screen africa march 2014

www.screenafrica.com VoL 26 – march 2014 r35.00BroaDcasT, fiLm, TV, commerciaLs, new meDia & TechnoLoGY news

EquipmEnt REntals

OutsidE BROadcast

4 – 5 April 2014

Gallagher Convention Centre,

Midrand, South Africa

www.nfvf.co.za

8th annual SOUTH AFRICAN

Film & Television

Awards

22

10

6

15

South AfricAn indieS StAnd well Supported At efM in Berlin

Quirky fAntASy filM firSt for AfrikAAnS cineMAfilMing the other Side of AfricA

Special FeatureSOutSide BrOadcaStOutside broadcast then and now .. 22EFX productions increases its OB capacity.................................... 24saBc introduces lightweight flyaway kits ........................................... 24dimension tV makes new addition to its fleet ............................ 26

equipment rentalSEquipment rentals: a sector in transition ......................... 28puma Video invests in inventory upgrade ......................... 30nates audio Visual offers a personal touch ................................ 30cam-a-lot diversifies its client base ............................................ 31Visual impact partners with reality tV production ............... 32

newSmultiple crises at the saBc ...............2multichoice creates exclusive channel to cover the Oscar pistorius trial ...3Waterfront Film studios is born .......4Wits report: sadc needs greater cooperation, liberalisation to attract ict investment .................4

Remembering philip seymour Hoffman ...................................................6south african indies stand well supported at EFm in Berlin ...............6predictions for african broadcasting 2014 .................................8south african movie selected for north american distribution .............8

adceteraFilming the other side of africa ...... 10mothballs or lanterns – it’s all about glue ................................ 11draftfcb appoints strong new leaders ......................................... 11Bell’s toasts a selfless act .................. 12doom beats the boom! .................... 12Goodwill goes viral ............................ 13lily allen music video lifts off in cape town ........................ 13

FilmBlood tokoloshe makes sa film history .................................... 14quirky fantasy film first for afrikaans cinema .......................... 15talking movies with tom Brook ..... 16director speak: ian Gabriel ............. 17

televiSiOndirecting for reality television: bringing integrity to the table ......... 1824 hours of Big Brother lockdown ....................... 19Hd tV… circa 1950 ......................... 20Zamani – an adventure in african heritage conservation ......... 21

pOSt prOductiOnRestoration – done to perfection .. 34

lightingthe art of lighting: part 3 ................. 35

tracking technOlOgyEVs presents new workflow solutions ............................ 36Harmonic boosts features and functionality ................................. 36Blackmagic production 4K camera .......................................... 36i-movix X-10 ultra slow motion camera system ........... 372WcOm Flex dsR02/04+ dVB satellite audio receiver ..................... 37

aFricaafrica well represented at French short film festival .................. 38Kenyan film leads the way in african animation .................. 39

cinema revival in West africa ......... 40Euronews to launch an african sister channel .................. 40

BOX OFFicesouth african audiences support local films at the box office in February ............... 41

weB newSKey Hollywood film executives visit sa to discuss opportunities .... 42telkom set to deliver VOd services to customers ........... 42contestant mbali Zulu disqualified from Big Brother mzansi secrets ... 42pay tV grows in emerging markets as cable falls ......................... 42Bob van dijk to succeed Koos Bekker as cEO of naspers .. 42south african delegation to attend Hot docs festival in canada ........... 42shotgun Garfunkel wins Best Feature Film at JFF.................... 43new afrikaans series Swartwater screens on saBc2 ........ 43

regularS production updates ...............44 – 47Events .................................................... 47social ..................................................... 48

| IN THIS ISSUE

eQuipMent rentAlS: A Sector in trAnSitionoutSide BroAdcASt then And now

28

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been rocked by three scandals in quick succession in the space of a single month. No stranger to controversy and already eliciting low levels of confidence among the South African public, the national broadcaster took yet more knocks to its damaged reputation, which have had various interest groups up in arms at the corruption and mismanagement that has been revealed at the highest levels of the company.

It began in the first week of February, when, after much speculation in the media, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) Lulama Mokhobo announced her resignation less than halfway into her agreed five-year term. Mokhobo offered no public explanation for her decision. Representatives of the SABC also refused to speak on the matter, calling it ‘private and confidential’. In an interview with TechCentral, Mokhobo would not be drawn into confirming or denying any of the rumours that she had found her position untenable due to a clash with the acting Chief Operating Officer (COO), Hlaudi Motsoeneng. Her main reason for leaving she said, was ‘exhaustion’.

Only days after Mokhobo’s announcement, auditing firm, PricewaterhouseCooper (PWC)

released a report on their skills audit at the SABC. The audit scrutinised the qualifications of the company’s employees and tested the competency of senior and executive management. The findings, even for a public that has grown cynical about the SABC’s will and ability to carry out its mandate, were fairly shocking.

