time Productions Dir: Jaun de Meillon Corporate

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

FRENZY Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Morena Sefatsa Variety

IMIZWILILI Ukhamba Productions Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music

GENERATIONS Morula Pictures Prod: Mfundi Vundla Series

INGOMA ILISO Films Documentary

GOOD MORNING AFRICA Planet Image Productions SA Prod/Dir: Wale Akinlabi Magazine GOSPEL GOLD Engage Entertainment Prod: Sthembile Mhlongu Music 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 HECTIC 99 Okuhle Media Prod: Wilna van Schalkwyk Magazine HITACHI POWER AFRICA MEDUPI AND KUSILE Betta Beta Communications Prod/Dir: Tommy Doig Documentary HOUSE CALL Izwe Multimedia / Urban Brew Prod: Annalie Potgieter Talk Show

38 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

INKABA Urban Brew Studios Prod: John Kani Telenovela 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

LIVE LOTTO SHOW Urban Brew Game Show Mandela’s Gun DV8 films Dir: John Irvin Feature Marang Estate: Mixed Used Development Nov/ Dec Our Time Productions Dir: Jaun de Meillon Documentary MASHELENG1 LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature MASHELENG 2 LMOL Production Dir: Jonny Muteba Feature MASSMART CSI REPORT SummerTime Productions Prod/Dir: Roxanne Rolando / Sean Gardiner Corporate Video MassTalk Global Access Creative Agency Prod: Brad Montgomery Corporate MATRICS UPLOADED Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational MILLIONAIRES Two Oceans Production Prod: Giselher Venzke/Bertha Spieker Feature MOTSWAKO Carol Bouwer Productions Prod: Grant Paul Roy Talk Show MCA Training Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Guy Sclanders Corporate M-NET SHORT FILMS Current Affairs Films Prod/ Dir: Jane Thandi Lipman Film MUVHANGO Word of Mouth Prod: Pieter Grobbelaar Feature MY 2010 75 Films (PTY) LTD Prod/Dir: Ntokozo Mahlalela Documentary MY GENERATION Current Affairs Films Dir: Jane Lipman TV Series

NEWS NIGHT eNews Prod: Nikiwe Bikitsha Current Affairs Oscar Pistorius Documentary Inserts TIA Productions Dir/ Prod: Tarryn Crossman Documentary PASELLA Tswelopele Productions Dir: Liani Maasdorp / Werner Hefer Magazine PAWN STARS SOUTH AFRICA Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine, Ed Worster, Johan Naude and Kat Weatherall Reality

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

POWER COMBAT ZONE Mixed Motion Entertainment Dir: Dieter Gottert Sport

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

PROJECT MV Zen Crew Prod: Laura Tarling Music

SELIMATHUNZI Sikhoyana Productions Prod: Baby Joe Correira Variety

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

SHIZ NIZ Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Allen Makhubele Variety

RHYTHM CITY Quizzical Pictures Prod: Yula Quinn Soapie

SHIFT Urban Brew Talk show

RHYTHM CITY INTERACTIVE Quizzical Pictures / e.tv Prod: Viva Liles-Wilkin Interactive Platform Media RIVONINGO Asi-B Films Prod: Asivhanzi ‘Asi’ Mathaba Children’s Show ROCKING FUTURE SummerTime Productions Prod: Sean Gardiner / Tanya Vandenberg Educational Video

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

ROCKVILLE SEASON 3 Ferguson Films Prod: Bobby Heaney TV Series

Slender Wonder Patient Testimonial Videos Grey Cloud Productions Dir: Jacques Brand Corporate Videos

ROLLING WITH KELLY KHUMALO Red Pepper Prod: Cecil Barry Reality

SOCCER ZONE SABC Sports Head: Sizwe Nzimande Magazine

ROOTS Ukhamba Communications Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music

SODA AND Mayoral Awards Global Access Creative Agency Guy Sclanders Corporate

SAINT AND FREEDOM FIGHTER Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Documentary

