BROADCAST, FILM, TV, COMMERCIALS, NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY NEWS
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VOL 28 – October 2016 R38.00
LAURENCE FISHBURNE
THE MATRIX TRILOGY, BLACK-ISH
FOREST WHITAKER
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
ANIKA NONI ROSE
DREAMGIRLS, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
THE PIANO, TRUE BLOOD
JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS THE TUDORS, ELVIS
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MALACHI KIRBY
EASTENDERS, GONE TOO FAR
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| IN THIS ISSUE
6 Students and industry meet on BDtv
14
32 Celebrating the father of African cinema
26
28
What goes around comes around
SPECIAL FEATURE IBC REPORT Vinten Vantage compact robotic head.............................................. 12 Avid sports workflow solutions........... 12 Sony Media Backbone NavigatorX...... 12 Ross Video PivotCam ............................ 13
VR, 4K and HDR steal the show at IBC 2016
DIRECTOR SPEAK: DAN MACE
SA’s The Flying Circus inks distribution deal with Canada’s
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FESTIVALS & MARKETS
Collaborate to win awards –
Breakthrough Entertainment................. 10 Comedy Central launches new local
and consumers......................................... 20 Dani Hynes recreates life’s most important moments
Nollywood ambassadors at TIFF.......... 36 Green White Green
satirical news programme CCN.......... 10 Nigeria’s Rok Studios launches............. 10 FOX Life to launch on
AJA U-TAP ingest devices...................... 13
DStv this October................................... 10 Groundglass granted funding for
VR, 4K and HDR
SA prison gang feature........................... 10 Broadcast industry bids
for new ABSA website............................ 21 Into the wire and through the lens..... 22 Let’s be faster out the blocks on telling our sports stars’ stories...... 23
woos the critics........................................ 37 Foreign territory ..................................... 38
BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY End of an Era – Goodbye VHS............. 39
NEW MEDIA
FILM
Impressions of IBC 2016........................ 18
farewell to Rupert Dalton..................... 10 Silent film wins Best Film at
What goes around comes around....... 26
Applicaster’s App Publishing Zapp Platform
Director Speak: Dan Mace..................... 28
makes its way to African Audiences.... 40
News
CT 48 Hour Film Project....................... 11 Noem My Skollie is SA’s official entry
Petna Ndaliko’s Cine Activism.............. 30
steal the show at IBC 2016................... 14
Student Short film competition judged by SA Hollywood cinematographer......................................... 5 Students and industry meet on BDtv.... 6 Iroko launches new multiplatform network for digital content creators..... 8 StarSat airs first locally produced drama series Maseko Ties......................... 8
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to the 2017 Academy Awards............... 11 New local music drama series hits e.tv........................................... 11 DISCOP Johannesburg
Regulars Production Updates.................... 41 – 43
Documentary Celebrating the father
Events.......................................................... 43
of African cinema..................................... 32
Social........................................................... 44
Finding meaning in the mundane.......... 34
announces pitching competition.......... 11 Global pay-TV subs up four million in Q2.................................... 11
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From the editor
The Team
I don’t think I am alone in having a tendency to create unnecessary complications in my life. There is a strange belief among ‘civilised’ humans that nothing is worthwhile or complete unless it is complicated. We distrust simplicity, we tell ourselves that nothing worth having is easy. This is as true in our industry as it is in life. We seek out the most advanced technology in the belief that it makes our work better. Writers plot dense stories, directors stage and block complex scenes, cinematographers devise dense lighting schemes. It is perhaps only the broadcast engineers who see the merit in simplicity: they know they would overcomplicate their jobs in the control room only at the peril of the production and their own sanity and peace of mind. So it was quite refreshing for me to note a theme of the rediscovered power of simplicity through a number of the stories in this issue. It began with our report on a short film produced by Johannesburg creative agency The Fort. Unwritten documents a search for beauty and meaning in the Kingdom of Nepal, with its narrator ultimately discovering only that beauty and meaning are ever present, everywhere and do not require any mystical quest. Its theme was reflected in the manner in which it was shot: one well-used camera, a set of fast lenses and whatever natural light was available. So often we forget that wonderful work can be created in this way. We also have a report on the new documentary Sembène. The creatives among us could do worse than to revisit (or visit for the first time) the work of the late, great Senegalese filmmaker who forms the subject of this documentary. This is filmmaking at its most raw, its most basic and ultimately, its most powerful. No frills, no budget, no rampant technophilia shoving spokes into the creative wheel; just a crew and a common vision. Even on the technical side, the latest products and solutions are geared towards increased simplicity. What is the IP revolution all about if not simplification? What are manufacturers doing with their developments of IP and hybrid infrastructures, their progressive abandonment of proprietary components and adoption of off-the-shelf hardware and software, if not catering to a demand for greater ease of use? And as all their solutions become easier to use, the quality of work they are capable of producing is always on the increase. I’m reminded of a snippet I once saw of an interview with John Ford, the great director of Hollywood Westerns. When asked how he had shot a particularly stunning sequence in his classic The Searchers, he replied, without skipping a beat: “With a camera.” Every now and then we need a reminder that this really is all there is to it. – Warren Holden
Editor
CONTRIBUTORS
Warren Holden is a writer and journalist whose lifelong love of film and television prompted him to study for his BA in Motion Picture Medium at AFDA Johannesburg, specialising in writing and directing. After graduating, he worked for three years in the television industry before following his aptitude for writing into the world of publishing. He then worked for five years as assistant editor on the arts and culture publication Classicfeel, before taking the helm of Screen Africa, where his experiences in the separate streams of motion picture and publishing have finally come together. In addition to his work on Screen Africa, he is also hard at work developing stories for film and television and studying for a second degree in economics and African politics.
Ifeoma ‘Oma Areh runs WildFlower PR and Company, a Nigerian based entertainment and digital PR company. She has worked on some of the biggest campaigns in Africa. She is also the convener of Africa’s first ever ‘Digital Entertainment Conference’ #DECAFRICA. She lives in Lagos with her husband and children.
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JOURNALISTS Cera-Jane Catton is a writer and journalist with years of experience in community newspapers, blogging and freelance journalism. She has migrated to Jozi from Durban to join the team at Screen Africa in the hope of sampling lots of free popcorn. Cera has worked in a cache of capacities, often finding herself behind or in front of the cameras, intentionally and less so. She has been a stunt double in two Bollywood movies, has worked in various capacities on a number of natural history documentaries, and other international productions shot in South Africa. She studied journalism and photography and is always eager to learn something new. She speaks up for the voiceless, is a dedicated movie lover and a wannabe doccie maker.
Chanelle Ellaya is a writer and a journalist. She completed her BA Journalism degree at the University of Johannesburg in 2011. While writing is her passion, she has a keen interest in the media in various capacities: In 2012 she co-presented the entertainment and lifestyle show Top Entertainment on TopTV and later that year she was handpicked as part of a panel of five dynamic young Africans to interview Winnie MadikizelaMandela on a youth focused television show called MTV Meets. Chanelle is an avid social networker and a firm believer in the power of social and online networking. Between writing and tweeting, she finds time to feed her love for live music.
Sub-Editor: Tina Heron
Publisher & Managing Editor: Simon Robinson: publisher@screenafrica.com
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Editor: Warren Holden: editor@screenafrica.com
Website & Production Updates: Carina Vermooten: web@sun-circle.co.za
Journalists: Chanelle Ellaya: news@screenafrica.com Cera-Jane Catton: cera@screenafrica.com
Subscriptions: Tina Tserere: tina@sun-circle.co.za Delight Ngwenya: admin@sun-circle.co.za
Contributors: Oma Areh Sam Charo David Davies Ian Dormer Louise Marsland
Accounts: Helen Loots: accounts@sun-circle.co.za Advertisement Sales: Marianne Schafer: marianne@screenafrica.com Graham Grier: graham@sun-circle.co.za
Sam Charo is an independent writer, producer and filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. His passion is sharing great stories about the continent with rest of the world.
David Davies is a journalist who has been covering professional AV and broadcast technology for 14 years. He is freelance managing editor of Sports Video Group (SVG) Europe and continues to contribute to a host of trade publications, including PSNEurope, PSNLive and Installation. He has also been a part of the team for The AES Daily, The IBC Daily and, since 2005, The ISE Daily, for which he served as an executive editor in 2013 and 2014. In addition, he is active as a copywriter and sub-editor.
Claire Diao is a French and Burkinabe cinema journalist. She covers the African film industry for various international media and moderates the Afrikamera Festival in Berlin each year. In 2015, she co-founded Awotele, a digital magazine that focuses on African cinema.
Ian Dormer – Born in Zimbabwe, Ian has been in the TV business since the 1980s, having served in various positions at the SABC, M-Net and SuperSport. Ian currently works and resides in New Zealand.
Louise Marsland is a veteran editor and journalist with over 20 years experience in the advertising, media, marketing and communications industries. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, she worked as the editor of AdVantage magazine, as well as Bizcommunity.com. She is currently publishing editor of TRENDAFRiCA.co.za.
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Student Short film competition judged by SA Hollywood cinematographer Internationally acclaimed, South African-born cinematographer Dan Mindel was back to his roots for the Silwerskermfees in Cape Town. The renowned director of photography, whose work includes JJ Abrams’ Star Wars and Star Trek films, was invited to the festival as part of an M-Net initiative in association with kykNET to facilitate conversations between South African filmmakers and international experts. Part of the initiative included a competition where student filmmakers from AFDA, Big Fish and Umuzi Academy were required to submit a short film. More than 75 film entries were received and reviewed. Mindel and a team from the South African Society of Cinematographers (SASC) then selected the winner. “South Africa will always hold a special place in my heart,” says Mindel. “To return, and be able to step into conversation with South African filmmakers has been a privilege.” The winner of the competition was Nondumiso Buthelezi, with her documentary film Oswenka. The film looks at the flamboyant tradition started by Zulu migrant workers in the 1950s, which saw them competing for the title of best dressed man. “Oswenka hit a nerve; it’s interesting, genuine and raw. I was most impressed by its contrasting colour palette and its texture,” explains Mindel, adding that he sees a bright future for this young director. The prize included R30 000, a mini master class with kykNET’s content team, and the opportunity to showcase their work at the 2017 kykNET Silwerskermfees. Beaming after the win, Buthelezi said: “This makes people notice you, this is a great boost for my career.” She explains that the ‘oswenka’ tradition was invented as a solution to the
hard times men were going through. “This film highlights the dignity of these Zulu men who come from respected homes to hostels in Johannesburg, where they are reduced to almost nothing.” So while the film is lighthearted it addresses the underlying pain, she explains. The film has been screened at festivals around world, including the Luxor African Film Festival in Egypt, where it won best artistic director of a student film, and in October it will be viewed at Silicon Valley in California. “It has travelled in a way I didn’t think was possible,” says Buthelezi. She advises aspiring film makers that “whatever story you want to tell, tell it, no matter how crazy the idea sounds. There is so much red tape, but you will find a way.” Mindel explains the challenge in the judging process, “As a technician it is hard not to be judgmental on the workmanship and everything about it. So to approach it in an unbiased manner is a hard thing to do but that is the way I try to look at it.” He says that when you look at student films, “they normally take a bigger bite out of whatever it is that they think they are going to do and it ends up being a compromise, because it can’t be done with the money or the skillset that they have.” Mindel was fascinated by the age group of the people making the films, saying that what they are thinking and expressing through their films tells him what is going on in this country. He notes that the Americanisation of everything is very noticeable and says he was looking for something indigenous in each film. “My friends from the SASC and I sat and worked out a way of separating all the films from each other based on the way they were shot, what was going on story wise and how they felt,” explains Mindel. “I was glad that all of them weren’t violent
Dan Mindel
WINNING SMILE: Nondumiso Buthelezi
horror stories from inner Johannesburg or the townships. I would have been devastated if they had all been like that.” He says the winning film had everything he was hoping he would see: “style, humour and sensitive direction.” Mindel describes the two kinds of films they saw: the ones that had really great equipment and the ones that didn’t. “It is not about what the equipment is or the technical specifications. I think that the methodology is how well the story is told and that is all we can look at. The
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technology – quite frankly anyone can use it, you don’t need a degree to do that, so I think that even if none of them know how the equipment works, the story is the main thing.” Advising aspiring filmmakers Mindel says, “Move in a direction of exploration in order to learn what you want to achieve in the end. Without a point to focus on you’ve got nowhere to go, whether you want to be a director, cinematographer, writer or editor, focus on that point and just keep going.” – Cera-Jane Catton
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Students and industry meet on BDtv Student Village and Business Day TV (BDtv) have joined forces to create Career Connect, a conversational show that hosts discussions between industry experts and students to determine ways in which the aspirant graduates can best position themselves CREATING VALUALBE DIALOGUE: Ronen Aires, CEO of Student for employment after Village and Career Connect host with guests on the show school. The show is aimed at creating challenges has been condensing dialogue between SA youth and information on broader topics to fit into a employers to learn from one another and single episode. “The youth are hungry for to better equip young career starters. more information, on topics like job Student Village produces the show interviews or internships, than can fit in an from its head office in Houghton and episode but what makes this challenge BDtv is involved in the visual production great is that it makes the programming and broadcasting. evergreen. We can cover several angles The show offers advice on various on a certain direction we’ve taken and related topics, from how to make your have content emerging from that for résumé stand out to what recruiters look the future.” for, to how to narrow the Afrillennial Outside of content it was a big (African millennial) skills gap in the challenge for the company to take on workplace, explains Samantha Van Zyl filming their very first TV programme. from Student Village, content creation “The whole process has been new to us manager of the show. and we’ve learnt so much already,” says Van Zyl says one of her biggest Van Zyl. They film once a month where
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the studio is set up in the boardroom which is transformed for two days. “We want to showcase career and advancement opportunities on the show, as more businesses join our conversation and keep growing a positive narrative in the youth media space with regards to providing helpful and constructive content that can actually help our viewers.” They are currently shooting on a three camera interview setup with the purpose of getting shots from three different angles, explains Mogomotsi Diale, DOP at Student Village. “Two Panasonic broadcast cameras that are supplied by BDtv and our own Canon 5D Mark 3 DSLR.” They are using one LED light since they already have lighting within the room they shoot in, describes Diale, who says they use three lapel mics to the two broadcast cameras, one for the main camera that’s focused on the presenter and the other two mics run through to the second camera, which is focused on the guests. In post-production edit in Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop CS6 and Final Cut Pro 10 (FCPX). “The reason for using two different suites is because we have a freelancer that we are working with on the show who is familiar with
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FCPX and Adobe is used for both editing and designing of graphic features that are incorporated in the show,” explains Diale. “Student Village has spent the past 15 years being the trusted expert to both employers and students. We are excited to partner with BDtv to assist young people to navigate their future options and to become work ready,” says Ronen Aires, Career Connect host and CEO of Student Village. BDtv has identified Career Connect as a niche opportunity to roll out the show as part of its newly launched weekend content. “The synergy between what we wanted to create and Student Village’s ability to connect brands and youth in the workplace enabled us to bring this vision to life,” says Semeyi Zake, head of programming at BDtv. “It couldn’t have come at a more critical time as our country’s youth are in desperate need of a platform that can offer them guidance and context in terms of getting the best head start.” Career Connect airs on Business Day TV’s weekend platform SME Zone on DStv channel 412 on the weekend. It seeks to empower youth for the job market, Zake adds “this partnership allows us to expose students and graduates to the world of entrepreneurship, which in itself is an alternative career path.” – Cera-Jane Catton
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Iroko launches new multiplatform network for digital content creators African digital entertainment company Iroko is launching IrokoX, a Multi-Platform Network (MPN) designed specifically to assist Africa’s gifted digital content creators. IrokoX positions itself as a full-service, cross-media MPN, with the aim to become the go-to platform for the continent’s digital content creators, providing them with a framework that will enable them to easily produce, distribute and monetise new and original short-form (three to five minute) content. Oluchi Enuha, IrokoX general manager, says: “The seed for the idea started when Iroko founder and CEO Jason Njoku and I visited Base 79 in London last year and sat down with the CEO. At some point the conversation turned to Africa and the lack of MCN (Multi-Channel Network) representation mainly due to a lack of information surrounding talent and creator potential. I didn’t know it at the time but Jason probably left that meeting thinking this is something we are responsible for and here we are a year later.” Using the company’s in-house production, editing and distribution expertise the IrokoX team will provide selected content creators with a suite of complementing services. Service
provided will include content production and promotion, programming and branded sponsorship campaigns to connect brands with powerful influencers across all entertainment industries, existing media channel management and global content distribution. With an aim to become the largest Africa-focused influencer network, IrokoX will continue to be a music and content distribution platform for established producers, as well as become a standalone division of the Lagosheadquartered content distributor, studio and broadcaster. “Creation. distribution. monetisation; this is what IrokoX is setting out to provide for our continent’s creative pioneers, in order to capture and lead the fast-paced social media and online video market for the continent. Africa is brimming with creative talent, much of which is stifled by poor access to production facilities, or poor understanding of how to monetise content. With IrokoX’s considerable expertise in these areas, we are ideally positioned to support and develop thousands of amazing African and Africa-inspired content creators,” says Enuha.