Among other things it was found that around 60 per cent of senior managers lacked the basic strategic thinking skills required for executives. Fifty-six per cent, the report said, could not demonstrate adequate problem-solving and decision-making skills. Twenty-five percent of employees had adequate and appropriate qualifications for their positions, while 62 per cent had no proof of high school matriculation on their personnel files. A small number had qualifications that had nothing whatsoever to do with their positions in the company.

The release of these results triggered mass indignation from the country at large, from various industry interest groups and from opposition political parties. With the rumours that had surrounded the CEO’s resignation, attention had already been drawn to Motsoeneng. He now placed himself squarely in the spotlight with a press

Multiple crises at the SABC

The industry activity of the past month has taken place in the shadow of the ever unfolding crisis at the national broadcaster. The industry and the public have become rather blasé about problems at the SABC over the years, so it is easy to overlook the recent developments as just more of the same. What has been driven home to me as I followed the story, while also talking to outside broadcast and gear rental

operatives for our special features in this month’s issue, is that the ills of the SABC should not be considered in isolation from the trends and challenges in the industry as a whole.

Perhaps this is an obvious point but it bears reiterating. South Africa’s production industry is still at the point in its development where it requires a fully functional public broadcaster at its bedrock. We do not work in a large free market where production can be fuelled by advertising or price of admission alone. Of course productions are underway this very minute, many of them excellent, that have nothing whatsoever to do with the ups and downs of the SABC. Production companies have long been going the independent route, but how many of these are operating on business models that allow for branching out into independent film production only so long as commissions from the major broadcasters, particularly the public one, are bringing in sufficient funds to keep rent and salaries paid?

The experiences of equipment rentals made it particularly clear how the problems at the broadcaster filter down into every aspect of the industry. Consider how tight budgets on commissions lead indirectly to pricing wars in the gear rentals sector. The fact remains that the SABC is needed to fuel the content production sector in this country, even if indirectly, until such time as a fully independent production model becomes more lucrative – and there are no developments yet forthcoming in that regard. For now, whenever the SABC coughs, the entire industry catches a cold.

When one examines the industry on a systemic level, as we must do when considering the plight of the public broadcaster, the outlook seems rather bleak. All one has to do then is step back, ignore the system as a whole for a moment and look at some of its components, which are achieving excellence in spite of the overall problems. Happily this issue is full of such examples, from a low-budget, cleverly marketed horror film to the revival of long-defunct cinemas in African cities, to the art of directing for reality television, to a long overdue project to restore some neglected classics from South Africa’s cinematic past. It is here that we find the lifeblood of this maddening industry and remember what it was that brought us here in the first place.

warren holden

Systemic problems, individual victories

From the editor

Publisher & Managing editor: Simon Robinson: [email protected]

editor: Warren Holden: [email protected]

senior Journalist: Martie Bester: [email protected]

Journalist: Carly Barnes: [email protected]

Contributors: Andy Stead, Ian Dormer, Anton Crone, Tom Cullinan,Claire Diao

sub-editor: Tina Heron

design:Trevor Ou Tim: [email protected]

Website & ProduCtion uPdates:Carly Barnes: [email protected]

subsCriPtions: Tina Tserere: [email protected] Delight Ngwenya: [email protected] advertiseMent sales: Marianne Schafer: [email protected] Lorna MacLeod: [email protected]

aCCounts: Natasha Glavovic: [email protected]

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SCREENAFRICA

w w w . s c r e e n a f r i c a . c o m

NEwS |

More knockS: The SABC’s headquarters in Auckland Park, Johannesburg

| NEwS

On 14 February 2013 South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius allegedly murdered his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria.

Pistorius will go on trial for the crime from 3 March in a case that has dominated world headlines since the news first broke.

Due to its high-profile nature, and the millions of viewers the event is bound to attract, South African pay TV broadcaster, MultiChoice will go into the courtroom with a channel dedicated to

the proceedings.The Oscar Pistorius Trial: A Carte

Blanche Channel (DStv channel 199) will feature round-the-clock coverage of the trial, as well as hours of exclusive documentaries, profiles and in-depth expert analysis.

MultiChoice states: “The channel is committed to providing live news updates, commentary and analysis through our own position at court and through interactions with experts who have their finger on the pulse of all

elements pertaining to the trial.” The broadcaster adds that the channel,

aiming to lead the media on the trial, will also feature documentaries and short films produced by award-winning producers and directors, including interviews with key people in the Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp story.

In charge of reporting will be veteran Carte Blanche journalists Derek Watts, John Webb, Bongani Bingwa and Devi Sankaree Govender, top social media lawyer Emma Sadleir, experienced radio talk show host Leigh Bennie, heavyweight legal journalist and radio talk show host David O’Sullivan and former BBC presenter, Subniv Babuta.

Transmitting from Urban Brew Studios in Randburg, the signal will be sent through to MultiChoice, with regular live crossings to a team of top journalists who will be based at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

Featuring technologically innovative live cameras in court to film the trial in its entirety, the channel will make South African television and legal history as visual access of this nature has never before been granted in a South African court.