STUDY MATE Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Exec Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational THE CHAT ROOM Eclipse Prod: Thokozani Nkosi Talk Show

PRODUCTION THE COMMUNIST REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Jam TV, Creative South Africa, Nkhanyeti Production Prod: Barthelemy Ngwessam Documentary 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 TOP BILLING Tswelopele Productions Prod: Patience Stevens Magazine TOP TRAVEL (Season 3) Cardova Prod: Bradley van den Berg Series Transnet Financial Results Global Access Creative Agency Dir: Brad Montgomery Corporate Troopship Tragedy (working title) Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Marion Edmunds 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 WARD 22 TIA Productions Prod/Dir: Tarryn Crossman Documentary WEEKEND AM LIVE SABC News Current Affairs YILENGELO LAKHO Prod: Nndanganeni Mudau Current Affairs ZOOM IN Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Talk show

IN POST-PRODUCTION A BUSHMAN ODYSSEY Onetime Films Prod: Richard Wicksteed Documentary A DIFFERENT COUNTRY Sabido Productions Dir: Lisa Henry Documentary series A Love Letter to Luxor Shadow Films Prod/Dir: David Forbes Short Film 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 Challenge SOS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Reality Collide Media Village Productions Prod: Ardeen Munnik TV Series DEBRA DEEL Khaki Productions Prod: Christelle Parrott TV Series EARTH BEAT Tekweni TV Productions Prod: Sandra Herrington Series FASHION GURU SA Pro Media Productions & Spider – Co Productions Prod: D. Vanzyl Reality TV Series FORMIDABELE VROUE: CISSY GOOL Khaki Productions Prod/Dir: Christelle Parrott/ Wynand Dreyer Documentary HOPE NHU Africa Prod: Vyv Simson / Donfrey Meyer Documentary HOUSE OF ENCOURAGEMENT Panache Video Productions Dir/Prod: Liesel Eiselen Corporate IQILI Impucuzeko Prod: Sharon Kakora Feature Joyous 18 RM Recording Prod: Lindelani Mkhize Other JULIUS HAS A DREAM Creative South Africa, Nkanyethi Productions,Jam TV Prod: Bathelemy Ngwessam Documentary

KADARA Media Navigation Prod: Dan Akinlolu/ Biola Karonwi TV Drama Kerels wat Kook Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant Reality TV Series

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UPCOMING EVENTS

|

DECEMBER 10 – 17 Dubai International Film Festival

Dubai www.dubaifilmfest.com

12 – 15 DStv Kids Xtravaganza

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

NEW BEGINNINGS Insignia Productions Dir: Grace Khaaki Munthali TV Series

21 – 1 Feb International Film Festival Rotterdam

NEW LAND Plexus Films/ Four Corners Media Dir: Kyle O’ Donoghue TV Series NORTHMEN Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke/Bertha Spieker Feature Nyaope Gangsters LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature PERFECT SHISHEBO Quizzical Pictures Prod: Nthabiseng Mokoena Series PLAY MORE GOLF FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Commercials

Johannesburg www.dstv.com

JANUARY 20 – 22

Content Everywhere MENA

Dubai www.ibcce.org

Netherlands www.iffr.com

22 – 1 Feb Sundance Film Festival

25 – 28

Utah, USA www.sundance.org CINEMART

Netherlands www.iffr.com

30 – 7 Feb The Clermont-Ferrand International

Short Film Festival

France www.clermont-filmfest.com

FEBRUARY 1–5

Jaipur International Film Festival

India www.jiffindia.org

5 – 15 Berlinale Film Festival

22 – 25

Germany www.berlinale.de Jozi Film Festival

Johannesburg www.jozifilmfestival.co.za

26 – 28 Aluta Film Festival

Nelspruit www.facebook.com/pages/Aluta-Film-Festival

Pushi- Passion LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Series

The calling LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature

TRAILER-MADE JaC Productions & Innovation Films Dir: Jacobus Kriel Feature

SAFE BET Sukuma Media Producer: Nokuthula Sakhile Mguni / Bonginhlanhla Ncube Feature Film