IDEALLY POSITIONED TO SUPPORT AND DEVELOP: IrokoX editing teams Original content creators and social media personalities can apply via the IrokoX website to join the network. They will maintain 80 per cent of their revenue after joining and IrokoX guarantees making them more money than they have previously made themselves. Musicians, for example, can submit their MP3 or WAV files and the IrokoX team will distribute their content to suitable platforms that can monetise it on their behalf. “There are many more ways in which we organise, facilitate, crosspromote and monetise the African digital media industry and we are always open to exploring new ways to achieve our goals with our creative partners,” comments Enuha. “We are now on the search for creative and influential personalities across all social media channels, who want to share their
passions and talents online and scale their video views to an audience in its millions.” “Iroko hopes to build a truly pan-African and Diaspora community of remarkable content creators, with IrokoX. We know that there’s an absolute ton of hyper-talented artists, content creators, entertainers out there, who are looking to bring their content to a wider audience, and to monetise it, but they need a partner who understands their needs, their audience and the wider market. We are ideally positioned to develop this community and put African content on global platforms,” Enuha concludes. IrokoX will operate from offices in Lagos, London and New York, and is now currently accepting applications. – Chanelle Ellaya
StarSat airs first locally produced drama series Maseko Ties At a launch event at Le Chatelat Boutique Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, On Digital Media’s satellite pay-TV network StarSat announced the launch of a new, locally produced, medical drama series Maseko Ties. Maseko Ties, the half-hour soapie which premiered on 5 September 2016, marks the first local drama series broadcast by the StarSat network. The programme is produced by KMP Productions, a part of the KMP Media Group, and joins three other locally produced productions – Puppet Nation, David Kau’s House and Point of Order – currently broadcast on StarSat. David Makubyane, head of content at StarSat says that the decision to air Maseko Ties came after a look into current television trends and in depth research showed that South African audiences favour the soapie genre. That coupled with the need to present African audiences with a relatable on-screen reference of themselves informed StarSat’s decision to license the series. “As StarSat is a South African and African brand it is very important for us to ensure that our subscribers see themselves on screen. There is no doubt that one of the most popular and most watched genres 8 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
SOAPY DEBUT: The cast of Maseko Ties with Mike Dearham, VP of StarTimes in South Africa is the drama sub-genre – soap. One of the best genres to reflect society and for people to see a reflection of their lives in an entertaining and engaging manner is the drama genre. We have also consulted trends and research that informs us that drama and localised telenovelas are being consumed more and more by viewers,” explains Makubyane. While the predominant trend in
broadcasting is to commission and own local content, Starsat decided to engage in pre-license deals for its local content so that producers can retain the intellectual property rights, as well as “take advantage of DTi rebates, and government and independent funding support, while we benefit from obtaining fresh first run content,” says Makubyane. “When KMP Media Group approached us with the first episode of Maseko Ties
and the storyline of the rest of the series, we realised that this could be a great opportunity of getting a high quality first run drama series, shot professionally at the cost of a license. The decision to license this telenovela was based on the production quality of the first episode shown to us as well as the storyline of the rest of the series.” Maseko Ties is produced by Dominique Masson and Marguerite Coetsee and directed by Andries van der Merve and Nonny Malete. The show’s cast members include Yonda Thomas, Monnye Kunupi, Amos Ketlele, Tshepo Desando, Mpho Mabaso, Sibusisiwe Jili, Nina Marais and Samela Tyelbooi. Mike Dearham VP of StarTimes comments: “Local content is very popular with our subscribers and we believe that Maseko Ties will fast become a firm favourite with our viewers. At StarSat we are committed to growing local content and enabling producers to provide high quality local programmes for the pay TV industry. The appetite for local content continues to grow and we will constantly search for new local content to meet the viewing preferences of our subscribers.” – Chanelle Ellaya
IBC 2016 = 3A De La Rey Road Rivonia | Johannesburg | South Africa I +2711 234 2532 www.harambetech.co.za
| SA’s The Flying Circus inks distribution deal with Canada’s Breakthrough Entertainment
NEWS
South Africa’s The Flying Circus has inked a distribution deal with Canada’s Breakthrough Entertainment that will introduce the animated comedy Silly Seasons to North American viewers. Silly Seasons follows the adventures of four girls – each representing a different season – who live in the fantasy world of Sillyville, which is inhabited by a variety of wacky plants and animals. The 26×24-minute series is meant for children between the ages of eight and 12. It combines traditional key-frame animation with motion capture. World Screen reported that Andre van der Merwe, animation producer at The Flying Circus, commented: “Silly Seasons is South Africa’s first motion-captured animated series and we are thrilled to work with Breakthrough to take the show to a new audience. The series is fun,
energetic and unique, and we are confident it will appeal to kids in North America.” “Breakthrough is always looking to broaden our frontiers in family entertainment, so when we found The Flying Circus and were impressed by the unique style of Silly Seasons, we were eager to cultivate a relationship with them to help bring this lively new series to North America,” added Craig McGillivray, the VP of distribution at Breakthrough Entertainment.
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Broadcast industry bids farewell to Rupert Dalton Jasco Electronics has led the industry in bidding farewell to their long-serving broadcast solutions sales executive, Rupert Dalton, who passed away only a few weeks after celebrating his 20th year with the company. Jasco issued the following statement: “‘Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names.’” “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Rupert Dalton passed away on 15 September 2016.
FOX Life to Comedy Central launches new local launch on DStv satirical news programme CCN this October
CCN (Comedy Central News) is the perfect antidote to TV news from Comedy Central – a weekly 30 minute round-up of all the news that did NOT happen – but really should have… CCN uses real-life footage and an array of talented local voice-over artists to subvert the ‘real’ news, unhindered by facts or political correctness. Instead, CCN hijacks the latest sports, entertainment and political stories making them funnier and more satisfying through a mix of sharp observation, clever writing, fake punditry, and silly voices. Anchored by award-winning South African comedian and performer Sne Dladla, CCN sets its sights on everyone
and everything from The Springboks to Brexit, Hillary Clinton to Bonang Matheba and Taylor Swift to President Zuma. Commented Evert van der Veer, vice president, Comedy Central, Africa, “We are delighted to introduce Comedy Central’s first homegrown satirical comedy show – a comic antidote to the real news for people who want to escape from the daily grind of current affairs and grim headlines. With Sne at the helm, we look forward to building on our grand tradition of satirical news programming.” Comedy Central News premieres on Comedy Central on Monday 3 October at 21h00.
Nigeria’s Rok Studios launches On 29 September Rok Studios, the award-winning Nigerian film studio, launched a brand new channel on Sky TV in the UK. Headed up by Nollywood actress and producer Mary Njoku, Rok Studios is home to some of Nollywood’s most talked about originals, including Husbands of Lagos, Desperate Housegirls, Losing Control and Cougars. This new channel for Sky customers in the UK will bring the latest and best Rok Studios produced TV shows, movies and magazine shows to Sky customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Rok on Sky is available as a free-to-view channel for all Sky subscribers – around 10 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
10 million homes in the UK. Showing originals such as Single Ladies, Banks Chronicles and Bloodline, as well as some of the most recent smash hit movies including Walking Away, Aso Ebi and Forever, the channel will be programmed and scheduled in-house from the teams in Lagos and London. Mary Njoku, Rok CEO says: “…As a production house, we are obsessed with curating amazing African content and telling African stories our way – and with this next big chapter in the Rok story, we can give millions more people the chance to enjoy our movies and TV series.”
FOX Networks Group Europe and Africa (FNG) recently announced the upcoming launch of a new pan-African channel, FOX Life, set to air on 3 October 2016. Considered one of the world’s leading destinations for scripted and unscripted entertainment, FOX Life will be tailored for African audiences, and be available on DStv channel 126 in South Africa. As part of the channel, an additional 954 hours of new programming will be added to the schedule over the coming
“He will be remembered fondly by all his colleagues and the broadcast industry as a whole. “We wish Julie, Michelle, Candice and all his family and friends our sincerest condolences in this extremely difficult time.”
months, focused on localised storytelling, created specifically for African viewers. New hit US shows to debut on FOX Life include Pitch and Atlanta. “FOX Life is core to our global entertainment portfolio and its entry into this market signals FNG’S continued investment in Africa,” says Gary Alfonso, GM, FNG Africa. “From hit U.S. programming, to 954 hours of brand new hours which will be a mixture of locally developed and produced content and international content. Our new channels portfolio reflects the best in entertainment, factual and sports.”
Groundglass granted funding for SA prison gang feature Groundglass announced that the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) SA awarded them funding, following the release of the short film Numbers, to develop a full feature on the life of notorious 28s gang member, Turner Adams. In August 2016 Groundglass released Numbers, a short which gives a previously unseen insight into the unique and violent gang culture of South Africa’s prisons. The film was co-directed by South African tattoo artist, Manuela Gray and is shot entirely in black and white, with commentary from Turner Adams. In a rare appearance, Adams opens up to the camera to explain the vital significances and codes intrinsic to the hand-etched tattoos which adorn the prisoners’ skin. The secrets of the gangs known as the 26s, 27s and 28s are revealed through the hand-etched language of the inmates’ intricate tattoos. Founder and executive producer at Groundglass, Janette De Villiers
comments: “We’re so thrilled to be able to develop this project in to a full feature. Numbers has been getting so much interest that we are currently also talking to NGOs here about building a community centre in Lavender Hill and making the entire project part of a rehabilitation programme in the Cape Flats.” The feature film on Turner Adams is now in development and is planned for release in 2017.
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Silent film wins Best Film at CT 48 Hour Film Project A silent film, The First Week, won Best Film in this year’s 48 Hour Film Project (48HFP) held in Cape Town on the first weekend of September, securing the new production house Mason Brothers Pictures with their first national film award and two tickets to Seattle, where the film will be screened on the world stage. Of the 42 entrants that took part, the debut short film clinched six of the awards including best film, best actor (Carel Nel), best cinematography (Chris Lotz), best original score (Philip Pells and Dave Knowles), best sound design (Jonathan Cummings, Yan Sanchez, Gaston Roulstone and Stefan ‘Sparky’ Smuts) and best use of genre as well as nominations for best director and
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best actress. “When we started viewing the other films, we realised that we were one of the better films, but we didn’t want to count our proverbial chickens before the awards ceremony,” said Chris Mason. “Hearing our name being called for Best Film was a celebratory moment. We were very happy. Now we go on to the world stage.” Organised by Bench Films, the 48HFP requires that film teams write, direct and produce a short film in 48 hours. The competition runs in 140 cities around the world with the winners attending a screening in Filmapalooza in Seattle, and the top ten films selected there are then screened at Cannes. Chris and Luke Mason form the producer-director-writer duo, while the film featured an extraordinary performance by actor Carel Nel as a deaf man. The First Week is a haunting, elegant film about a man’s sudden deafness. The team used negative aural space to recreate a deaf person’s world. “We wanted to subvert the genre, by using no sound where there should have been sound,” says Chris.
Noem My Skollie is SA’s official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards
The special jury convened by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) announced that the feature film, Noem My Skollie, currently on circuit in South African cinemas, has been nominated as SA’s official selection to the 89th Annual Academy Awards (Oscars) in the category for Best Foreign Language Film Award.
New local music drama series hits e.tv Hustle follows has-been music diva, Kitt, who has lost her mojo after a long and successful career. Kitt released hit after hit to her adoring fan base and performed to sold-out crowds on the biggest stages in the 80s, but now, her career has crashed. She started off – like many great artists – in a performing group with her sister and best friend. Her extraordinary voice and hot ambition made her stand out, and when the chance came to go solo, she grasped it without looking back. That fame is a distant memory now, but Kitt is trying to make a come-back. Hustle is the chronicle of her bid to return to the top of the charts. Shaking the ‘has-been’ label proves tougher than she thought –
This is a remarkable achievement for Daryne Joshua’s first feature film. The producers, David Max Brown and Moshidi Motshegwa and their partners who supported the financing of the film at the NFVF, kykNET, M-Net and the distributor Ster Kinekor Entertainment, are thrilled with this news and are proud that the film achieved the accolade. To date the film has been seen by more than 32 000 people in South Africa. “The greatest affirmation an artist can get is from their own tribe. We are ecstatic to have this affirmation!” says producer Motshegwa.
the modern music world is very different to the one she ruled in the 80s. Hustle features a range of Mzansi talent. Award-winning Brenda Ngxoli takes the lead as Kitt Khambule who shares the screen with Masello Motana; Zolisa Xaluva; Andile Nebulane; Dineo Ranaka; Lungelo Lubelwana; Mothusi Magano; Carlo Radebe; Angela Sithole; Lethabo Bereng and Mandisa Nduna. Series producers Fireworx Media previously produced Mzansi Love, which aired on e.tv in 2014. “The self-assured, yet gritty approach to the narrative, coupled with the sheer impact of the talent on screen, makes one sit up and take notice,” says series director Jahmil Qubeka.
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DISCOP Johannesburg announces pitching competition
DISCOP Johannesburg, the continent’s largest content market, continues to provide important platforms for the development of Africa’s future content producers. DISCOP Johannesburg pitching competitions have become important events for independent producers in Africa looking to generate funding for projects as well as for mentoring and networking. The DISCOP pitching competitions are a vital element of the DISCOP markets that now take place annually in Abidjan and in Johannesburg, with the next edition scheduled for Johannesburg from 2 to 4 November. DISCOP runs and promotes these pitching competitions as a way to develop young talent and to support them in securing the necessary funding and distribution support to bring these projects to fruition. The DISCOP Johannesburg pitching competition is open to all DISCOP Johannesburg
registered producers and is comprised of five categories of popular television genre: • TV Series • Documentaries • Formats • Animation The pitching competition will take place on Thursday 3 November 2016 with the selected producers across the four categories under the spotlight. Aspiring and established producers alike will have to pitch an original idea to a panel of industry key players and potential investors active in Africa and abroad, other producers, programming and commissioning executives and advertisers. Registered producers interested in entering the DISCOP Johannesburg Pitching Competition must fill out the form on the DISCOP Africa website and send it by e-mail to bettyyengo@ basiclead.com by 14 October 2016.
Global pay-TV subs up four million in Q2 The October issue of the informitv Multiscreen Index of 100 leading pay-TV service providers worldwide shows an increase of four million subscribers, up by 0.95 per cent over the second quarter of 2016. Advanced Television reported that the Americas region had its first quarterly subscriber loss, which was offset by gains in Asia Pacific, boosted by continuing growth in India. • 25 of the 100 services in the Multiscreen Index reported net television subscriber losses in the second quarter, while 66 reported year on year gains. • The top ten services in the US collectively lost 663 000 television subscribers in the quarter and were down by 437 100 year on year. • Across the Americas there was a net decline of 0.29 million subscribers,
which is the first regional loss in the Multiscreen Index. • Services in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region gained 0.83 million subscribers, with the top ten gaining just 125 000 between them. • The Asia Pacific region gained 3.46 million subscribers, with the top ten services adding 2.76 million, led by six operators in India claiming collective gains of over two million. “The Multiscreen Index shows that over 12 months the top ten services in the Asia Pacific region claimed gains of 13.76 million television subscribers, which is an 18 per cent increase,” said informitv analyst Sue Farrell. October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 11
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Technology
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Seen at IBC… Vinten Vantage compact robotic head Vinten launched its new robotic head at IBC with the main attraction being the flexibility it offers to users as far as choices of cameras and lenses are concerned. While many pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) solutions place certain limitations on these choices, the Vantage is entirely camera and lens agnostic. The 2.2kg head can be mounted on any flat-base tripod or 75mm bowl tripod. The variable speed control enables smooth quality of motion and full synchronisation of all movements over all axis. The head can be remotely operated using Vinten’s HDVRC control system, an easy-to-configure control solution that provides multiuser, multi-facility control of pedestals, heads and elevation units. The Windows-based touchscreen user interface allows a single controller for multiple devices or studios within the same network. Vinten products are distributed in South Africa by Inala Broadcast.