Representatives of Carte Blanche commented that the cameras to be

utilised in the Pretoria High Court are technologically different to what news gatherers would ordinarily use.

“They are HD, but totally remote and unmanned. This allows us to achieve quality images without any disruption to the court proceedings. The other benefit is that no additional lighting gear or wiring is needed in the court. We will be transmitting from a location nearby, using a fairly simple flyaway kit and ‘studio’ set-up, outsourced from WildCam Pty Ltd.”

MultiChoice believes that the channel will appeal to a wide range of its DStv Premium, Extra and Compact customers. “We are also making the channel available on our DStv Mobile platforms, as well as on our DStv website and our YouTube channel.

“We are deliberately embracing social media and making it possible for our viewers to engage as much as possible with the channel and are also galvanising social media platforms to assist in presenting the story to the viewer as the events in the trial unfold. This has allowed for new methodologies of engagement with print and radio platforms which are both exciting and challenging to achieve.” – Warren Holden

MultiChoice creates exclusive channel to cover the Oscar Pistorius trial

conference in which he gave a defiant response to the PwC report, stating that the educated members of the SABC’s staff were ‘a drain’ on their colleagues. Qualifications do not enable one to do one’s job at the SABC, he said, only experience can do that.

Amidst the furor surrounding the PwC report, another bombshell was dropped, this time by public protector Thuli Madonsela, who reported on her own investigations into the national broadcaster. Her findings revealed a long list of incidents indicating maladministration and abuse of power at the very top of the corporate structure. The accused in most of the findings were COO Motsoeneng and former chairman of the board, Ben Ngubane. The public protector said that Motsoeneng had faked a matric qualification in order to get his first job at the SABC in the mid-1990s. When Madonsela and her team

attempted to pull Motsoeneng’s HR file, it was discovered that none existed. The report also stated that Motsoeneng had received three pay rises over the course of a single year, amounting to a 63 per cent increase. Ngubane, it was stated in the report, had abused the power of his position and acted as a de facto Executive Chairperson of the corporation.

In the aftermath of the report, the SABC issued a statement declaring only that it was reviewing its findings and would not comment on them yet. Meanwhile, all manner of interest groups in the broadcasting and political worlds issued statements of their own calling for radical action to be taken at the SABC.

The Independent Producers Organisation (IPO), which represents a large number of South Africa’s working producers, issued a statement which highlighted the connection between mismanagement at the public

broadcaster and the challenges to sustainability of the industry as a whole: “There are many people for whom [the SABC] is their only source of information and entertainment. While the organisation is making a few people rich, the quality of programming is suffering. Budgets are extremely low and the organisation is forced to rely more and more on advertisers to fund programming, which comes with severe challenges. In addition the production sector, which is a source of thousands of jobs, is becoming less sustainable and the quality of programming is decreasing.”

“We would really like to see swift and effective intervention to restore the SABC,” said IPO chairperson Helena Spring. “The SABC needs to be an organisation that has the capacity to manage its mandate culturally, socially and economically as a resource that all South Africans are entitled to. We would

like to see a very clear and unambiguous commitment to taking the SABC forward in a professional, economically and culturally sustainable way.”

The Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, also known as SOS, has been very busy publishing statements and drawing up possible courses of action which it has proposed, on a public platform, to the SABC board, the Department of Communications (DoC) and Parliament. At the end of February, the SABC made a statement saying that it would report to Communications Minister Yunus Carrim within the month on how to respond to the crisis. Perhaps a recent release by SOS best sums up the problem and its potential solutions by posing three seemingly simple, but rather loaded questions: “Why is our SABC falling apart?”, “Who benefits from a dysfunctional SABC?” and “What is to be done?” – Warren Holden

4 | SCREENAFRICA | March 2014

NEwS |NEwS |

With the member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) set to resume ongoing negotiations soon on the communications sector in the region, the Link Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), commissioned by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), compiled a report providing an exhaustive assessment of communications policy, law and regulations in the 15-member bloc.

The study looks at telecommunication, broadcasting and “other audio-visual services”, a category covering such fields as film production and distribution.

The study examines these sectors across southern Africa with respect to five focus areas: market structure, regulatory regime, level of competition, state of liberalisation and international commitments. It provides a full breakdown of the market structure in each country, listing the exact Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services offered, the market share of local and foreign firms and the government policies affecting the particular industries.

It begins from the premise that the various aspects of the communications sector are: “major facilitators of growth, contributing to the improvement of welfare, enabling traditional merchandise trade, as well as offering new trade opportunities”.

The executive summary of the report states that, since SADC members are eager to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the ICT sector, they need to take into account the “… fierce global and regional competition to attract investment for ICT-related trade,” and therefore make sure that the ICT environments within their respective countries and the region as a whole are set up to make them serious contenders for that investment.