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

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN Plexus Films Prod: Miki Redelinghuys,/ Lauren Groenewald Short film

SLENDER WONDER FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video

THE FAMILY PUZZLE Site et Sons media productions Prod/Dir : Zamo Missie Feature

SLENDER WONDER MJ LABS FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video

THE FLAWED GENIUS OF JAN SMUTS Tekweni TV production Prod/Dir: Sandra Herrington / Neville Herrington Documentary

Solo Flight Two Oceans Production Prod: Giselher Venzke/ Bertha Spieker Feature

THE LAST GREAT TUSKERS NHU Africa Prod: Vyv Simson / Donfrey Meyer Documentary

SWARTWATER Quizzical Pictures Prod: Bianca Isaac Dir: John Trengove/ Jozua Malherbe/ Denny Y Miller Series SURVIVOR Endemol South Africa Prod: Anton Burggraaf, Josh Feldman Reality TELKOM: BUSINESS INSIGHTS WEBSERIES UZI Films Prod/Dir: Steven Hall Corporate

Unfriend Two Oceans Production Prod: Giselher Venzke/Bertha Spieker Feature VKB LANDBOU BEPERK FC Hamman Films Prod: Odette van Jaarsveld Corporate Video When I Was Water Shadow Films Dir: David Forbes Documentary

The Lighthouse Run SummerTime Productions Dir: Tanya Vandenberg Documentary

XJ-1 Eternal Film Productions Prod: Marius Swanepoel/ Dana Pretorius Feature

The Message Reel Edge Studios Dir: David Golden TV Drama Series

You Deserve It Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant TV Game Show

THE STORY OF LITTLE FOOT Paul Myburgh Film Prod: Paul Myburgh Documentary THE TRANSPORTERS Sukuma Media/ Reality Motion Pictures Dir: Bonginhlanhla Ncube Documentary Traffic Penguin Films Prod: Roberta Durrant TV Series

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

January 2015 | SCREENAFRICA | 39

Social

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Photos by Trevor Ou Tim

DISCOP AFRICA

Department of Arts & Culture stand: GFC’s Puisano Phatoli, Sello Molefe and Lerato Mokopanele

Department of Arts & Culture stand: Tracey-Lee Rainers Superstory), Teboho Pietersen (DFA) and Themba Sibeko

DStv MultiChoice stand: Denise Roodt (The Media Workshop) with DStv’s Robyn Smith, Alet Bensch, Aletta Alberts and Desiree Pillay

The Bike Show’s Mat Durrans and Harry Fisher

SABC stand: Violet Sekhibidu, Trudy Motseta and Selin Yuk-Lam

Department of Arts & Culture stand: Simphiwe Ngobo (KZN Film Commission) with DV8 Films’ Jeremy Nathan and Moroba Nkawe

SES stand: Tsholofelo Molefe, Daryl Haw, Avahouin Line, Stephan Kluever and Ebrahim Choonara

Seynabou Racine Sy (Yacine Productions, Senegal), Laurence Lurie (The Directors Team) and Abdoulahad Wone (Buzz Studios, Senegal)

Eutelsat stand: Ketsia Botuli

GlobeCast stand: Samir Tizaoui and Didier Mainard

Discovery Network’s 2015 programme line-up

Anneka Khan and Lee Hobbs presenting the TLC Entertainment line-up

Chris Hitchings and James Gibbons opening the 2015 programme line-up

Dynamo performing another trick

Guests mingling 40 | SCREENAFRICA | January 2015

Dynamo from Dynamo Magician Impossible

Dynamo warming the crowd up

Joel Lambert from Manhunt

Kevin Richardson from Killer IQ

The Discovery Effect barman

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