Sony Media Backbone NavigatorX Geared towards small and medium sized production environments, Media Backbone NavigatorX orchestrates all phases of content workflow from ingest, catalogue, editing, approval and review to distribution and archive. Flexible and scalable, it works equally well in both single-seat environments and larger workgroups. Sony introduced the solution as lower cost alternative to other media asset management systems of similar quality. NavigatorX can be operated using a simple GUI that does not require extensive training. Standard web browsers can be used, requiring no special plug-ins or software. The solution is flexible and open, with ability to import any file type, including a wide range of video formats, from SD to 4K. It also includes interfaces for external systems, such as archive, edit suites and transcoders.
Avid sports workflow solutions Avid introduced its range of end-to-end sports production solutions to the EMEA market at IBC. Powered by the Avid MediaCentral® Platform, the new sports workflow provides best of breed tools tightly integrated into a single powerful solution. The sports workflow solution offers everything a sports broadcaster needs to differentiate their brands, create engaging content, and optimize the value of their media. The new sports workflow offering provides organisations with powerful sports tools integrated into a solid solution at a competitive price. Each solution contains everything needed for the fast turnaround world of live sports, centered on the PlayMaker sports ingest, replay and playout server, Spark sports enhancement, and complemented by Avid NEXIS® shared storage, Media Composer® editing, and Interplay® | Production asset management. Even basic installation and training are included in the package. New sports workflow solutions announced at IBC 2016 include: • Avid Sports Solution | Studio for medium and small sized broadcasters • Avid Sports Solution | Remote Productions for big sports and remote productions • Avid Sports Solution | Trucks for OB, outside, and remote productions • Avid Sports Solution | EDU for colleges and educational facilities Avid solutions are distributed in South Africa by Jasco Electronics.
12 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
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Ross Video PivotCam Based on the latest CMOS image sensor technology, the PIVOTCam-20 incorporates high quality Olympus 20x zoom optics with fast, silent and accurate robotics to offer high performance and accuracy in a wide range of lighting conditions. The PIVOTCam-20 has low signal to noise at 74dB, and can resolve spectacular images in very low lighting conditions. It is well suited to broadcast POV, education, corporate, event, house of worship production, and especially for Ross assembly production control systems. This camera provides full 1080p HD and includes 128 preset settings with full control over Pan, Tilt, Zoom and Focus. Even better, everything is fully controlled via Ross’ vison mixers, as well via their DashBoard control platform. PIVOTCam provides truly affordable, high performance image capture. A production system that combines the Carbonite Black Solo vision mixer, 3 PIVOTCam cameras, and XPression still graphics, is available at an amazing affordable price. PIVOTCam offers ground- breaking value and performance for all sorts of applications. PIVOTCam can be combined with ACID Cameras, Robotics, Vision Mixers, Graphics Systems and more from Ross to meet the needs of the most challenging production, both reliably and cost effectively. Ross Video’s products and solutions are distributed in South Africa by Concilium Technologies.
AJA U-TAP ingest devices U-TAP products offer a simple, cost-effective and portable solution for plug-and-play capture that is compatible with OS X and Windows, and a broad range of software applications. From video conferencing to streaming, social media video applications and more, U-TAP brings powerful functionality and simple operation without requiring any additional driver software. U-TAP Features: • Capture Options – U-TAP HDMI can capture from HDMI sources including cameras, switchers or any non-HDCP input. U-TAP SDI supports capture of up to 1080p 60 professional 3G-SDI signals. • Portability – U-TAP devices are small and easily transportable, housed in durable aluminium cases. • Universal Support – U-TAP HDMI and U-TAP SDI run on drivers built into OS X and Windows with nearly universal support for a range of video and audio software. Support for Linux™ will be coming soon. • USB 3.0 – Simple connectivity for both consumer and professional workflows; bus powered so no external power supply is needed.
Ikegami HDL-45E with Ross Video DashBoard interface Ikegami demonstrated the interoperability between its HDL-45E 3-CCD multi-purpose HD camera and Ross Video’s DashBoard open network system at IBC. The Ikegami HDL-45E is a multi-purpose HD camera with three 2/3-inch 2.3 megapixel AIT CCD imagers, an LSI processor and high quality 14-bit analog to digital converters. It can be used in lighting levels down to 0.065 lux without frame accumulation, or 0.00054 lux with frame accumulation. Applications include 3D video rigs, pole cameras and security. Ikegami has developed the interface for DashBoard, an open platform from Ross Video for facility control and monitoring allowing the POV camera to be controlled over a TCP/IP network. The DashBoard enables users to quickly build unique tailored CustomPanels that make complex operations simple, providing control and monitoring within the openGear and DashBoard Connect ecosystem. Ikegami products are distributed in South Africa by Harambe Technologies. Ross Video products are distributed in South Africa by Concilium Technologies.
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IBC 2016
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REPORT
VR, 4K and HDR steal the show at
IBC 2016
VIRTUAL REALITY TRENDING: Scenes from the halls at IBC 2016
The argument suggesting that the pace of change in broadcast is continuing to accelerate was underlined once again at the IBC exhibition and conference in Amsterdam last month. David Davies rounds up some of the most significant new developments.
H
aving attended the IBC exhibition most years since the turn of the millennium, it is my observation that – particularly over the last decade – each new event has been characterised by a presiding conversation about one specific technology. So in recent years we have had 4K, HDR and IP
14 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
– all of whom remains central to the debate around the future of broadcast workflows, with a wealth of new solutions on display at IBC 2016. But the trend that perhaps attracted the most attention at this year’s exhibition was virtual reality (VR). As with so many other broadcast
Sennheiser AMBEO VR microphone
technologies, VR looks set to come of age first in sports production, as indicated by OBS’ groundbreaking delivery of 85 hours of VR programming in Rio this summer. More generally, plenty of broadcasters in Europe and the US, in particular, are talking about the immersive opportunities of VR – even though there are persistent concerns about the higher streaming bit-rate required for the technology to reach its full potential. There is also a very understandable desire to avoid the missteps that accompanied the (ultimately short-lived) resurgence of 3D a few years back. But while VR is clearly at a formative stage, there were plenty of new launches aimed at filling in workflow gaps at IBC 2016. Sennheiser’s AMBEO VR MIC is a case in point. Designed to address the situation whereby previous VR
IBC 2016
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REPORT
“Live sports productions need to easily and efficiently handle a variety of sources, from HD and 4K to HDR and HFR formats.” – Norbert Paquet, Sony Professional Solutions Europe
Sony HCD P43
productions had required complicated microphone set-ups to capture immersive audio, the AMBEO VR MIC puts everything into a compact handheld mic that is due to be made commercially available in November. Kai Lange, product manager, Broadcast and Media at Sennheiser, comments: “The demand for compact microphones that capture spatial audio to match visual 3D experiences has increased enormously in the recent past. For the user to gain a truly immersive experience, however, it is imperative that the sound within VR is also 3D. The AMBEO VR microphone has been designed specifically for VR/AR purposes and enables VR content producers to capture the natural, immersive environment, providing a realistic and immersive experience for the user.” Elsewhere on the IBC showfloor, SES joined forces with Fraunhofer to highlight the transmission of a 10K x 2K panoramic video signal via satellite to multiple devices. The panoramic signal was received at the SES stand and transmitted to an Ultra HD display, as well as a set of virtual reality (VR) head-mounted devices. The viewer was able to select a viewing angle, zoom in and out, turn the picture on the TV display using a simple remote control, or choose to wear a VR headset, where the video signal was delivered simultaneously. The footage was filmed with Fraunhofer HHI’s OmniCam-360 camera and transmitted via SES’s ASTRA 19.2 degrees East orbital position. “There is no stadium in the world providing enough seats for all enthusiastic fans,” said Ralf Schäfer, Fraunhofer HHI’s Head of Division Video. “So imagine a live event somewhere in the world, filmed with professional cameras like our 16 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
Hitachi SK-UHD4000
OmniCam-360 and then delivered to a huge global audience via satellite. And every single viewer at home has the best seat in the middle of the show.”
The HDR revolution will be televised Monetising VR successfully is surely one of the greatest obstacles still remaining to the technology’s adoption, so it will be intriguing to see if major progress has been made in this area by next year’s IBC. The same issue was aired around the introduction of 4K, but with dedicated UHD offers now up and running – such as Sky’s UK service, which went live to acclaim in August – the focus with this new technology is now increasingly on ease of implementation and the ability to service multiple platforms successfully. Certainly, there were plenty of new 4K-supporting launches in Amsterdam this year, including the first two models in Panasonic’s new UX series of professional 4K camcorders, the UX Premium Model AG-UX180 and the UX Standard Model
AG-UX90, and the new LiveTouch 4K highlights and replay system from Snell Advanced Media, among others. With 4K HDR (High Dynamic Range) increasingly viewed as the holy grail for sports broadcasting, in particular, there were also a number of important new products to support this type of workflow. For example, Hitachi showcased both 4K and HD cameras that now feature HDR upgrades, including the flagship SK-UHD4000 UHD studio/field camera. Elsewhere, Sony announced the launch of the HDRC-4000 HDR production converter unit – which is designed for use in simultaneous live 4K HDR and HD SDR content production workflows – as well as the HCD-P43 4K POV camera that is intended to help cover critical gaps in 4K production. “Live sports productions need to easily and efficiently handle a variety of sources, from HD and 4K to HDR and HFR formats,” said Norbert Paquet, Strategic Marketing Manager, Sony Professional Solutions Europe. “These new technologies solve many of the
challenges traditionally associated with live production, and add new and exciting story-telling tools and maximum production value.” While many broadcasters and OB service providers are now integrating 4K into their new facility plans (Arena Television and NEP are among the many OB companies to have to rolled out 4K trucks in recent months), the transition from SDI to IP is now becoming almost as prevalent. This trend is underlined by the fact that the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) announced a flurry of new members in the run-up to IBC, taking it beyond the 50-company mark in just nine months of existence. With 55,796 people attending over the six days of the conference and exhibition, IBC 2016 was another highly successful instalment for Michael Crimp and team. With attendance pretty much essential for anyone now hoping to keep track of a sector that is changing at phenomenal speed, the show’s centrality to the broadcast calendar appears unshakeable. – David Davies
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IBC 2016 was another fantastic show with more new product introductions and innovations that we could ever cover on one page! Contact us for all of your production and broadcast infrastructure needs, we now have an even greater story to tell.
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IBC 2016
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REPORT
Impressions of IBC 2016 With another IBC having come and gone, some key figures in broadcast technology in the Africa and Middle East region gave Screen Africa their impressions of the event.
Colin Wainer – Inala Broadcast There were two main themes that I picked up at IBC: 1. IP infrastructure in broadcast has been accepted as the way forward and will be adopted and implemented sooner rather than later. The number of leading edge manufacturers that have signed up to AIMS is growing daily. SMPTE 2022-6 interoperability demonstrations between manufacturers was a highlight and with SMPTE 2110 soon to be ratified, will make the decision for the broadcast industry easier to accept an IP infrastructure. 2. Virtual Reality (VR) seems to be the next driver for broadcasters to differentiate themselves. Many manufacturers demonstrated VR and from the demonstration that I had the experience is fantastic. Once you can produce HD quality in real time VR will become a de facto standard. As far as the new products demonstrated by Inala’s principal suppliers are concerned, the following were among the highlights: 1. LiveIP is the world’s first complete proof-of-concept of a live production system that relies on IP and IT 18 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
technology, using existing open standards for integrating multiple technology vendors, which included Axon/ EVS / Lawo / Tektronix and Vizrt 2. Lawo – V-Matrix Software Defined IP core routing and processing platform 3. Axon – Synview 4k and IP Mutiviewer, the world’s first fully functional multi-vendor live production system based on entirely IP and IT technology, was awarded top honors in a category that included BT Sport for its Augmented Reality for the UEFA Champions League project, and ESPN for the Pylon-Cam project. 4. Pebble Beach – Orca Software defined virtualized IP channel and automation 5. Riedel – Media Networks, real time media network providing nearly unlimited flexibility in moving, processing and distributing broadcast signals 6. Tektronix – Prism, Media analysis solutions for IP/SDI infrastructure 7. EVS – XT4K dedicated 4K live production server, leading publication TVBEurope promptly named it Best of Show 8. Vinten- Vantage compact robotic head
Andrew Cole – Concilium IBC 2016 was dominated by HDR vs 4K, IP infrastructure and OTT. Although the announcements of acquisitions seems to have slowed, Ross Video was the exception, announcing the addition of three new companies to their burgeoning portfolio of high quality broadcast production tools. There were a number of companies demonstrating IP infrastructure in the broadcast facility with Imagine Communications presenting a cost effective migration strategy towards next-generation IP infrastructure by creating a hybrid of an existing baseband blended with new IP technology. One strong focus was on driving down the cost of live broadcast contribution, with portable cellular bonding solutions that can be integrated with a traditional portable satellite dish to provide coverage even when there was poor or no cellular coverage.
Peter Kyriakos – Sony Professional Solutions MEA IBC once again served as a brilliant platform to engage with industry professionals and demonstrate how Sony’s technology, solutions and services
can provide content communities with new media production opportunities. This year, we were able to further strengthen our foothold and presence as the ultimate end-to-end professional solutions provider through the demonstration of our key offerings, connecting with new prospects and educating partners & customers of our customer-driven holistic approach,” said Peter Kyriakos, Head of Marketing at Sony Professional Solutions for the MEA & CIS regions. Within the media asset management pool of solutions showcased at IBC 2016 our Media Backbone NavigatorX stood out as it enables flexible feature options for production, archiving and workflow automation. The newest media in the Optical Disc Archive System rated with a 100 year shelf life triggered the interest of many as it provides higher accessibility – much more than other general archive media. Yet another highlight of the show was our IP based solutions which offer scalable, flexible and complete end-to-end workflow management thereby revolutionizing broadcaster operations. Overall, IBC 2016 laid the foundations for a solid Q4 and the year ahead,” added Kyriakos.
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Collaborate to win awards – and consumers The main trend in the world today is collaboration. Particularly in the world of advertising. This was no more apparent than at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, earlier this year, says advertising industry expert and former Grey Canada and South Africa CEO, Ann Nurock. of the venerable newspaper to enable them to view a 360 degree short video advert on the plight of three refugee children on their journey to find a new home. It was described as boundary breaking storytelling and an unprecedented collaboration between brands. “What is important to remember about VR,” said Nurock, “is that it is not cinema, it is not an evolution of the video game. VR is giving people an experience, immersing them in stories, in a way they have never experienced before.”
3. Collaboration:
Ann Nurock
N
urock was speaking at the Media24 Lifestyle Magazine Summit in Cape Town in September on creativity and trends in advertising. The theme at Cannes this year was ‘Thank you Creativity.’ “I liked the theme because creativity really can make a difference. It can change stereotypes, bad social norms, health practices… around the world… Never before have the lines been so blurred between traditional advertising and communications. Everything mixes together.” What was particularly interesting was the increasing dominance of digital media companies – in previous years at Cannes, the global advertising networks dominated. Nowadays it is the digital and social media companies like Google and Facebook which have set up shop at Cannes and who everyone wants to hear from. Nurock, who attended Cannes this year, reported back on the key trends and themes she observed for the South African advertising, media and marketing industry, while interspersing her presentation with the impactful and beautiful advertising that won big at Cannes this year:
20 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
1. Technology: Technology was the overriding trend of the Cannes Lions festival. Technology is bringing creative and brand ideas to life in ways that they have never been before, reported Nurock. She referenced an ad by ING Bank, ‘The Next Rembrandt,’ which used technology, data analytics and a 3D printer to create a replica of a Rembrandt painting, in his style. Everything was replicated after detailed analysis – from the dimensions of his subjects, his painting process, to his brush strokes. “Data was the painter and technology the brush.” Almost 100 million people joined in the conversation and the campaign went viral, reaching mainstream media. As Nurock explained: “Technology is becoming almost invisible, integrated into our everyday lives.”
2. Virtual reality: From Google to Samsung, everyone is talking about virtual reality, said Nurock. In a campaign with the 164-year-old New York Times, Google distributed 1.3 million Google Cardboard VR headsets to subscribers
“We are moving to a world of collaboration. As technology develops, we shall have to collaborate with people who know technology. And they will have to collaborate with us for ideas. Clients are telling us that our complexities are not their problems – they want agencies to deliver,” Nurock pointed out. She referenced a campaign that went viral massively by Burger King, which approached McDonald’s to create a “truce” between the two brands and “collaborate” on International Peace Day to create a new burger, the ‘MacWhopper,’ with proceeds going to the worthy cause of peace. Of course Burger King’s invite was through a newspaper advert – and McDonald’s refused and suggested a phone call next time. This didn’t stop the internet from going crazy over the idea and other brands stepping up to collaborate with Burger King, which in the end created nine billion impressions for the guerrilla campaign and a successful activation for International Peace Day.