The report examines the region as a whole and then focuses on each country in turn, examining how the market and regulatory structures in place enable their ICT sectors to compete for international investment. It uses the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) policies as a yardstick, measuring to what extent the region’s ICT sector complies with or

deviates from the global body’s commitments.

On the whole, the findings of the report indicate that the region could benefit hugely from ICT investment injections but its attractiveness to this kind of business is adversely affected by the collective weaknesses of the member states. These differ from country to country; some states, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, suffer from low income and macroeconomic instability. Others, such as Namibia and Botswana, show good prospects in terms of governance and economic stability but contain very small markets due to their sparse populations.

Then there is South Africa, which has the industrial-based economy and economic strength to draw investment but has suffered from weak policy and government interference in the ICT sector, crippling its growth and international competitiveness. Such challenges are not easily solved but the region can increase its competitiveness through strategic cooperation that lowers the cost of doing business in

telecommunications, broadband, broadcasting and film production and allows members that are stronger in particular areas to compensate for the corresponding weaknesses of others.

Another key, says the report, is the adjustment of legislation, policy and regulations to liberalise the sector and reduce state interference – but not to the extent of full privatisation, which has been found to have a less positive impact on ICT development than liberalisation.

With respect to ’other audio-visual services‘, this was found to be a marginal sub-sector throughout the region, except in South Africa, where it is already a relatively well-developed “… set of fully or partially competitive sub-sectors”. Nonetheless, the report recommends the free movement of companies in these sub-sectors between countries in the SADC bloc, opening all national markets to any and all firms wanting to operate within them.

The full report can be read at: http:/www.wits.ac.za/filestgk3b_ 876585001387466226.pdf.

wits report: SADC needs greater cooperation, liberalisation to attract ICT investment

It’s official. The Waterfront Film Studios, occupying the well known premises at the V & A Waterfront, is a brand new joint venture partnership between Blade Works, Lasernet, Hilton Treves and Alun Richards. Having acquired the assets of Collective Dream Studios late last year, the partnership is in the process of putting together a specialist services company which will not be following the traditional facilities model.

The acquisition came about after Lasernet’s Ivan Bridgen approached Collective Dream to enquire about premises. “After further discussions it became apparent that Collective Dream was prepared to offer an asset buy-out, and after discussions with my current partners, a deal was struck,” advises Bridgen.

“It was the perfect solution for me,” he adds, “as it offered premises and equipment which can be utilised for projects that are either currently in place or are planned. We were also able to take on existing staff who are all highly experienced with the type of equipment and areas that existed.”

It’s already starting to develop into something that is quite an interesting business. All the studios are currently busy shooting Dominion – produced by Syfy, which is an adaptation of the 2010 supernatural movie, Legion. The pilot was shot in October and Syfy starts shooting the first series shortly. They will be in studio all year.

“For the time being I will spend time here every two weeks,” says Harris, “and we will see what develops.” Bridgen is now permanently based at Waterfront and working on other offerings, which will be revealed in due course.

“We are looking seriously at the restoration side of the business, offering an absolute top end product with no

expense spared in creating perfection in the end result. We are in the process of completing audio suites to add language dubbing to the restoration procedure.”

“We will also be looking at special effects in an effort to attract more post-production work to the overseas productions which come to Cape Town,” adds Bridgen, “however we do not foresee bringing more equipment in, but utilising what we have here. The old Film Lab is now being used for cleaning and preparation of print and negative stock for the restoration process.”

While Harris and Bridgen are understandably cagey in terms of the full roll-out of plans for this new venture, it’s clear that the Waterfront Film Studios sees specialist potential and plan to take full advantage of gaps in the market. With the combined creativity and experience this partnership has to offer, there is little doubt of success. – Andy Stead

waterfront Film Studios is born

coMBined creAtiVity: Steve Harris and Ivan Bridgen of Waterfront Film Studios


NEwS |

Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest cinema and theatre actors of his generation, died on 2 February 2014 at the age of 46 of an apparent drug overdose.

How does one comprehend the loss of an actor whose immense measure of

talent is so rarely glimpsed that he was surely one of the brightest stars in the entertainment industry?

It’s still unbelievable that Hoffman’s presence on movie screens has been obliterated. In 23 years, he starred in more than 50 movies, and each role

counted, he made the characters his own, became the flesh and bone, soul and spirit of everyone he portrayed, with a range more diverse than most actors are capable of.

He had presence, charm, poise, he could convey so many expressions simply, easily, with his eyes, hands, the pull of his mouth, a slump in the shoulders. One never felt one was watching Philip Seymour Hoffman act. The characters he portrayed on screen authentically appeared whenever he entered the frame of a film, often dominating, without effort, scenes and screen time, even in the most fleeting roles.

Whether his roles required silence, rage, despair, fear, sorrow… he could move, convince, sway, and bewitch audiences. He was, simply put, a genius, translucent with his boundless unconventional beauty on screen.

Hoffman had an inability not to shine but shared the screen selflessly with his fellow actors, and often, strong performances bounced off his delivery. Sometimes he was as gentle as a lullaby, or powerful as a raging storm, lashing reams of dialogue – or mere sentences – always spellbinding.

His intense character roles must have, to some degree, chipped away at his solid frame and gentle soul and

splintered him, a man already fighting demons few have the courage to face. Perhaps his light burnt so bright and so fierce that an implosion was inevitable.

On rare occasions, in movies such as Synecdoche, New York (2008) in which he played a stage director, perhaps he offered a glimpse of his true self. Or possibly he was always the chameleon of the screen, one so powerful in his ability to transform himself that no one would ever doubt that there could be an end to his magnificent acting abilities.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was a beautiful, powerful, tender and brave actor. He said about acting: “To have that concentration to act as well is like lugging things up staircases in your brain. I think that’s a thing people don’t understand. It is that exhausting. If you’re doing it well, if you’re concentrating the way you need to, if your will and your concentration and emotion and imagination and emotional life are all in time, concentrated and working together in that role, that is just like lugging weights upstairs with your head… And I don’t think that should get any easier.”

In the end, perhaps the weight simply became too heavy to lug upstairs... – Martie Bester

Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman

BrighteSt StAr: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Organised by the Association for Transformation in Film and Television (ATFT), a South African delegation of filmmakers had a presence at Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) for the first time. The EFM ran concurrent with the Berlin Film Festival from 6 to 14 February.

Sifiso Khanyile, spokesperson and co-founder of the ATFT, co-ordinated the EFM delegation with South African producer Pascal Schmitz, one of the directors of the organisation, which was established in April 2013. It empowers, develops and inspires black females, physically impaired, black individuals and black-owned companies as part of the growth of the South African film, television, animation and transmedia industries.

Says Khanyile: “This came out of the necessity to balance the scales in the South African film industry, both in productivity and ownership of intellectual property and resources.”

Funded through the Department of Trade and Industry’ (the dti) Sector

Specific Assistance Scheme (SSAS) group scheme, 10 filmmakers attended EFM, of whom eight were emerging black filmmakers.

“Two of the delegates were mentors or as we call them ‘transformation champions’ who assisted the delegation and emerging filmmakers,” comments Khanyile. “The delegates in the group scheme responded to a callout and were chosen on a ‘first come first served’ basis.”

According to Khanyile, the main aims of the trip, such as exposing emerging filmmakers to the market and enabling them to connect with distributors, sales agents, aggregators and for potential co-producers to form international networks, were achieved.

He adds: “The delegates sparked relationships that lead to deals,

distribution of their content and future investments. The panel discussions on distribution, festival strategies, storytelling and many more were of great value, as some of the best role players in the international film industry shared their secrets at these sessions.

“We are pleased with the level of preparedness the delegates showed at the market, most of them had meetings set up in advance,” continues Khanyile. “The ATFT also organised ‘speed-dating’ sessions with distributors and there was a high level of interest resulting in the one-on-one sessions with the distributors.”

The South African Embassy and the dti hosted a networking cocktail reception for South African filmmakers and their German counterparts to aid in increasing co-production deals between South

Africa and Germany.The South African Indies stand

generated a lot of interest, re-affirming South Africa’s importance as a production destination. Additionally, international producers are keen to do business with South African producers.

“There was a lot of interest in shooting films in South Africa and co-producing films with South African producers.

“We see these conversations as a start to long-term co-production and service relationships for the emerging filmmakers that went to EFM,” concludes Khanyile.

The trade mission to EFM was made possible by the dti’s Export Marketing and Investment Assistance (EMIA) with additional support from Wesgro, the official investment and trade promotion agency for the Western Cape. – Martie Bester

South African Indies stand well supported at EFM in Berlin

trAnSforMAtion chAMpionS: The South African Indies stand at the European Film Mart

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NEwS |

As 2014 rushes on headlong, with the first quarter already nearing its end, Africa’s broadcasting sector deals with a number of uncertain developments, all relating to key topics such as digital terrestrial television (DTT), video on demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT) content. Balancing act.com, a website dedicated to the African telecoms, internet and broadcast industries put together a series of predictions for developments in the sector in the coming months. The predictions, drawn up by Balancing Act’s broadcast analyst Sylvain Beletre, are as follows:

• Digital technology sets a new economic trajectory for the African audio-visual sector: there will be more technology investments, more DTT (digital terrestrial TV migration) tests and roll-outs will occur in 2014. We will witness a growth in STBs, HDTV and DTT integrated TV sets’ sales…

• With DTT, the potential creation of TV channels’ aggregators serving African DTT bouquets

exists; new TV and radio channels’ bouquets will be born out of Africa. In Tanzania, there is a ‘new kid in town’, AzamTV’s pay TV network. But African governments are currently scratching their heads to find ways to finance DTT roll-out.