4. Simplicity, authenticity and the big idea: “Simplicity and authenticity ruled when it came to ideas at Cannes this year and this is what most of the judges were looking for. It doesn’t matter how much the budget was,” said Nurock, referring to a breast cancer advert for a charity in Argentina. The Macma charity created one of the most successful ads for
breast cancer advising women on how to check their breasts for lumps – by using a hairy chested man’s “man boobs” to great effect and to avoid being censored by social media sites. #Manboobsforboobs trended and generated 193 million impressions for the campaign. The most successful breast cancer ad ever.
Man boobs Ad on YouTube
5. Creativity can change the world: As Nurock reiterated: “You can do well and you can do good. It is all about the brand with a higher purpose.” She referenced an ad from Cannes by Heineken, which has actually created a fuel from a by-product of beer, called ‘Brewtroleum,’ which it is actually now rolling out across fuel stations in New Zealand and the brewer has plans for the rest of the world. The campaign slogan of “Drink beer, save the world” was particularly apt and very popular with consumers, winning big at Cannes. Brands are changing the world, indeed.
6. Stop gender stereotypes and the objectification of women: Leading women in advertising and marketing and celebrities are calling on the advertising industry to stop objectifying women. Unilever is one which has decided to stop stereotyping women in their advertising. This is what brands must never do to women in advertising if they want to remain relevant to their current and future consumers, Nurock emphasised: • First of all, a woman mustn’t be seen as a body prop. • Women must not be used as body parts. • A woman mustn’t be so retouched so that she becomes unrealistic looking. • And most importantly, brands must be empathic when it comes to gender stereotypes and measure their advertising against how they would feel if it was their mother, sister, daughter potrayed. – Louise Marsland
| ADCETERA
Dani Hynes recreates life’s most important moments for new ABSA website As part of an extraordinary online brand film campaign, Egg Films’ director Dani Hynes wrote and directed nine short brand films for ABSA’s new My Moments website.
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onceptualised as a collaborative effort between Hynes and Johannesburg-based digital agency Base2, the new campaign is made up of nine interlinked stories, each focused on life’s most momentous events from getting married, to starting a family, retirement and even death. This was Hynes’ second time collaborating with Base2 and ABSA, “and the level of trust we’ve established has been amazing,” she says. At the start of the creative process, Jacque Matthee, then Base2’s executive creative director, briefed Hynes on creating a five-minute film centred on how life’s biggest moments connect with ABSA’s collection of products. From there came the idea of nine short films which the client was surprisingly very open to. “Not many agencies or clients would allow me to expand a brief like that,” says Hynes. The separate films each portray a day in the life of conventional South African citizens trying to deal with a significant turning point in their lives. Hynes says that the films are reminders that life’s big financial events are also life’s big emotional moments while also providing viewers with an intricate snapshot of the next stage of their lives that they need to prepare wisely for. “Divorce and death were two moments I felt passionately about, because in advertising we tend to only focus on the sweet moments in life, rather than acknowledging how lovely it is to have something so precious that it hurts to say goodbye. So credit to Base2 and ABSA for giving us permission to tell really human stories, where you get
The ABSA My Moments short films tell human stories
moments of both warmth and pain,” she expands. “A lot of people who’ve watched Moments have told me, ‘Oh my God, it feels so real,’ which is what we were aiming for.” Each film tells a story about a different demographic, which Hynes says made the casting process quite challenging, especially since she endeavoured to find people who hadn’t previously been featured in other financial sector ads. “I think I saw every Afrikaans person in the greater Gauteng area,” she quips, “We cast people who are as close to their character as possible. Gaelene Lithgow from G-Stop does all my casting and they were just fantastic.” Every short film in the ABSA My Moments campaign has its own look and feel dependent on the context of the story. “For example, I spent a lot of time chatting with DOP James Adey about how the world feels when you have a
baby, how it’s warm and familiar inside, whereas the outside world almost feels like an intrusion,” she explains. “In the empty nest story, we tried to have Mrs Govender in the frame by herself regularly, as that was her biggest fear about her daughter leaving, but we kept a warm, amber tone to the story to create the sense of a loving home. Overall, we wanted them to look like short films, like life but prettier, and to take you into the moment.” DOP James Adey shot the cinematically sentimental campaign using two Alexa Plus cameras for their ruggedness and ease of use, “especially the ability to change colour temperature on camera on the fly,” he says. “The Alexa has a good roll off in the highlights and fantastically smooth shadow detail quality. We used Master Primes, which are bullet proof and offer pretty much everything you need out of a lens.”
The profoundly emotive cinematic style impeccably combined with the nostalgic voice over leaves the viewer feeling moved in ways which a conventional ad would struggle to achieve. Hynes says that brand films are becoming increasingly popular because people are tired of short, snappy, stereotypical characters “and they want to make the kind of connections that aren’t usually possible in 30 seconds.” She expands: “With these films, the moments were prescribed and are all so common they have their own visual shorthand. So the key was finding new and honest ways of showing them. Luckily, the brand film format allowed us the luxury of extrapolation; for a change, we had more than three seconds to show people getting married, or a baby being born, which gave us time to find the nuances. That makes all the difference.” – Chanelle Ellaya October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 21
ADCETERA
|
Into the wire and through the lens
Still from 360’ behind the scenes video
MultiChoice is on a roadshow throughout South Africa, bringing DStv to malls across the country where visitors can experience an immersive and interactive VR video that explores the inner workings of the satellite pay-tv operator.
“I
nspired by the film Lord of War’s intro sequence, ‘The Life of a Bullet,’ we wanted to take the viewer on a journey through the eyes of the media equipment used to create the local and international content that MultiChoice broadcasts,” explains technical creative director Keno Naidoo of Left Post Productions. The VR film starts with the camera being switched on within SuperSport Studio 6 and from there it moves through the SSD card to the DIT’s workstation, the travel drive, the offline and online edit suites, the broadcast control room, satellite transmission into space and then back down through a home satellite dish into the television it’s being viewed on. “Through the entire process, the viewer is motivated (by both picture and spatial audio) to look around them, seeing the inner workings of the television,” adds Naidoo. The brief was given to create a mobile VR application that functioned with the Samsung Gear VR headset and Samsung S7 mobile devices. “The application would need to allow the user to view the VR content with as little instruction on how to use the Gear VR setup as possible,” explains producer James Gaydon of Dondoo Studios. “Meaning the user would need to be able to use the app without ever having seen or used VR technology before. Moreover the application would need to house a VR video that incorporated spatial audio.” Oxyg3n Media conceptualised and produced the VR piece. FC Hamman Films built and operated the specially
22 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
designed drone to carry the VR rig. Left Post Productions was responsible for the offline and online edit, as well as the Visual Effects. Dondoo Studios created the app that hosted the VR piece on the S7 phones, did the final spatial studio arrangement and loaded everything onto the phones. Audio Militia was responsible for sound design, composed the music, and mixed all separate audio stems for spatial audio arrangement. The video was filmed at MultiChoice’s head office in Randburg, where exterior drone shots were taken, and interior at SuperSport Studio 6, MultiChoice City and the broadcast control room. Filming was also done at Left Post’s facilities and various other interior and exterior suburban locations. “We tried to keep the look slick and high-end, finishing in a commercial online suite,” explains Naidoo. “We also tried to incorporate the MultiChoice blue within most of the frames. The vibe is quirky and informative with a pace that leaves you wanting more,” he adds. The promo was shot on a specially modified 360 GoPro rig with 220˚ lenses that were imported, as well as a 3D printed housing, designed in house by Naidoo. “We also made use of the Samsung Gear VR camera for the tight squeezes like the card-reader shot and so too when the travel drive gets placed into an envelope,” says director Cremer van Dango of Oxyg3n Media. He explains that for the shots going into space they used a combination of live action and CG. FC Hamman Films built a specially modified drone that could house the VR
rig on a poled gimbal to ensure that the cameras did not moved and shift on their own, allowing for a relatively easy stitch of the footage. “A rough sketch with measurements of the environment for each shot was done so that we could build a blocked out 3D representation of each set. This formed part of the spatial audio preparation,” explains van Dango. “Due to the availability and questionable localisation quality of an ambi-sonic microphone, we opted to go with lapel mics on set to capture mono sounds at their points of origin and generate the specialisation in engine.” Vallerie Groenewald built housings to simulate being inside the monitors and television sets, as well as the customised card reader slot, that was built to fit the SSD drive with attached Samsung Gear VR camera mounted on top. The promo was filmed between June and July 2016, with days off in between for art department requirements, location restrictions and testing. “Developing VR applications is proving to be a lot of fun and every project brings rise to new challenges,” says Gaydon. “The media can be very demanding on the hardware. VR footage can be very large and when you incorporate positional audio you have to find a happy medium to ensure the app runs smoothly on a mobile device and the user has the best experience without too much lag on loading times.” Gaydon says it was also a lot of fun working on new workflows with the audio team to ensure they received usable files for development in Unity (game engine). “It was a challenge ensuring a smooth stitching line, which meant we had to specially block all movement to ensure that no people or objects were cut-off within the stitching line,” explains van Dango. “We’ve done a lot of R&D with both the GoPro rig we’ve built as well as the Samsung Gear VR camera leading up to the shoot and identified the perfect action filming distances on both,”
he adds. The video was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 with Mettle plugin for VR footage editing. MultiChoice roadshow kicked off in in August in Cape Town and will continue through to December 2016 in Pretoria. – Cera-Jane Catton
Key Crew • Oxyg3n Media: Executive Producer: Rebecca Fuller-Campbell Director and camera: Cremer Van Dango Art Department: Vallerie Groenewald Sound: Musa Radebe & Henry Prentice
• Left Post Productions: Executive Producer: Jacqui Pearson Producer: Vicki Kotze Editor: Tumi Ditshego Visual Effects/Text elements/ Online & Grade: Keno Naidoo
• Dondoo Studios: Technical Director and lead programmer: Divesh Naidoo Producer: James Gaydon UI design: Jeremy Van Reenen
• FC Hamman Films: Specialised Drone build: Carl Nicholl & Timothy Hamman Drone Pilot: Carl Nicholl Drone Camera Operator: Timothy Hamman
• Audio Militia: Executive Producer: Nick Argyros Producer: Jade McKinon Head Engineer: Craig Hawkins Engineer / Sound Design: Richard Staub
OPINION
| ADCETERA
Let’s be faster out the blocks on telling our sports stars’ stories Written by Colin Howard,
co-founder and managing director, Arcade Content
For a sports-mad nation, our advertising industry tells remarkably few of the stories of arguably our country’s biggest celebrities – our sports stars.
T
o see how influential our sporting heroes are, just look at Twitter. According to BlackSmoke research released towards the end of last year, Proteas cricket captain AB De Villiers was the most followed South African celebrity on Twitter, while six of the top ten men were cricketers. Since then, Trevor Noah may have overtaken him thanks to hosting The Daily Show, but AB now has 3.7 million followers – a million more in less than a year. Some of South Africa’s most memorable advertising campaigns have harnessed the power of sport, from the Be The Coach campaign surrounding Ogilvy’s multi-award-winning Carling Black Label Cup to Arcade co-founder Lebogang Rasethaba’s recent #operation45 campaign with Y&R for Operation Smile, which highlighted that it only takes 45 minutes to perform a cleft lip correction surgery – the same amount of time as half a game of soccer. But these campaigns are the exceptions that prove the rule: sport gets surprisingly little game-time in local advertising. About this time last year, just before the Rugby World Cup began, I remember watching a brand film about how Ashwin Willemse had been born into a gang but grown into a Springbok. The campaign was for Guinness Europe, conceptualised by London agency AMV BBDO and directed by Stink’s John Hillcoat, an Australian. Ashwin Willemse was Player of the Season way back in 2003, so I wondered why South African creatives had slept on this story for more than a decade
Still from the Caster Semenya tribute before allowing it to be repackaged for an international market by international creatives. Fast-forward a year, and I was delighted when Nike approached Arcade Content to make a tribute to Caster Semenya ahead of her Olympic final. The idea for the film came from a long journey between Nike South Africa, their agency Design Futura and Lebo, who played a key role in developing the delicate tonal and conceptual foundation of the piece. From there, director Kyle Lewis entered the mix to bring his stylistic and emotional sensibilities to the film, resulting in something Arcade is deeply proud of – a tribute to Caster that clocked more than 500 000 views in the space of a weekend, with Caster herself being proud enough to share it on her social media. The piece salutes Caster’s will to succeed even as her legitimacy as a female athlete has been continually contested on the grounds of society’s deep-seated fear of that which is different. Caster’s courage and determination is celebrated through a montage of powerful portraits of teenage girls staring into camera while a voiceover delivers a message about society’s tendency to hold female athletes back
instead of allowing them to flourish. Caster went on to win her race, taking a gold medal home to her country, while the film’s powerful message sparked a torrent of pride and enthusiasm across both South African and international social media platforms. It was the kind of goodwill money can’t buy, leveraged by a forward-thinking agency with a brave client prepared to back a local star before she won her medal, not after. At Arcade, we’ve specialised in this kind of influence marketing – in authentically matching a brand message with an influencers’ existing voice, using directors who understand the nuances of what that influencer represents. Lebo’s double Loerie-winning Castle Lite Ziyabanda campaign for Ogilvy with Stilo Magolide and Sibot is a good example, as is Mr Madumane, Kyle Lewis’ recent music video for Cassper Nyovest, which formed part of King James’ National Saving’s Month campaign for Sanlam. Working with sports stars is a natural extension of our work with musicians and other celebrities, and is something we’re looking forwards to doing more of. The Olympics were a reminder that South Africa not only has some of the world’s best athletes, but that they have some of
the most remarkable stories too. Anna “Tannie Ans” Botha, a 74-yearold great-grandmother, coached Wayde van Niekerk to the 400m world record. Just before the Olympics, Sunette Viljoen spoke out about the physical abuse she endured from her family for being a lesbian, but stayed focused and won a Silver medal for javelin, dedicating her Olympic year to “everyone who is being broken emotionally or physically over who they love.” These are the kind of powerful, real life stories we want to be telling, stories of inspirational South Africans who make us want to be better, matched with brands which share the values they represent. Six months ago, Telkom brought out a popular ad, using 100 and 200m world record holder Usain Bolt to promote their new ‘Boltspeed’ fibre broadband. It was an understandable choice, but imagine if they’d used Wayde van Niekerk instead? Imagine how much free mileage that ad would have had after he smashed the 400m world record from lane eight, how much goodwill it would have generated? Let’s all aim to be faster out the blocks from here on. Because if we don’t tell our sports stars’ stories quickly enough, you can be sure our international competitors will. October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 23
ADMIT ONE IS A CREATIVE BRAND AGENCY. IN THE NEW CONNECTED AND MULTISCREEN ERA OF BROADCAST, ADMIT ONE HAS THE CAPACITY TO OFFER CONTENT OWNERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REACH THEIR TARGET AUDIENCES MORE EFFECTIVELY. SE SERVICES WE OFFER BRAND IDENTITIES WE CREATE EFFECTIVE BRAND IDENTITIES CONTENT OUR YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN TV, HAS GIVEN US A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT AUDIENCES WANT ENTE ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING WE BRING AUDIENCES TO YOUR BRAND UX & DESIGN WE CREATE ENGAGING USER EXPERIENCES CONTACT US AND SEE YOUR BRAND SOAR.
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THE BRIEF Create a campaign that would resonate with South Africans living abroad and urge them to subscribe to the Video On Demand service.
A 60 second TVC launched the campaign on a few DSTV platforms including kykNET. The video was also shared via social media, including Karen and AB’s 2.3 million followers.
CONCEPT After the success of Karen's show, Republiek van Zoid Afrika, she is seen by many as the godmother of Arts and Culture. A respected figure and friends with many well known South Africans.
Six additional 15 second videos also launched throughout September and October to support the campaign. Admit One designed all related print and digital artwork.
But what about South Africa’s star cricket player AB de Villiers? Using Showmax’s new campaign Karen can now Sh make another new friend and share the best of South African Entertainment at the same time. Both Karen and AB has a massive following on social media platforms. Leveraging this we created a video and print campaign that would entertain their followers and in the process educate them about signing up. educ
PRODUCTION "The biggest challenge with any 'non-actor' is the quality of performance" said director Henre Pretorius. "Both Karen and AB did a great job to convey the message while keeping it natural. This is a testament to how well the production was run. If the talent feels comfortable on set, they’ll look comfortable on camera”.