• Existing African broadcasters, whether in the Pay TV or FTA segments, welcome the arrival of DTT in Africa with mixed feelings: audience fragmentation and more competition, low cost

bouquets, further investments in digital equipment and training, but also new opportunities to distribute their channels in new territories. TV broadcasters have no choice but to increase advertising revenues. To do so they need to purchase digital equipment and get appropriate training to improve content quality, increase their audience and make DTT a success.

• A few African broadcasters and telcos are setting up digital communication strategies including IPTV, WebTV, catch up TV, OTT or smart TV apps.

• Financial issues: several broadcast players need to find private investors to improve their programme standards and expand to other markets, with potential M&As and market consolidation (eg. StarSat, formerly Top TV).

• More local content, co-production, content exchanges, innovative ideas,

programme translation and new content distribution channels are about to take place.

• More broadband access connectivity enabling viewers to watch live TV and VOD in large cities.

• VOD usage growth – more mobile video streaming in large urban areas (impact of W-Fi, LTE/4G), VOD apps on mobile devices.

• Improved regulations towards more competition/licences, PPPs, more foreign investments, digital dividend, increase TV licence revenues through DTT switch, set up rules for higher programme quality standards.

• There are opportunities for alliances in Africa’s sub-regions to share expertise, norms and best practices and facilitate DTT implementation and local content creation. – Sylvain Beletre

For Sylvain’s full report go to: www.balancingact-africa.com

Predictions for African broadcasting 2014

Dexter Davis, CEO of New York-based D Street Media Group in the United States, has bought the North American rights to South African Afrikaans-language movie Musiek vir die Agtergrond (Background Music), which was directed and produced by Sallas de Jager of Bosbok Ses Films.

Says Davis: “Sallas’ mentality of making films that could travel outside of South Africa really appealed to me and he wasn’t just playing lip service when we met. He was passionate about this idea and, being American, I could relate because we don’t just make films for the US audience. Our films travel and I believe South African films with great stories and great production value can do the same.”

“The scale in terms of people who watch movies in America is just enormous in comparison with South Africa,” says De Jager. “Dexter and D Street have the same drive as we do at Bosbok Ses films to make and distribute independent films that tell universal stories about real people. This is without a doubt a smaller segment of a market flooded with studio blockbusters and 3D animation films.”

He continues: “I believe that we as South African filmmakers are diamonds in the rough and our biggest advantage is the fact that we are relatively new to the

American market – we are bursting with fresh ideas, new locations and new voices. We need people like Dexter to give us an opportunity to polish our craft and learn to present and channel this creative energy in a way that will entertain audiences not only locally and in the US, but all around the world. One has to be realistic as well – this process might take 10 to 20 years, but we’ll take it step by step. If we don’t try, we’ll never know.”

According to Davis, Musiek vir die Agtergrond contains many qualities of an American story. “It deals with people and the choices they make every day when it comes to being an artist and the commercialisation of their work; all while trying to be true to themselves and hopefully keeping their souls intact. I think that theme is pretty universal so why wouldn’t it work in North America?” he says.

Davis says the plan is to open Musiek vir die Agtergrond in New York and Los Angeles and then move on to other key markets in the country that may have a sizeable Afrikaans community. “We aren’t just banking on South African expats but we sure would be doing the film a disservice if this wasn’t part of our strategy,” emphasises De Jager.

Davis says: “Sallas has a real world view

and his ability to look beyond the borders of South Africa is very refreshing. He has a vision, works extremely well with actors and has just the right business acumen to take him far.”

“We have creative ambitions to make a few good films together over the next decade. Whenever possible, we want to film in South Africa or, if and when a particular story doesn’t allow for that, I’ll be allowed to use South African talent (cast and crew) as much as possible,”

concludes De Jager. Upcoming feature film, Lone Hill, a

co-production between the two companies, commences shooting at the end of March with De Jager at the helm, who says the film is a small but powerful family drama similar to Ordinary People and Revolution Road.

Attached to star is South African actor Neil Sandilands and model and actress Nicola Breytenbach. – Martie Bester

South African movie selected for North American distribution

internAtionAl AppeAl: Lizelle de Klerk in Musiek vir die Agtergrond, soon to be seen in North American theatres

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OPINION | ADCETERA

There’s a certain power in the hand that holds a camera. It can break down walls to reveal the other side. In Africa, reportage achieves this to

a degree: A starving child. A burning hut. A Christian knife driven into Muslim flesh. We see a lot of it. We sadly become desensitised. But the truth is we are only looking through a crack in the wall.

It’s often what broadcasters are after and it gives an unbalanced view of the continent. Not that the bad side should be ignored, but if you look through the cracks there’s a good side too. With the advent of internet video and more cameras in more hands, African smiles are reaching beyond the continent’s shores and inviting people to re-evaluate their perceptions.