FILM | SOUTH AFRICA
What
goes around comes around
TWISTING TURNING THRILLER: Hatchet Hour on location
South African independent filmmaker Judy Naidoo’s first feature length production Hatchet Hour is making waves on the international film festival circuit. The film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September as one of four South African films selected by AAA Entertainment to be showcased at the festival. A Ladybug Films production, Hatchet Hour has also been chosen to screen as part of the official selection at the 12th annual LA Femme Film Festival, taking place in Beverly Hills, California in October 2016.
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sensational thriller, the film, directed and produced by Naidoo, follows the frantic efforts of an ambitious lawyer as she tries to conceal the accidental murder – by her – of her gardener. Knowing the ins and outs of the law, she fears she will lose her career and spend time behind bars – a fate she will stop at nothing to avoid. In an attempt to evade the former, she ropes in her best friend to help her get rid of the body. Naidoo says that the film hopes to drive home the message that ultimately
26 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
your actions have consequences which can’t be escaped, “and what goes around comes around.” The film is written by Naidoo and Salah Sabiti, and stars Erica Wessels, Petronella Tshuma and Adam Croasdell amongst others. Naidoo, who founded the South African production company Ladybug Films in 2002, says that the film has essentially been ten years in the making. In 2006, when she returned from the New York Film Academy, her close colleague Sofia de Fay offered her rights to the
screenplay that is now Hatchet Hour “on condition I rescued it from her ancient dying computer at her old house, which I did,” she explains. “She entrusted me with it and I’ve been trying to make it ever since. In 2012, through the assistance of the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) I was able to develop the script further, by this stage it was no longer relevant, very dated. Together with Salah Sabiti we rewrote the story but the basic premise (which I loved from the onset) remained the same… I loved the premise. Especially since it involves two female leads… I’ve not seen interesting, challenging roles like these written for SA women. It’s also a thriller with all the twists and turns that, that genre encompasses. It’s an unusual film but definitely an entertaining watch.” In 2015, together with support from M-Net, the NFVF, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Gauteng Film Commission (GFC), production on Hatchet Hour commenced. Once Naidoo and Sabiti completed the screenplay cast auditions were held in Johannesburg with some actors sending in audition clips through their agents. Naidoo explains that while there were auditions that took place, she conducted her own search perusing suitable talent and their body of work before asking to see specific actors – this is how she found two of her three leads. “Erica Wessels I discovered through my own search. Adam Croasdell and I attended Wits University together around the same time so I was familiar
with his work but I had the chance to audition him in Los Angeles when I was there in 2014 for a directing course with Judith Weston. Petronella Tshuma emerged through the audition process. They each had something quiet unique to themselves that they were able to offer the roles.” With the cast finalised, filming commenced on Hatchet Hour and continued for four weeks in and around Johannesburg. The film’s colour palette primarily encompasses cold exteriors and warm interiors, which Naidoo says was decided on at the onset. DOP Tom Marais shot the film using a Sony F3 and exceeded expectations in achieving the desired look and feel, “which is often clean, classic and very structured/ composed,” comments Naidoo. “Certain colours also pop, like yellows and reds but this was very intentional. Also, I felt the film had a noir feel and wanted to work a lot with reflections and seeing through things like glass, or obstructions in the frame. Our locations were excellent as they allowed us to play with these ideas and achieve them.” Hatchet Hour will have its world premiere at the LA Femme International Film Festival while its South African premiere will take place in conjunction with the Joburg Film Festival. The film is due for theatrical release on 4 November and is distributed by Black Sheep Films in South Africa while AAA Entertainment is handling negotiations with foreign territories. – Chanelle Ellaya
Fly direct in only 90 minutes from OR Tambo - Margate.
FILM | Director Speak Dan Mace
Dan Mace fell in love with filmmaking when he realised it had the potential to give voice to his thoughts. The budding young filmmaker chatted to Screen Africa about everything, from where he finds his inspiration, to winning two awards at the Young Director Awards at Cannes Lions 2016, and why he loves sharing his work on YouTube…
How did you get into filmmaking? Has it always been the plan? I have always perceived things differently to others and when I realised that I could fill the void between the two by creating a visual moving art form I was sold. Film directing has given my thoughts a relatable voice or point of contact to speak to a large group of people. When I was around 15 years old I got sent to Madagascar on a surf trip with O’Neill (my surfing sponsor at the time) and being the only kid with a video camera I decided to film everything. In the end I realised that I had spent more time on the land filming the local architecture and culture than in the water surfing with everyone else. I taught myself to edit on one of the first Final Cut packages and produced a really drawn out 40-minute documentary. This is where it all began; using a camera to tell a story in the way in which I chose to see it – which is generally a positive, inspirational light. I finished school and started studying at a local film college in Cape Town, but found that they just put film into a box and you had to stick to all these guidelines which I just couldn’t get right so I left after about a year and entered into the world of YouTube and online filmmaking. I would film anything from outdoor trance parties to three-year olds’ birthday celebrations to get money together to be able to create a new film for my YouTube channel called DanTheDirector and to pay the bills of course. 28 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
What kind of content do you enjoy creating? Definitely inspiring stories. The ones that inspire you to be more you. I like to find people that are different from the rest, the ones going against the grain, but at the same time creating change of some sort. I believe that the more people I find like that around the world will inspire my future projects in hope of making a deeply moving feature film based on true events.
ON A FILMMAKING WAVE: Dan Mace on location shooting his short film Fighting to Save Zanzibar’s Sea Turtles Slowly but surely I started to progress and make films about more pressing issues and always highlighting an inspirational element. It was not long till I started getting pretty awesome work through my channel where I had the ability to direct freely (both films that won Silver at theYoung Director Awards in Cannes this year were YouTube projects of mine). This is just the beginning of the ladder for me as a director and I hope to expand from YouTube and be able to speak to larger audiences in the near future. Where do you draw inspiration from? Cape Town, South Africa filled with arts that are deeply rooted in our heritage from amazing music, film, photography and theatre. To me I believe it’s the diversity of sounds and music we have at home. Film is like music for the eyeballs and what better place to learn about visual rhythm than a culturally rich South Africa. There are also endless stories in Cape Town; inspiring and honest ones. That’s why I guess I focus on telling inspiring stories no matter where I am in the world. Congratulations on the two silver awards you won at the Young Director Awards at Cannes Lions this year, what projects were the wins for? There were two categories that I got nominations in. The one was ‘Changing the World Frame by Frame’ where I got two nominations and one of my films, Mine Detection Rats, won silver. And then the Short Film category where my film, Gift won a silver as well. What has been the highlight of your career thus far? The highlight for me has been watching the idea I had of being able to create films that inspired me and on top of that being able to make a living doing so, come true. It was a just a little while before Cannes where I took a step back and thought to myself, ‘wait a second, things are actually starting to come together here. This is epic!’. My ultimate goal in this industry would be to carry on making films that inspire me to keep on keeping on. What has been the toughest job you’ve worked on so far? I’d say the first ever music video I made; my first budget job as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, to be honest, and everyone was looking at me as the director to know what the hell was going on, but I didn’t have any answers. The video didn’t turn out too badly in the end actually, but it was a HUGE learning curve for me and I’m stoked I did it!
Do you hope to cross over into feature film making in the future? For now I am just super stoked to be making short films in hope that I will slowly learn to master the art of a compelling short story. If I reach that goal I will then definitely move into the longer format filmmaking business, yes. You have a large YouTube following; what is it about the medium that you love? YouTube is an awesome platform because it is free as well as widely accessed by millions of people around the globe . It is the perfect platform to be able to share your ideas freely as well as engage with large audiences that are on the same page as you. Most of my work comes through people recognising my work from YouTube and Instagram. Top three favourite directors. Darren Aronofsky, Sam Brown, David Fincher. What is your dream shoot location? And why? Dream shoot location would have to be doing a deforestation piece in the Amazon. I guess it’s just a place I have always wanted to travel to and a really interesting topic. When you’re not making films, you’re… Surfing. If you weren’t a filmmaker, you would be… A musician of some sort. If you could choose anyone to play you in your biopic, who would it be? Jesse Eisenberg What next for Dan Mace? Seeing the quality of all the other directors’ films at the Young Director Awards this year was a big eye opener for me and has really given me the push to keep diving deeper into my scripts and to put in that extra effort in the referencing and pre-production phase… you know, the small things you overlook. I think that’s what truly separates a good film from a great film. I am redoing my entire Brand ID and focussing on utilising film in the best way possible, which for me is in the ‘Changing the World Frame by Frame’ category, as well as focusing on my YouTube channel by sharing relevant and engaging content with people that care. – Compiled by Chanelle Ellaya
FILM
|
DRC
Petna Ndaliko’s Petna Ndaliko Katandolo is an artist, filmmaker and founder of the Yolé! Africa Cultural Center in Goma. He runs Alkebu Productions, and the Salaam Kivu International Film Festival which he has hosted annually at Yolé! Africa since October 2005.
30 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
H
Cine Activism
e’s a multitalented artist and internationally acclaimed filmmaker whose cinematic style combines rhythm, image, colour, and social critique with innovation to challenge traditional narrative structures. His films skirt the boundary of fiction and actuality and provoke reflection on post-colonial African realities. Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been embroiled in violence that has killed as many as six million people. The conflict has been the world’s bloodiest since World War II. The first and second Congo Wars involved multiple foreign armies and investors from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad, Libya, and Sudan, among others, and has been so devastating that it is sometimes called the ‘African World War.’ Women have been raped and children maimed due to political and tribal upheavals that have purged the country. Yet even in these challenges artists such as Ndaliko find their own voice in capturing these events. “I think there’s more to film than telling stories,” he says. “Africa is rich with traditional lore and wisdom but the colonists demanded we cave in to their Western ideology, which they deemed superior, and most Africans grew up with this notion, which is totally distorted. That
is why in my films, Africaness – if I can use that word – is important to me.” With works of art such as Jazz Mama, Ndaliko vents his creative preoccupations through tales of Congolese women who have suffered rape and damnation during war. The 30-minute doc aimed to raise awareness around gender based violence in Congo without portraying the female characters simply as victims. It’s a shot that denotes the agility and the compulsive métier of feminine survival vis-à-vis a violent environment. “It is possible to use art as a means to an end. Jazz Mama was meant to pass a message about the strength of Congolese women and not their victimisation; this was the critical value of the piece for its audience.” Born and raised in Goma, North Kivu province, Ndaliko graduated in stage direction from the Experimental, Cultural and Ecological Workshop in Tchimba. He remembers seeing victims of Rwandan genocide trickling through his hometown as they fled war, his mother offering food, clothing and accommodation to the devastated men, women and children. It is this image that stuck in his mind for years, prompting his first play, Victims of War. “I was sick,” he laments. “I wanted an outlet that could creatively document
with sheer clarity that image of war and torture that the Rwandan Genocide brought with it.” War broke out in his country in 1996, and he began his activism which eventually led to expulsion from his home country in 1997; he went to Uganda. And in the year 2000 he founded Yole! Africa with the help of Dutch anthropologist Ellen Lammers. Yole! Africa is a creative platform aimed at giving youth the tools to imagine and create works of art and unhinge them from the trauma of war. Ndaliko says. “Now we have trained thousands of children in film, music and photography through Yole! Africa and we hope to do more and instill the importance of activism through creativity and art.” He also helped set the first international film festival in DR Congo; The Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (SKIFF) which is organised by Yole! Africa and Alkebu Film Productions. SKIFF is a ten-day festival that includes film screenings followed by community discussions, a series of workshops including video production and editing, music video creation, audio recording, music composition and performance, poetry and storytelling, hip hop and contemporary dance, as well as hosting live concerts and a dance competition.
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Each year the events and activities of SKIFF are oriented around a specific theme that is relevant to current events in the region. He’s perhaps best known for Mabele Na Biso (Our Land), an unlikely true account done in three acts. The story captures Congo’s autonomy, community innovation, and its evident success. Narrated by women, men, and youth, it uses their realities to define the place they come from and the daily routine of life as it unfolds. “We wanted to use Congolese who tell about their daily realities with the use of local and global technologies in solving their problem,” Ndaliko quips. “These characters were critical to address their challenges and our main objective was to document these factors and show the audience that people still believe in themselves and can offer homegrown solutions to their problems without the need of looking to the West.” But why cine activism? “Because it matters. We have an obligation as artists to impact the society with our creativity and it behooves us to reflect its challenges, needs, progresses and successes without fear or prejudice but with pride and appreciation of who we are as Africans.” – Sam Charo
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October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 31
Documentary
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Celebrating the
father of
African cinema In addition to being known as the father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembène is similarly one of the key figures of world cinema. “Though Sembène is one of the most important artists of the last 50 years, his legacy is not yet secure, and his works – which are more relevant and powerful than ever – are not being seen,” says Jason Silverman, co-writer, director and producer of the documentary Sembène!
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othing describes the impact Sembène has had on Africa and the world more than the opening line of the film: “I grew up in a small village in Senegal, with no TV, no newspapers, no radio. All I had were stories told by my grandmother. By the time I was 14, I dreamed of becoming French, like the characters in the books I read in high school. When I was 17, I discovered the stories of Ousmane Sembène, the father of African cinema. Suddenly, I did not want to be French anymore. I wanted to be African.” This is a line by the film’s co-writer, director and producer, Professor Samba Gadjigo. The film poignantly explores the life of Sembène, a dockworker from Senegal, expelled from school in the sixth grade who, when he discovered literature and the movies at 14, dreamed of becoming a storyteller for a new Africa. From Senegal to Dakar to the French Army, he published his first poem in 1956 before returning to Africa in 1960 where he published three successful novels. Sembène was among the first filmmakers to indigenise cinema, disseminating African narrative structures, and creating his own production company. This revolutionary artist created under impossible circumstances using limited resources, and yet Sembène’s works have won awards at festivals in Venice, Moscow, Los Angeles and Karlovy Vary. All of his feature films have been translated into English, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. “Africa is my
32 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
audience,” he said, “while the West is my market.” Sembène’s introduction of genuinely African film aesthetics transformed cinematic practice both in Africa and around the world, offering inspiration for other marginalised societies, whose members began to pick up cameras and tell their own stories. Sembène! is told through the experiences of a man who knew him well, his colleague and official biographer Gadjigo, using rare archival footage and more than 100 hours of exclusive material. It was in 2009, the year of Sembène’s passing, when this passion project began. It took more than a year of legal exchanges before Gadjigo and Silverman were granted access to his home and his archives. “Africa becomes alienated and too often Africans know more about London and Paris than they do about Africa,” says Gadjigo. At 17 he discovered Sembène’s novel, God’s Bits of Wood, and says it was a mind shattering
experience. “I had been lied to for years and years through my education,” he says. He went on to read everything that had been published but was disturbed that it was not readily available in Senegal and it wasn’t until he lived in the US that it became clear that he would dedicate all his work and teachings to Sembène. Without funding for the film and needing to cross the world to make it happen, Silverman and Gadjigo poured their life savings into realising their vision. Further challenged by trying to convince American firms to finance an African documentary, the pair turned to Kickstarter and gained worldwide support. “Family, friends and strangers came together,” says Gadjigo. “This is an opportunity to let other people know there is always a dialogue to the world and the best way is through art and culture.” The labour of love was seven years in the making and has since been screened in more than 35 countries. “We spent seven years researching, collecting material, shooting interviews and editing, and have now spent about 18 months getting the film out into the world. We have another eight months or so of plans in terms of disseminating the film,” says Silverman. The film had been in edit for two years with Hollywood freelance editors but it was not coming together. It wasn’t until Gadjigo, riding a bus in Utah, met Ricardo Acosta, an exiled Cuban living in Toronto, who happened to be an editor. He then took less than nine months to “break the code and gather all
| Documentary our building blocks and use his magic fingers to music: everything was poetry for him,” says Gadjigo. “We wanted the story to create magic, and it did.” 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of Sembène’s passing and they are applying for grants to show the doccie to every single African country. “A film which should be shared with the world,” Gadjigo adds. “They say it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a planet to make a movie.” “The opportunity to tell his story was a true gift, and the response to our documentary, which includes the launch
of a restoration project for all of his films, has made all of the work worthwhile,” says Silverman. He explains that they collected 180 hours of archival materials, which came in every format imaginable, and shot on a variety of cameras, including, at first, standard def Sony cameras, and by the end (as the technology shifted) HD Panasonic and Sony cameras. “The difference in cameras was due to the fact that we worked with African cinematographers when in Africa, European cinematographers when in Europe, New York cinematographers on the American
East Coast, and Los Angeles cinematographers on the American West Coast,” explains Silverman. They edited on Avid, which he says was at the time the best system for a complex project that had multiple editing collaborators. The biggest challenge was acquiring the materials, which came from dozens of different sources, and in many cases had technical problems. Silverman adds, “Few facilities in Senegal have climate controlled storage, and some materials were too degraded to use.” Silverman says that weaving Gadjigo’s story with Sembène’s story took them a year of editing to work out how to do that. “Samba is not a traditional narrator; he himself had his life’s path irrevocably altered by his encounters with Sembène – first with Sembène’s work, and then with the man himself. But striking the right balance between the two interlocking stories was challenging,” says Silverman. He adds that working with Gadjigo was the most gratifying and deepest experience of his professional life. “We travelled to Africa together, discussed every element of the story and its contexts and then pushed each other to find the real heart and soul of this very important story. Sembène is a true hero
to me, but the work I did was equally motivated by my desire to have Samba’s story recognised.” The soundtrack includes selections from Baaba Maal, Youssou Ndour and from the album Águas da Amazonia, a collaboration between Phillip Glass and the indigenous Brazilian ensemble Uakti, which uses instrumentation that they create. Canadian composer Ken Myhr wrote original music. Sembène! was released theatrically across cinemas in the UK alongside one-off screenings of three of Sembène’s other works mentioned in the film: Xala, Moolaade and Black Girl. More than 70 screenings in cinemas across the UK, made possible by Aya Distribution being awarded a BFI Programme Development Fund to present, Rebel with a Camera: The Cinema of Ousmane Sembène that will tour through more than 20 cities until the end of December. Gadjigo and Silverman will be in the UK in October to take part in Q&As and discussions following selected screenings across the country. Aya Distribution project director, Justine Atkinson, says:“Through rare archive footage and personal anecdotes, interweaved with beautiful animation and led by a personal voice-over by Gadigo, the film captures the essence of Sembène’s work, providing an honest portryal of the father of African cinema. We are therefore extremely pleased to bring this documentary to UK screens this autumn along with Sembène’s films.” Gadjigo explains that more than a filmmaker, Sembène was one of Africa’s most prolific and recognised writers, with seven of his ten published literary works translated into English and included in the curricula of high schools and universities throughout Africa. Sembène is considered as perhaps the most important cultural figures of 20th-century Africa, an artist whose 50 years of creative output led the way for generations of African, African-American and AfricanEuropean writers, filmmakers and scholars. “We will never be Arabs or Europeans,” Sembène said. “We are Africans.” – Cera-Jane Catton
October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 33
Documentary
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Finding
meaning in the mundane
OLD WORLD WISDOM: Still from the documentary Unwritten
How does one find inspiration while stuck in traffic rushing to get a job that steals the day, how does one seek beauty in a city littered with cynicism? Unwritten: A Visual Journey of Nepal is a graceful documentary of The Fort CEO and Rainmakers Journal founder Shukri Toefy’s journey to Nepal. As told from the pages of his journal, it gently seeks answers to those questions.