People are going beyond the romanticised confines of wildlife reserves, air conditioned land cruisers and overlander trucks and travelling their own way. Young European women are hitchhiking Malawi. Middle income South Africans are venturing into marginalised areas that they used to steer clear of and college students are journeying along African roads they once thought inaccessible in old sedans. And it’s being filmed and shared in 15-second slices or lickety-quick edits with

stolen soundtracks. I asked a few youngsters (I’m 42. If

you’re under 35, you’re young) which online videos inspired them to travel in Africa and two films cropped up more than others. Interestingly, they were shot by the same person, Andrew King of D4 productions.

Full disclosure: I know King. I met him on one of the events he filmed, the very first Put Foot Rally across southern Africa. But I had never watched his films. When I finally did, I felt like breaking out of my Cape Town bubble and getting back on the road.

“For each person the word African conjures up a wide variety of images: despair, corruption; but in reality Africa is so much more,” King’s voice says, kicking off his promo for the Put Foot Rally. The film goes on to exemplify the ‘more’ aspect. Indeed it is more than you could imagine experiencing on any journey, through incredible landscapes populated with wildlife and of course, people.

The Put Foot Rally is, in essence, a social rally across southern African combined with a charity drive for school shoes. The participants stop in countries like Namibia and Zambia to help school kids climb into the footwear they’ve donated. Participants who were full of

Dutch courage the evening before are humbled, not because the kids are sad, BUT because they’re happy.

Importantly, King doesn’t milk the emotion. He’s just a fly on the wall and he shoots it as it is: a bunch of middle class folk connecting with poor but happy kids they once perceived as perpetually miserable; playing football; playing the fool; or simply laughing with them.

The video has inspired many more people to join the rally and in just three years Put Foot has tripled in size and even spawned an offshoot, the Mzansi Trophy, a more challenging off-road event.

King’s background is filming endurance sports and he has an enviable portfolio with a unique focus on Africa. “I started out wanting to film sports worldwide. I was particularly interested in the ‘States. But then I thought there are so many experts (filmmakers) there, why not become an expert here?”

He’s filmed road cycling in Rwanda, mountain biking in Madagascar, trail running in Tanzania and expeditions and adventures to many other countries in Africa. Lately he filmed Fat Kid on a Bike cycling from Cape Town to London in time for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Seven months into his trip, King joined ‘Fat Kid’ Ron Rutland in Ethiopia.

“His sponsors wanted to send a full crew to make a film,” King explains. “But Ron told them: life on the road is hard. I don’t want to babysit a whole crew. Just send my mate, Andrew.”

King flew alone to Ethiopia with his bike and camera and roughed it on public transport until he found Rutland. And then they cycled together. “That way you sweat with the guy. You put in the effort, and when you ask him to ride up and down that hill four times to get the shot, he doesn’t mind, because you’re in it together.”

The other film that inspired people is called Mountain of Greatness, about an eight-day adventure around the base of Kilimanjaro in which a small group of ultra runners helped Simon Mtuy, a local villager, realise his long standing dream of running around Africa’s highest mountain. What King captures so well is not just the sporting element, it’s the communities they encounter; the people they meet who make you forget the run; make you want to stop and chat. What sporting event is like that?

What stays with King when he returns from such travels is the sense of community he finds in many of the places he ventures. “Fields are owned by communities. If someone’s struggling the community helps. People may be poor but they don’t seem unhappy.”

Perhaps it’s the sense of community King captures that draws people here. Westerners might identify with it more than they think. Community is what brings people together in sporting events, in social rallies, in bright smiles on a dark continent.

Filming the other side of AfricaOn a continent that is generally portrayed as land of misery by the international media, Anton crone spotlights one filmmaker who effectively shows the many positive aspects that Africa has to offer.

BRIGHT SMILES: A scene from Mountain of Greatness

OPINION | ADCETERA

March 2014 | SCREENAFRICA | 11

The strangest thing happened to me the other day. Driving to work, I spontaneously blurted out the phrase: “Who do you have to thank? Boland. Boland Bank.” I had a marketing ghost living inside of me. An advertising pay-off line audaciously stored in some distant vault in my mind. Sadly, I did not invite it in, nor was it even intended for me to remember.

Certainly, for years, I was doing what the rest of the country was: sitting, soaking up anything that flashed in front of me on the family Telefunken. You don’t

have to think too hard to remember all the bits from other TV ads. They were ingrained in you and a part of life. They were entertainment in an entertaining medium – makes you think, doesn’t it?

It’s hard to imagine that the internet’s already been around for 20 years in South Africa. It’s shifted the human race in less than half a generation. We hear the jargon all the time: The Global Village, User-Generated Content, Social Media…

The world has become a frenzy compared to a tube with a piece of glass on.

Television showed the way. We were able to randomly place our brand messages in between simply planned spaces. We made ads that enhanced the viewing experience. Ads everyone remembered. Advertising creativity enhanced the television experience. We have now gone and applied the principle

of flooding the media to digital channels. We are scaring everyone off and are far too pushy.

One of South Africa’s ad greats recently gave a talk where he captioned a brand’s role as “dancing with the consumer”. A great analogy for what we should be trying to do every day.