A
voiding North Face peppered tourists trailing with K-Way in the Kathmandu Valley as a gateway to conquer Everest, this film explores the cultures of this ancient city and searches for its wisdom beneath the mountain. “Nepal is like a museum without walls,” says Toefy of the choice of Nepal as the destination in his and The Fort CCO Amr Singh’s search for enlightenment. They say it was Nepal’s old world wisdom and mystique that attracted them. A passion project for all involved, it began as a search for adventure, says Singh. Inspired by the idea that the greatest gift anyone can give is knowledge gained from experience, Unwritten is a journey of self-enlightenment that, despite racking
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up awards wherever it is screened, will remain as part of an outreach programme to be used to inspire youth to start journaling and to travel and get out of their comfort zones. The film is a visual meditation on the beauty of the world in which we live, no matter where we are. “We see ourselves as storytellers, but as brand storytellers,” shares Toefy of the build-up to making this film. “This is not what we do every day; this was a creative expression piece that we just wanted to do.” He says the project is an interesting juxtaposition as normal indie filmmakers that come from the commercial ad world. The story starts more than a decade ago when Toefy and Singh were at UCT and started The Fort advertising agency. Toefy at the time worked as a cab driver
and started keeping a journal. “A journal changes the frequency of things, keeping a journal has been one of the most powerful tools for me as an entrepreneur,” says Toefy. “A fascination with the everyday person’s knowledge was the real genesis around this film project,” he adds. This is what started the Rainmakers Journal, a thought leadership platform encouraging people to keep journals. “The seeds of your success lie within you and you must journal and write them down,” says Toefy. They wanted to experience this in a land they had never been to and decided to take a camera and just go. Armed with a RED MX borrowed from Panavision, together with a set of Zeiss Super Speed lenses and a single LED
light, Toefy and Singh got on a plane and went to Nepal at the end of 2014 to document a journal over ten days. Filmed in 4K high definition, all camera equipment was from Panavision, camera, glass, and full kit. With a few exceptions, Singh chose to shoot using only natural light and also made use of a number of creative innovations, such as shooting through broken glass, to create the film’s look and feel. “We were relying on the time of day and it lent itself well to the aesthetic we wanted,” he says. “The crew on the ground in Nepal were really good,” says Toefy. “There is this universal film language; no one spoke English. This one guy looked about 12 and he was pulling focus like a genius, no
| Documentary
Behind the scenes in Kathmandu with the crew of Unwritten
marks but hitting the mark every time,” he adds. On arriving in Kathmandu they had one contact on the ground, and he hooked them up with anyone they needed. “The sound guy was a gamer who burns DVDs. Some interviews had crackling and many issues, but it was an interesting learning process and we will release a behind-the-scenes because it was really funny,” says Toefy. Despite ten days of less than three hours sleep per night, they say the process was nothing short of fun. “It was a very organic process, and the whole project was a cathartic experience, and the film is an art piece,” says Toefy. “The final scene was at the holiest place in the world for Hindus and we had to smuggle the camera in there and had to split up,” says Singh. “We tried to make it cinematic and peaceful but filming some of those scenes was really stressful.” He says it is a “Feather in the cap of the old RED MX because we were using all natural light with Zeiss Super Speed lenses, which helped because they are very sensitive to light,” he adds. “Wide landscape using natural light, time of day was vital, but in Kathmandu it is so
beautiful, you just point in any direction and it is the most beautiful thing you have ever shot,” says Singh. After their return home to South Africa the footage of the journey slept for nine months. “Traditionally we can tell a three-act narrative, but after we came back, life is not a three act narrative, it is a fluid poetic accident and that is half reflected in the film,” says Toefy. “So while we tried to create that structure we kept it as loose as possible. It sat for nine months because we knew it would be difficult.” Between work and family they edited between 12h00 and 4h00 each morning. The film was in post for three months offline and two weeks online. It was edited in Adobe Premier Pro and coloured at Blade/Pudding, while final mix was done at Hey Papa Legend (HPL) with music from Audio Network, outside of the original pieces captured in Nepal. The music was heavily curated, with Toefy and Singh spending more than 100 hours going through music and then mixing it with HPL. “Editor Tshepo Dladla really made this film,” adds Toefy. “We didn’t make it for a festival piece,” says Singh. “What attracted us to it was
the adventure and the process of making it. Part of it was, can we get on a plane and make a film by wandering into Kathmandu?” They thought they would get there, find knowledge, take it and bring it home. “How privileged am I flying across the world and expecting to get answers? In the edit we realised that was the story we needed to tell,” says Toefy. Unlike MacDonald’s, you can’t just order wisdom, explains the film, in which we see a student crush paint for a whole year as an apprentice before his teacher imparts wisdom, “and then I come along with a camera and want some quick insight.” “In a quiet Alchemist way, the beauty lies in everyday things all around you and hopefully people will come out of it knowing they don’t have to go all the way to Nepal, they can take time to have a cup of tea and unlock the beauty around you.” The making of the film has helped The Fort CEO and CCO be less restless, “Two years ago we felt like sell-outs and felt like we needed to use our skills to do something authentic but now we see we employ 40 people and that is our
contribution to society,” says Toefy. “Our own lens through which we see ourselves has changed and allows us to feel good about ourselves.” He adds: “Since then we can now trust our ability to shoot an ad in Ivory Coast with an Alexa on our back and a polyboard. We have shot big budget commercials based on this principle, we know we can achieve this aesthetic with one camera and natural lighting. It has made us better filmmakers.” Toefy attended the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards in September to receive the award for Best Cultural Short Documentary. The film received a standing ovation. It has received Official Selections at the Roma Cinema Doc, Largo Film Awards and the Bali International Film Festival, and won the Van Gogh Award for World Cinema: Documentary Feature at the 2016 Amsterdam Film Festival. “It is cool to see people appreciate it from all over, saying it felt like a visual poem, and now we realise we can tell an interesting story and ask, what other stories can we tell?” – Cera-Jane Catton October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 35
FESTIVALS & MARKETS
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Nigeria
Nollywood ambassadors at TIFF As part of TIFF’s 2016 City to City showcase on Lagos, Nigeria, Nollywood actress, producer and superstar Genevieve Nnaji and New York Times’ ‘Scorcese in Lagos’ Kunle Afolayan sat down with industry watchers for an hour long conversation around Nollywood.
T
he session, moderated by Wendy Mitchell provided a deeper insight into the current workings of Nollywood and what mainstream contributions can do to make it better. Partly an expression of pride at an industry that has grown into a global phenomenon and in other parts a direct plea for more global investment in the industry, the discussion saw the unlikely duo of Afolayan and Nnaji prove themselves as some of Nollywood’s brightest and best ambassadors.
On the evolution of Nollywood and The New Nollywood To Kunle Afolayan, Nollywood is still telling the same stories, only in a better way. He credits his first full length feature The Figurine as one of the first movies to challenge the straight-to-DVD model with its clear focus on the cinema. “We tested the cinemas, the available screens and the film did well in the cinemas. It opened up a distribution opportunity, instead of concentrating on the VCD, you first get to the cinema before exploring other distribution channels.” According to him, the cinema option was the major incentive for production values to begin to be raised in Nigeria’s film industry. “After that, a lot of people decided that we cannot compromise on production values. We will still tell our stories, but we will always be considerate about production values.” To Genevieve, it was first of all a 36 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
DEEPER INSIGHT: Kunle Afolayan and Genevieve Nnaji in conversation with Wendy Mitchell at TIFF 2016 change in mindset and prioritisation. She also commended the industry for making the best of available facilities to grow what has become known as Nollywood. “We worked hard with what we had, with what was dealt us and we did the best with what was available to us,” she explained. “Now, there is a greater focus on improving the quality of film because the attention has changed to cinema. There is a different kind of attention that cinema attracts especially if you are trying to fight issues like piracy. You have to focus on where the money is coming from, where the bigger audience is and the only way you can do all that is through cinema.”
On their styles of storytelling Storytelling comes naturally to Africans, Kunle Afolayan says, the means to tell it is the challenge. “In 2005, I resigned from banking, I wanted to tell African stories in a different way; it was a mix of the types of movies that were being shot in Nigeria in the 1970s and what was common in Nollywood then.” He also ascribes a lot of his success to a detailed preproduction process and his team who he has been working with for a while. “As a director, there is nothing as good as working with people who share the same visions as you do.” Nnaji goes back to her first experience as a child actor at the age of eight in the famed Nigerian soap opera Ripples where she learnt first-hand that acting was more than imaginary playmates but a job with other cast and crew observing “I thought acting was a matter of going on screen and doing something that comes easy to you. I took a lot of directing and I loved to take orders from the director. I
still like to be told what to do, she revealed. “These days, people expect you to know everything, you have a lot of experience, just act. However, I still love being told what to do!” Looking forward to more challenges, she added “I’m hoping that things get bigger, the sets get bigger, and we get to work on bigger projects.”
On the evolution of Nollywood – from local markets to panAfrican and global audiences Nnaji explains that she first knew the global impact of Nollywood when she started receiving a lot of fan mail from fans mostly in the Caribbean. “I think my awareness of my success came from outside in. We had travelled far and wide before we even realised it. Nobody was thinking about mainstream or actually crossing outside of Nigeria, much less outside the continent. What has happened has been phenomenal and a breakthrough but we have had to play catch up. It has been a breakthrough that happened really fast and we are trying to adjust and technically catch up. We can’t do it on our own; right now it’s out of our hands. We need the support and backing of people who are used to having their products move this far and we need financing.” Afolayan clarifies that piracy is an area where he gets really touchy. “The truth is most of these films are a labour of love. Funding is mostly sourced internally. Some of us try to tell stories with universal appeal, we put in the technical knowhow. When internet streaming started, people used to put it straight on YouTube. I’m looking forward to a time when a film will be done; a good film and it gets
mainstream distribution.” “I think the TIFF focus is a great thing, this will be the first time that Nigerian cinema will be celebrated in one of the biggest film festivals in the world,” he continues. “However, I am always bitter when I send films to festivals and they ask for screeners with compliments but they will never tell you what it is. A festival is a platform where films get celebrated and sometimes you get a sales deal, however we always get asked who is in the movie. We decided maybe we should be making the films for our people and concentrating on the immediate market. Since then, we are now being spotlighted now with TIFF but we need distribution.” Nnaji adds,” investors might not believe there is a market for our kind of movies but there is. This is because, we tell one story; everybody can identify with it. Our stories are quite peculiar to our country, but everyone has experienced heartbreak, everyone has that wicked mother in law, everyone knows what hurt is, everyone knows what pain is. Everybody knows what classism is regardless of where you’re from, regardless of language and colour. That’s what they need to understand. We are trying to say that we are the same, we tell the same kind of stories just in a different way.” The filmmakers also talked about the entry of Netflix into the Nigerian space and how it has helped distribution globally. “It is welcome because now you are encouraged to take more risks, Nnaji said. Her movie Road to Yesterday is available on Netflix. Afolayan’s 2015 hit October 1, which is on Netflix, exposed him to a wider audience. “I get calls from people in Mexico saying, I saw your film on Netflix,” he said. – Oma Areh
NIGERIA
| FESTIVALS & MARKETS
Green White Green woos the critics something you worked so hard on is good. It’s even better when you are told it’s great. But I think the thing Abba and I are grateful for is that most of the reviews see the film for what it truly is and it really doesn’t get better than that for an artist – for your work to be seen and seen in the way that you intended. And for your work to inspire conversation. I’m quite frankly overwhelmed by the reception. Filming Green White Green a year ago on a goat farm in Nigeria, I didn’t think we’d end up on different continents answering questions and receiving compliments. Did I say I was overwhelmed already? But in a good way and that’s rare for me. I think our film is at least aspirational with what it says Nigeria is and I think that’s a good place to start.
THE SATIRE ROUTE: A scene from Green White Green, with star Ifeanyi Dike JR (second from right)
Of all the nine movies that were showcased at the 2016 Toronto International Festival’s Lagos City to City showcase, Green White Green, directed by Abba Makama, was perhaps the most inconspicuous. It did not feature Nigeria’s biggest super stars, it did not even treat a traditional Nigerian story directly as the others did. Yet the lowbudget comedy won over the critics at TIFF. Screen Africa spoke to the director Makama, as well as lead actor Ifeanyi Dike JR.
G
reen White Green tells the story of a young artiste who decides, alongside his friends, to make a movie about Nigeria. The movie explores issues like tribalism abstractly with an almost accidental sense of humour that underlies almost every scene. At TIFF, Green White Green was the shocking bride receiving the best reviews from the biggest industry sources. Screen Daily called it “a rousing celebration and a satire of the phenomenon, with the same no-budget feel.” Now Toronto said “This endearing mosaic of young Nigerian life pulsates with energy and exuberance. Also adding “it may be one of the most accessible City to City titles at TIFF this year”. The
Abba Makama movie also got great mentions in Variety and Indie Wire. There are murmurs of big international Hollywood offers but the director and lead actor are keeping silent on this issue. Screen Africa: What was your experience shooting Green White Green in Nigeria? Abba Makama: It was very interesting. We shot Green White Green over the course of 12 days but we took out three months to plan. We started scriptwriting around January and did all the recce, pre-production casting, set design between January to April. So we did thorough pre-production considering the nature of Lagos and how chaotic it can be with generators and traffic, we had to go to remote areas of the city. This was something I had in mind because I knew sound was going to be a big problem but it was a great experience. I worked with an awesome crew and cast who hit the ground running. The shoot went fairly smoothly based on our planning, but we still had to do a lot of improv based on unforeseen eventualities.
a drama or a serious film, I end up going the satire route. Maybe it has become my style but I believe with satire, you have a lot to play with. I guess I have come to realise that I am a social critic somewhat. I also find it very interesting just to juxtapose issues; in Nigeria, I have come to realise that we have a huge contrast between the rich and the poor which creates a crazy dynamic for you to play around with in terms of ideas when you approach it from a satirical point of view. So why not satire? As regards to indie, every Nollywood film is actually an indie and I understand how mine is even more. By virtue of the kind of people we cast, we didn’t cast any major stars, it’s a quirky film. I just did me. Green got some of the best reviews at TIFF and you were compared to an early Spike Lee in many instances. What was this experience like generally? AM: I think it did get the best reviews at TIFF and I think it’s because we did something entirely left field. More importantly, it’s a cool film that anybody who is hip will get the essence of. I was being compared to Spike Lee and I didn’t see that coming. Looking at some of his work, I can see the where they draw parallels, it is humbling, yet it makes me feel good. The audience at Toronto was generally very excited, Cameron Bailey’s words especially meant a lot to me. In the first e-mail I received from him after the submission, he stressed the fact that he had never seen Nigerian youth portrayed in this manner.
Green has an indie feel even for a Nigerian film, especially with its satirical tone. Why did you decide to take this route?
Screen Africa: What are your thoughts on this reception? Did you expect this? To what extent do you feel Green actually interprets Nigeria’s reality?
AM: I have said this a gazillion times; for some reason, even when I set out to make
Ifeanyi Dike: This is a loaded question. It’s always a good feeling to be told that
You’re the only African in UCLA’s Masters programme this year and the only Nigerian ever. Can you tell us more about how this happened and what you are bringing to the programme? ID: I think I might be the only African ever as well. I’m not sure how it happened. There should be more of us accepted to programs like this. I mean, I understand that these programmes are competitive to get into even for Americans with the schools picking eight to 16 students only per year for the acting program but there should be more people like me getting accepted regardless. I planned for a couple years, studied my Shakespeare and went off to the States to audition as soon as I was done filming Top Actor Africa for BET. At first, I didn’t realise UCLA had been trying to contact me after my audition but had the wrong email address. They finally got my email address but said it was too late. I spent about a month in depression, then I returned to Nigeria and began the process of moving on. Three weeks later, I receive an email saying ‘Ifeanyi UCLA calling. The gods and life are sometimes crazy,’ It was apt, I had gotten in. I’m not sure what I’m bringing into the programme because we’ve been instructed to empty ourselves and just come but I look forward to being a thoroughly disciplined actor and person at the end of this journey. What should we look out for from you project wise? ID: I’m having a great time earning my Masters in Acting degree at UCLA if that counts as a project. There’s pitching, planning, writing and developing happening – it’s great. I wish I could be exact with projects but unfortunately, a lot of it is still confidential. When I’m at liberty to speak about them however, you’ll be the second to know, after my mom. – Compiled by Oma Areh October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 37
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Photo Credit: George Pimentel, WireImages Getty for TIFF
FESTIVALS & MARKETS
Foreign territory This year, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) presented 21 African titles and the German-Kenyan feature Kati Kati, directed by Mbithi Masya, won the FIPRESCI Award. This amount of films from Africa has never been equalled by any of the other A-List film festival (Cannes, Venice, Berlin). Cameron Bailey, director of TIFF, took time to discuss the situation with Screen Africa. From England to Barbados and Canada, what is your vision of the world? Cameron Bailey: I am a migrant and I have been in many different guises over the years. My parents went from Barbados to England for their education, my sister and I were born there, so I was born into a kind of migrant situation already. And when I went to Barbados, although my family has been there for many generations, I was a migrant because I had an English accent and I had never been there before in my life. I started school in Barbados and then I came here four years later and was a migrant again. That’s my experience, I’m used to it and I think the advantage this gives me is that I feel at home nowhere and, somehow, everywhere at the same time. I’m very interested in that feeling of discomfort that you get when the familiar does not surround you. And that’s the attitude I think I bring to everything I do. Which African film has moved you deeply? CB: There are many. But I would say if it’s one film, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki (Senegal, 1973), which I think is a masterpiece and a kind of emblem I want cinema to be. Such vitality, intelligence. It has a kind of radical edge to it as well. It’s pushing for a new kind of cinema in the way of seeing the world and the freedom of its character that I really admire. After London, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Mumbai, Athens and Seoul, Lagos is the new guest of your City to City programme. Why? CB: Lagos is so exciting. It’s amazing. First of all, it has this massive film industry which I’m told now is the second industry after the oil in terms of the incomes generated. But also there are thousands and thousands of people working in it and Nigerians are very emphatic: when they decide to do something they go further. So I knew that all was happening but they really were not connected to the world of film festivals. We go many years 38 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
without showing a Nigerian film, and we were not alone; most festivals do the same: I don’t know if Cannes has ever shown a Nigerian film – not in my memory. I thought this is an incredible activity happening, it’s not connected to festivals and also it’s evolving. There’s a turning point happening with a new generation of filmmakers coming up: they have more artistic ambition, higher budgets, most importantly they’re taking more time to make films, not in two weeks or something. There is a different kind of movie coming out from Lagos and I think now is the moment to try to connect what they do with what we’re doing here. There was a Planet Africa programme, showing African films. Why did it stop? CB: Planet Africa was something that I started with colleagues here in 1995 and it ran until the 2004 festival. The idea was always to bring together films from the continent and the African Diaspora because we thought there was a conversation really useful for audiences to have with those films together. And that worked really well for many years. But we did hear, at first, a quiet concern and then a louder and louder complaint from filmmakers saying that they really didn’t want to be isolated as they thought within the Planet Africa, they wanted to be in the general selection. I understand that, I do think that there is something productive from having the profile that you get as a group of films but I understand that the filmmakers want to be seen for their own merit individually as well. So after a while, we thought: “if a lot of the key filmmaker we would invite in Planet Africa don’t want to be in Planet Africa then we’re not serving them.” So we decided to disband the section. This year, you’re the only A-List festival to present so many African titles. How do you explain that Venice, Cannes or Berlin do not? CB: I would love you and others to go ask that to other festivals. That would be
A MIGRANT EXPERIENCE: TIFF director Cameron Bailey
really useful. I think that’s the largest conversation we all have to have but I do think that the festivals you mentioned – and others – should be asked this question regularly. We do believe that there is really strong work being made by African filmmakers of very different kinds. And I’m thrilled to have, for instance, in addition to Lagos, films like Rahmatou Keïta’s The Wedding Ring, which I think is terrific, or Daouda Coulibaly’s Wulu and Akin Omotoso’s Vaya from South Africa. These are really strong films and I don’t see why they are not played more widely at the major festivals. I think one key reason is that sales companies are not picking up these films for representation and honestly, I don’t know why, because they’re easily films represented from Europe, Latin America or Asia but Africa seems to be a kind of foreign territory for a lot of the major sales companies. I think that could change, they will do well if they have the quality, the audience appeal and the critical respect of having advocacy from the major sales agents. So that’s the big part of what I think should change, not just the festivals. How many African titles selected at TIFF had been theatrically released in Canada? CB: It happens occasionally. The one that I think was the biggest success in North America was the film from Democratic Republic of Congo, Viva Riva! (by Djo Munga, 2010). That was thrilling from its premiere at Toronto and it went everywhere: in movie theatres here in America, on Netflix. That should be a sign of what could happen more often.
What would you recommend to an African filmmaker or producer wanting to reach the Canadian audience? CB: I would first say: “tell the stories you want to tell.” Canadian audiences are really interested in stories if they’re well told from anywhere in the world. There is a lot of curiosity that I think we can find in our audience here in Toronto. Then I think it is important, once you’re telling the story you want to tell, to be able to have the means to get it to an audience, here or anywhere else internationally. And that really does come down to: do you have the support of a film agency? Many countries in Africa do not have national agencies like South Africa does, or Morocco. Sales agents are a huge part of this business, I think. Many new producers and directors have to learn how important it is to have a powerful sales agent representing your film to distributors around the world, festivals, medias, that makes a big difference. Then, I think sometimes, filmmakers could all do more to learn how to communicate about their films. We have a bootcamp here for filmmakers when they’re invited to the festival, we try to tell them: this is what you need to do to be able to make people aware of your film and get them excited about your film, both in written materials you might present, but also just how you talk about it. Do you have a compelling way of talking about your film in less than one minute? That, I think, helps too. It really begins with telling the stories that are the most important to you and then finding the business means to get them out into the world. – Claire Diao
VHS
Photo CREDIT: Ampex
End of an Era – Goodbye
| Broadcast TECHNOLOGY
TAPING INTO THE MARKET: AMPEX-VR1000 portable being delivered to a customer (1956)
In July this year, Japan-based Funai Electronics Co. stopped producing VHS recorders, marking the end of the road for the venerable videotape standard. The Video Home System (VHS) videocassette recorder (VCR) revolutionised home entertainment in the 80s and 90s. The VCR’s demise may come as a shock, mostly because we all thought it was already dead! Incredibly last year 750 000 units were sold by Funai – the year before 1.5 million but it wasn’t low demand that has seen it’s demise; difficulty obtaining parts is the main reason the manufacturer has stopped making VHS machines.
H
elical scan recording was the technology behind the worldwide consumer video revolution. The technique was invented by Ampex. Alexander M. Poniatoff founded Ampex in 1944, primarily to manufacture small motors and generators for military applications. When WWII ended, the military contracts dropped off, and Alex had to search for a new line of business to continue his company’s existence. He and his small group of engineers heard a demonstration of a Magnetophon, a German magnetic tape recorder used by Hitler during WWII. The demonstration quickly convinced Alex to redirect his company and soon it was designing and manufacturing professional-quality magnetic tape recorders. The company grew quickly and, within a short time, dominated the magnetic tape recorder market in radio, television, the record industry, and industrial and military markets for instrumentation recorders. During the early 1950s, the broadcast industry used film to record replay
programming for later broadcast. In a process called kinescope, a cameraman would aim a film camera at a video monitor to record a TV programme. This kinescope process proved to be time consuming and expensive. Ampex introduced videotape technology in 1956 at a National Association of Broadcasters meeting. Within a week of the launch of the Model VR-1000 recorder, 75 orders had been placed. With a price tag of US$45 000 per machine, it was clear that Poniatoff was onto a winner with the broadcasters queuing at the door for more. The three national US networks essentially stopped using the kinescope method of recording television programmes overnight. It is interesting to note that one of the people working on the initial project was a young student and part time employee called Ray Dolby, who, years after his service with Ampex became the founder of the now world famous Dolby Laboratories. In 1963 Sony took the idea that Ampex created and began to expand on the
technology and developed the first reel-to-reel video recorder, the 2” PV-100, which was intended for business, medical, airline and educational use. This was innovative and the technology helped to make the machines less expensive for consumers, but they were still out of reach for the majority of households. Then in 1965, Sony fine-tuned their reel-to-reel technology and created the CV -2000 one of the world first consumer video tape recorders. It recorded television programmes in black and white using the skip field process, which produced a maximum 200-lines resolution. The tape moved at a speed of 7.5 inches per second and each reel of videotape cost about US$40 and could record one hour of video. In the following years, Sony continued to work on their technology and eventually created the Sony U-Matic in 1971. This was the first videocassette model and first commercially marketed format designed for consumers to use. It was capable of recording 90 minutes worth of footage, but they were generally too expensive for average consumers added to which it’s design only allowed playback of a recording via a special monitor, rather than a television. A year later Philips released their entry into the videocassette market – the N1500 VCR complete with built in TV tuner and an analogue clock timer, perhaps the first truly domestic, consumer videocassette recorder. The 1970s was an innovative decade and a period when major improvements were made to video tape recorders, resulting in the eventual creation of the VHS standard. However, during this time several other companies also made attempts to produce a television recording device, hoping the majority of the world would embrace their product. For the videocassette recorders to become a popular appliance, it needed to be affordable for people to buy and easy for them to operate. As a result two
Sony-CV-2000 (1965)
Japanese companies, Sony and JVC (Japanese Victor Company) developed rival VCR formats in the early 1970s, which would later evolved into the Betamax / VHS Format Wars. The first VCR to use VHS standard was the Victor HR-3300, and was introduced in 1976. Throughout the 1970s VHS and Sony battled each other for dominance in the video recording market. By the mid 1980s VHS had achieved a supreme dominance. Philips abandoned its latest VCR model, the Video 2000 in 1985 and Sony folded to consumer demand by finally producing VHS VCR’s of it’s own. Once considered luxury items, VHS machine prices plummeted in the late 1990s mainly in an effort to keep the tape market alive as DVD technology was being developed. Panasonic even developed and released the PV-HD1000, a D-VHS digital VCR designed for recording HDTV but the format failed in favour of disc technology. There is no doubt that VHS will forever remain historically important because it marked the first time that the public could obtain almost any film release old or new and take it home to watch. The video rental culture transformed movie watching, and gave many titles that failed in theaters a new lease on life, indeed some of them becoming cult movies. If it wasn’t for VHS we may never have seen the likes of true classics like I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), Vandemonium Plus (1987) and A Fistful of Fingers (1995) a few of the hundreds of titles that were only ever released in that format. Although the VHS VCR is gone, its legacy cannot be forgotten. We should all bow our heads in remembrance of the VCR for popularising the concept of file sharing, binge-watching and time-shifting habits that have become a norm in our home entertainment habits today. – Ian Dormer October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 39
BROADCAST TECHNOLOGY
|
NEW MEDIA | ADVERTORIAL
Applicaster’s App Publishing Zapp Platform makes its way to African Audiences Applicaster’s Zapp platform revolutionises the way video apps are built, enabling broadcasters and other media companies to build unique, white-label apps with rich functionality in a matter of hours with no need for development work. This innovative capability, is now being implemented by broadcasters and media companies in Africa. “Following successful App launches around the globe, the most recent one in Germany for ProSiebenSat.1, we are excited to share that we have already started working with some of Africa’s prominent broadcasters in Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa,” said Jeannine Nembhard, Client Success Director at Applicaster.
“Current requirements in the market are for introducing multichannel apps, as well as Sports and Kids Apps – a trend that it set to grow in Africa,” she concluded. Creating an app with
Applicaster’s platform means that much of the apps’ functionality and UX can be remotely managed, giving broadcasters the ability to change elements without requiring updates in the app store. The
platform offers full flexibility in cases where a broadcaster wishes to use their own (or a third party) video player, analytics or advertising provider or content management system.
QUIZZICAL PICTURES, SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING DRAMA PRODUCER
STUDIO ADDRESS 77 FLEET STREET FERNDALE RANDBURG JOHANNESBURG 2194
40 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
TELEPHONE
+27 11 726 2828 FAX
+27 11 726 2832 EMAIL
Nimrod Geva at nimrod@quizzical.co.za
www.quizzical.co.za
P R ODU C T IO N
UPD ATES
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 PRODUCTION 20 and Free X CON Films Dir: Munier Parker Documentary 50/50 Clive Morris Productions Current Affairs 53 EXTRA M-Net Inhouse Productions Dir: Navan Chetty Magazine A BROTHER’S LOVE 1300 Pictures (Pty) Ltd Dir: Elvis Nkosi Feature
BRAVO! Homebrew Films Prod/Dir: Paul Venter TV Magazine
FOX NEWS CHANNEL Betta Beta Communications Prod/Dir: Tommy Doig News
BRENT OWENS UNWRAPPED…SOUTH AFRICA Oxyg3n Media Prod: Rebecca Fuller-Campbell TV Series
FRENZY Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Morena Sefatsa Variety
CAINE’S LEGACY Media Navigation Prod/Dir: Dan Akinlolu Short Film CARTE BLANCHE (inserts) Modern Times Prod: Sophia Phirippides News Carte Blanche shorts TIA productions Prod / Dir: Tarryn Lee Crossman News COOL CATS Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Cecil Berry Children’s Show
FRIENDS LIKE THESE Urban Brew Studios Prod: Trishana Singh Game show GENERATIONS Morula Pictures Prod: Mfundi Vundla Series GLAM GURU Homebrew Films Prod/Dir: Paul Venter Actuality TV Series GOLD DIGGERS SEASON 2 Urban Brew Studios Prod/Dir: Herbert Hadebe TV Series
CUTTING EDGE SABC News Current Affairs
GOOD MORNING AFRICA Planet Image Productions SA Prod/Dir: Wale Akinlabi Magazine
DINNER DIVAS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myers Series
GOSPEL GOLD Engage Entertainment Prod: Sthembile Mhlongu Music
DISHONEST Inhlakanipho Films Dir: Vusi Nhlapo Feature Film
THE GREATEST THING Noble Pictures Prod: Claudia Noble Feature Film
AQUELLE’ MIDMAR MILE 2015 Media Ventures Prod/Dir: Chris Moolman Documentary
Ditokelo tsa Medupi LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature
GROEN NAMIBIE 2 Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Wildlife
AFRICA 360 eNews News Head: Patrick Conroy Current affairs
DIY MET RIAAN Prod: Riaan Venter-Garforth Magazine
HEAT WAVE Ruby Rocket Media Dir: Eddie Edwards TV Series
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
AFRO CAFÉ SEASON 7 Bonngoe Productions Prod: Pepsi Pokane Music ArtsCulturex Talent 1000 Championships Michics Global Communications Exec Prod: Mishack Motshweni Series BACKBONE PROJECT Global Access Creative Agency Prod: GA Creative Agency Documentary BEHIND THE DOOR/BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT Deepend Films & Hartiwood Films Exec prod: Paulene Abrey & Paul Kruger Documentary BINNELAND Stark Films Prod/Dir: Friedrich / Elsje Stark Series BLOODLINE: NOW OR NEVER Dual Films Prod/Dir: Darrell Roodt Feature Film BONISANANI Grounded Media Talk Show
EARTH BEAT Tekweni TV Productions Prod: Sandra Herrington Series 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
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 Urban Brew Studios Prod: Lawrence Molepo Talk Show
EXPRESSO (Season 2) Cardova Prod: Paul van Deventer Series
IGNITE Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Reality
FACE OF GEMINI Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Series
IHAWU LE SISWE Provoke Entertainment Dir: Sechaba Morojele TV Series
Faith Today Impact Christian Media Prod: Carl Schultz TV Series
IMIZWILILI Ukhamba Productions Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music
FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES Be Phat Motel, Game 7 Films, Stage 5 Films, Above the Clouds Prod: Sean Drummond Feature Film
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
KHUMBUL’EKHAYA Urban Brew Studios Prod: Khulile Nxumalo Factual Entertainment
ISIDINGO SEASON 19 Endemol South Africa Prod: Pumla Hoppa, Leo Phiri Soap
KOKKEDOOR 2 Homebrew films Prod: Jaco Loubser and Paul Venter Cooking reality series
JOBURG TAXI Xcut Studios Prod: Dave Kaminer Documentary
KOLLIG Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Magazine
JOU SHOW Homebrew Films Prod: Jaco Loubser Talk show
KONA The Directors Team (Pty) Ltd Prod/Dir: Laurence Lurie / Cathy Sykes Series
KWELA Homebrew Films Prod/Dir: Paul Venter TV Magazine
LATE NITE NEWS ON E.TV Diprente Productions Prod: Tamsin Andersson Series October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 41
PROD U CTION
UP DAT E S MASHELENG1 LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature
RHYTHM CITY Quizzical Pictures Prod: Yula Quinn Soapie
THE CHAT ROOM Eclipse Prod: Thokozani Nkosi Talk Show
MASHELENG 2 LMOL Production Dir: Jonny Muteba Feature
RIVONINGO Asi-B Films Prod: Asivhanzi ‘Asi’ Mathaba Children’s Show
MATRICS UPLOADED Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational
ROLLING WITH KELLY KHUMALO Red Pepper Prod: Cecil Barry Reality
THE COMMUNIST REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Jam TV, Creative South Africa, Nkhanyeti Production Prod: Barthelemy Ngwessam Documentary
MOTSWAKO Carol Bouwer Productions Prod: Grant Paul Roy Talk Show M-NET SHORT FILMS Current Affairs Films Prod/ Dir: Jane Thandi Lipman Film
SAKEGESPREK MET THEO VORSTER SEASON 5 Dirk Mostert Camera Production Prod/ Dir: Dirk Mostert Series
MY GENERATION Current Affairs Films Dir: Jane Lipman TV Series
SAUBA IMAGOFILM Prod: Tam de Vries Reality TV Series
My name is Funeka Sabido Productions Dir/Prod: Catherine Rice Documentary
SCANDAL Ochre Moving Pictures Prod: Romano Gorlei Soapie
MZANSI INSIDER Bonngoe Productions Prod: Pepsi Pokane Magazine
SCHOEMAN BOERDERY – MOOSRIVIER Khaki Productions Prod/Dir: Christelle Parrott / Wynand Dreyer Documentary
NEWS NIGHT eNews Prod: Nikiwe Bikitsha Current Affairs Oscar Pistorius Documentary Inserts TIA Productions Dir/ Prod: Tarryn Crossman Documentary
Light Girls South African Unit White Heron Pictures Prod: Themba Sibeko Documentary
MACHISMO Cheruscopic Productions Prod/Dir: Neil Schell Animation series
LIVE Urban Brew Music
MAHADI SEASON 2 Urban Brew Studios Prod: Khulile Nxumalo Reality Show
LIVE AMP Urban Brew Studios Prod: Sjula Dlamini Music Show LIVE LOTTO SHOW Urban Brew Game Show LOVE RUNS OUT Muti Films Prod: Shanna Freedman Feature Film
42 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
MAMELLO SEASON 2 Endemol Shine Africa Prod: Shirley Adonisi TV Drama Series Mandela’s Gun DV8 films Dir: John Irvin Feature Marang Estate: Mixed Used Development Nov/ Dec Our Time Productions Dir: Jaun de Meillon Documentary
SAINT AND FREEDOM FIGHTER Blue Marble Entertainment Dir: Eugene Botha Documentary
MUVHANGO Word of Mouth Prod: Pieter Grobbelaar Feature
NEILL ANTHONY – THE PRIVATE CHEF Okuhle Media Prod: Grant Flynn Cooking Show
Unit 3, Harbour Place, 1061 Schooner Road, Laser Park, Honeydew
ROOTS Ukhamba Communications Prod: Alfred Mpofu Music
SELIMATHUNZI Sikhoyana Productions Prod: Baby Joe Correira Variety SHIZ NIZ Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Allen Makhubele Variety SHIFT Urban Brew Studios Prod: Bongani Maphumulo Talk show
PASELLA Tswelopele Productions Dir: Liani Maasdorp / Werner Hefer Magazine
SISTERHOOD Red Pepper Pictures Prod: Andy Leze Variety
PAWN STARS SOUTH AFRICA Rapid Blue Prod: Kee-Leen Irvine, Ed Worster, Johan Naude and Kat Weatherall Reality
SIYAKHOLWA – WE BELIEVE X CON Films Dir: Munier Parker Edutainment
PHUNDEKA READING PROGRAMME SummerTime Productions Exec Prod: Phundeka (NGO) Documentary POWER COMBAT ZONE Mixed Motion Entertainment Dir: Dieter Gottert Sport PROJECT MV Zen Crew Prod: Laura Tarling Music Rands with Sense 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filming Prod: Anne Myersin Education REA ONLINE The Torch Studio Prod/Dir: Otsetswe Sedimo Talk Show
SKEEM SAAM Peu Prod/Dir: Winnie Serite TV Series SOCCER ZONE SABC Sports Head: Sizwe Nzimande Magazine SPRINGBOK STORIES Angel Music Studio Productions Dir: Chrissie Rossouw TV Series STUDY MATE Educational Improvement and Study Help (EISH) Exec Prod: Lisa Blakeway Educational SUIDOOSTER Suidooster Films Prod: Colin Howard Soap SUPERSWIMMER Media Ventures Prod/Dir: Chris Moolman TV Series
THE JUSTICE FACTOR eNews Prod: Debbie Meyer Current Affairs THE REAL GOBOZA 10 Urban Brew Studios Prod: Sydney Mekgwe Magazine show 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 TEMPY PUSHAS SEASON 3 Endemol Shine Africa Prod: Pumla Hopa TV Drama Series TIGER KLOOF – A SYMPHONY IN STONE Box Screen Pictures Prod/Dir: Mpho Dintwa Documentary TOP BILLING Tswelopele Productions Prod: Patience Stevens Magazine TOP TRAVEL (Season 3) Cardova Prod: Bradley van den Berg Series TOWNSHIP YOGI GreenShoot Films Dir: Peter Matthews Documentary Troopship Tragedy (working title) Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Marion Edmunds Documentary TRUE LIFE STORIES Endemol Shine Africa Prod/Dir: Victoria Maake Docu-reality Series TSHIPE BORWA MANGANESE MINE Betta Beta Communications Prod / Dir: Tommy Doig Documentary TUKUTIKO Celestial Touch Studio Prod/Dir: Clifford B. Okumu TV Drama Vaseline Experience Xcut Studios Dir: Lee Anne Theron 4D AV production VELDKINDERS Kilroy Was Here! Productions Prod: Gideon Breytenbach Documentary Series VILLA ROSA Spectro Productions Dir: Luhann Jansen / Andries van der Merwe/ Leroux Botha/ Isabel Smit Series
P R ODU C T IO N VLERKSLEEP Homebrew Films Prod/Dir: Ben Heyns Reality TV Series
DEBRA DEEL Khaki Productions Prod: Christelle Parrott TV Series
Volkspele South Africa Grey Cloud Productions Dir:Jacques Brand Prod: Bertie Brink Documentary
HAD BETTER DAYS Uniquely Novel Productions Prod/Dir: Deon VD Merwe Feature Film
WARD 22 TIA Productions Prod/Dir: Tarryn Crossman Documentary WEEKEND AM LIVE SABC News Current Affairs WIZARD OF ZIM Away From Keyboard Dir: Samora Sekhukhune Documentary WOMB-MAN Bolobathaba Multimedia Prod: Molatelo Mainetje Documentary YILENGELO LAKHO Prod: Nndanganeni Mudau Current Affairs YOTV Urban Brew Studios Prod: Adelaide Joshua Youth show ZOOM IN Footprint Media TV Prod: Cheryl Delport Talk show
IN POST-PRODUCTION A DIFFERENT COUNTRY Sabido Productions Dir: Lisa Henry Documentary series A FATAL ENCOUNTER – THE MARLEEN KONINGS STORY Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Johann Abrahams Documentary A Love Letter to Luxor Shadow Films Prod/Dir: David Forbes Short Film A MOTHER’S MADNESS Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Ayesha Ismail Documentary A STOLEN LIFE – THE SASHA LEIGH CROOK STORY Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Catherine Rice Documentary ALL FOR NOTHING – THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BRUNO BRONN Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Barbara Friedman Documentary AMAKA’S KIN – THE WOMEN OF NOLLYWOOD Sunbow Productions & Tope Oshin Productions Prod: Tope Oshin Documentary BA SEKWI Vu Prod. Prod/Dir: Jeanne Vu Van Documentary BEAUTY CONTEST Phoenix TV Productions Prod/Dir: Koketso Sefanyetso Short Film CROSSBOW KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Barbara Friedman Documentary
HELL TRIP ACT Animation Films Prod/Dir: Patrick Garcia Feature Film HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARIES: KIMBERLEY: SOUTH AFRICA Spike Productions Prod/Dir: Steve Muller Documentary THE HOCKEY STICK KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Melanie Rice Documentary I AM…CRAIG Away From Keyboard Dir: Samora Sekhukhune Documentary IN THE SHADOWS StreTalk Productions Prod/Dir: Bobby Mokhema Short Film JULIUS HAS A DREAM Creative South Africa, Nkanyethi Productions,Jam TV Prod: Bathelemy Ngwessam Documentary KNYSNA West Five Films Prod/ Dir: Maynard Kraak; Andre Velts Feature Film LINCOLN CLAN Total Recall Media Ltd Dir: Adebanjo Oluseyi TV Series MARIAH’S WORLD ZenHQ Films, SA Production Services Prod/Dir: Jeff Jenkins TV Series THE MIME ARTIST Phoenix TV Productions Prod: Koketso Sefanyetso Short Film MURDER ON MILLIONAIRE’S MILE Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Barbara Friedman Documentary MY SIGHT FOR SORE EYES Enigma Ace Films Prod/Dir: Ryan Kruger Feature Film NIGHTCLUB KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Nobathembu Stefane Documentary NORTH WEST KILLER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Ayesha Ismail Documentary Nyaope Gangsters LMOL Production Dir: Lizzy Moloto Feature PERFECT SHISHEBO Quizzical Pictures Prod: Nthabiseng Mokoena Series ROSA 3 Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker TV Feature
UPD ATES
SAFE BET Sukuma Media Producer: Nokuthula Sakhile Mguni / Bonginhlanhla Ncube Feature Film SAMURAI KILLER Sabido Productions Dir: Catherine Rice Corporate SECRET PAIN #1 Makoya Entertainment Prod/Dir: Prayer Ndlovu TV Drama SHALLOW GRAVE Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Meggan Raubenheimer Documentary SWARTWATER Quizzical Pictures Prod: Bianca Isaac Dir: John Trengove/ Jozua Malherbe/ Denny Y Miller Series SUPERDAD Two Oceans Productions Prod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha Spieker TV Feature TESSA BEETGE – A Life Interrupted Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Meggan Raubenheimer Documentary The Message Reel Edge Studios Dir: David Golden TV Drama Series THE STORY OF LITTLE FOOT Paul Myburgh Film Prod: Paul Myburgh Documentary THE TRANSPORTERS Sukuma Media/ Reality Motion Pictures Dir: Bonginhlanhla Ncube Documentary TOWNSHIP TERROR Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Melanie Rice Documentary TWEE GRADE VAN MOORD Inverse Films (Pty) Ltd Prod: Barry Strick Feature Film UNDER THE MOUNTAIN Plexus Films Prod: Miki Redelinghuys,/ Lauren Groenewald Short film UNSOLVED – THE STORY OF THE CAPE RIPPER Sabido Productions Prod/Dir: Johann Abrahams Documentary When I Was Water Shadow Films Dir: David Forbes Documentary XJ-1 Eternal Film Productions Prod: Marius Swanepoel/ Dana Pretorius Feature XTREME OUTDOORS AFRICA Africa InSight Prod: Esah Panyako TV Magazine 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
Unit C5 RobeRtville Mini FaCtoRies 255 nadine stReet RobeRtville RoodepooRt 1709
UPCOMING EVENTS
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OCTOBER 5 – 16
BFI London Film Festival
London www.bfi.org.uk
20 – 22 International Fashion Film Festival
Belgium www.ifffb.com
25 – 3 NOV Tokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo www.tiff-jp.net
28 – 5 NOV Joburg Film Festival
Johannesburg www.joburgfilmfestival.co.za
NOVEMBER 2 – 4 DISCOP Johannesburg
3
Johannesburg www.discopafrica.com PromaxBDA Africa Conference and Awards
Johannesburg www.promaxafrica.tv
October 2016 | SCREENAFRICA | 43
| Ludus Spring Party
Social
Adam Thal (The Star Film Co), Matthys Boshoff (The Star Film Co), Samantha Cook (Sterling Sound), Lesley-Anne Roe (Ogilvy JHB)
Christie Lee Morgan (Spitfire Films), Thandiswa Ndaba (The Ludus), Joe Erasmus (The Ludus), Pebbles Gqunta (Spitfire Films), Samantha Cook (Sterling Sound)
Caroline Crowther (Kojak Films), Nicholas Young (The Ludus)
Bryony Webster (Darling Films), Melina McDonald (Darling Films), Greg Shaw (The Ludus)
Karien Cherry (Giant Films), Joe Erasmus (The Ludus), Mark Ash (The Ludus)
Lesley-Anne Roe (Ogilvy JHB), Debbie Dannheiser (Ogilvy JHB), Simone Bosman (Ogilvy JHB), Santa Asbury (Ogilvy JHB)
Lorraine Smit (Darling Films), Melina McDonald (Darling Films), Santa Asbury (Ogilvy JHB)
Melina McDonald (Darling Films), Cindy Gabriel (Giant Films), Emma Lundy (Giant Films)
Yash Raidu (Joe Public), Lerato Mphahlele (Joe Public), Thandiswa Ndaba (The Ludus)
Inspiring and awarding filmmakers
PHOTOS BY CERA-JANE CATTON
Filmmakers from AFDA, Big Fish and Umuzi Academy entered a competition by submitting a short fictional film or mini documentary. The prize included R30 000, a mini master class with kykNET’s content team, as well as the opportunity to showcase their work at the 2017 kykNET Silwerskermfees. Seen there were…
Pumlani Veto, Pule Moswane and Lerato Moloi
Munya Vomo and Shanaaz Prince
Sipho Biyam, Ramoloti Kganakga and Modise Sepeng
Mduduzi Janda and Joyce Nkgapele
Suzaan Keyter and Altus Venables
Nondumiso Buthelezi (winner of the competition) and Duane Rogers
44 | SCREENAFRICA | October 2016
AG-UX180
Memory Card Camera Recorder
4K 60p/50p* Camcorder featuring the Industry's 1
Widest Angle 24mm* , 20x Optical Zoom and 1.0-type* MOS Sensor 2
3
*1: Actual recording is UHD (3840 x 2160) 59.94p/50p. *2: Equivalent to 35mm under 4K 24p (aspect ratio of 17:9) Wide angle 24mm is the widest in the industry for a camcorder with integrated lens. (As of September 2016, according to Panasonic survey.) *3: Effective size
www.pansolutions.co.za Contact: Sean Loeve Cell: 083 677 4917 Tel: 011 313 1622