The Cannes Lions introduced the Branded Content category only two years ago – a clear signal as to how we should be thinking. The idea of agencies and brands becoming content creators probably signals the most exciting time for all of us. It is the injection needed to get more interesting, creative people into our industry, as well as new positions, which were always limited to writers and designers/art directors.

You won’t find branded content on too many media strategies or creative briefs. Not just yet. Marketers need to take chances with budgets and start pushing for content experimentation. We have the opportunity to be the entertainers in any medium, really.

We need to draw the elusive, digital era bourgeoisie out, create the flame, shine the light and hold their attention in our palm.

Advertising gurus Brett Morris and Mohale Ralebitso have been appointed as CEO and Chairman respectively of the South African division of international communications agency Draftfcb.

Ralebitso brings a unique combination of skills and experience as a business leader and passionate agency person

who knows the nuances of the marketing communications industry and the strategic enabler that it is for market-dominant businesses.

His specific advertising industry experience includes leading The Jupiter Drawing Room during its record-breaking growth period, generating more than one

billion rand in new business. It was during this time that the agency started MetropolitanRepublic and concluded a deal with global giant WPP, firmly entrenching its place among global players.

Comments Ralebitso: “Strategically, I want to see Draftfcb get stronger in our existing business lines with what I consider to be class leading propositions while we responsibly expand our offerings to better match opportunities that the business landscape presents, starting with our existing clients. Diversifying our income streams and enhancing profitability is a key enabler for us to remain competitive and attractive to the talent we need.”

After Morris fled a career in law and found refuge in the advertising industry at Draftfcb in 1995 (after which he tested the water at a few other agencies) he was appointed Executive Creative Director of the Johannesburg agency in 2003.

Under his leadership, Draftfcb has won more awards than ever before in its 80-year history, including South Africa’s first Cannes Grand Prix. Morris has 14 gold Loeries, nine Cannes Lions and numerous local and international awards to his credit.

As CEO, Morris will develop and drive the vision of the group and, in doing so, place the creative product, the agency’s most valuable asset, at the centre of the business. “I will also provide strategic and

creative oversight on key client projects as well as continually evolve our model to retain our position as a leading agency and add more value to our clients’ business and our shareholders,” says Morris.

“In today’s ever-evolving and increasingly competitive landscape, it’s becoming more and more difficult to break through and make a connection,” continues Morris. “Iconic work does that and it’s generally hard to dispute that it works, which is why it is our benchmark. It’s the stuff that pervades popular culture and makes brands famous.

“I think Draftfcb is well positioned and occupies a unique place in the market, having helped build and grow some of the country’s leading brands through brilliant and effective creative integrated work. My challenge and that of the leadership team is to simply enhance what our business already does well and, where our brilliant strategic capabilities are less known, to build upon and better position these so we can leverage them for revenue growth,” he adds.

“It’s great to be back in the game and to be involved with an icon in the local industry. I’m energised by the challenge of navigating it with my fellow custodians and executives into the next wave so the generations coming can benefit from our experience while steering it on a forward-looking basis,” concludes Ralebitso. – Martie Bester

Mothballs or lanterns – It’s all about glue

Draftfcb appoints strong new leaders

Tom Cullinan

ADVERTISING GURUS: Mohale Ralebitso and Brett Morris, the newly appointed chairman and CEO of Draftfcb South Africa

By Tom Cullinan – Executive creative director, The Jupiter Drawing Room


ADCETERA |

The Bells Whisky television advert, The Reader, tells the heart-warming story of an everyday man who accomplishes the remarkable, despite his circumstances.

If you haven’t yet seen the new commercial, best you reach for a box of Kleenex. In a beautifully moving two minutes, you will undoubtedly find yourself battling a quivering chin and insurmountable waves of all things warm and fuzzy.

A collaboration between creative agency King James and production company Velocity Films, the advert portrays a touching tale which resonates with many South Africans.

Comments Greg Gray, director of the production: “This commercial was to form the third in a series, building on the phrase: ‘Give that man a Bell’s. The intention was to tell the story of an ordinary man who goes to extraordinary lengths to become literate, to enable himself to read his son’s book. The story needed to feel authentic, honest and touching. It needed to celebrate the father’s journey, leaving the viewer with nothing but admiration for the old man.”

As an emotionally evocative and inspiring journey unfolds, it becomes clear that the father’s noble act is more than deserving of the well-known Bell’s

catch phrase, delivered at the end of the spot. This is made even more poignant by a humble and honest performance delivered by lead actor, Joseph Mydell.

“We cast the net far and wide. We wanted good actors but ones we hadn’t seen in soapies. There are not many of those left locally. We then looked in London,” says Gray, who believes they were able to cast a well suited actor in the leading role: “He was first and foremost a superb actor. He was gentle and humble. He looked the right age. His father had been illiterate and so the story meant a lot to him. He really resonated with it.”

Producer Helena Woodfine, production manager Mitzi Bunce, director of photography Paul Gilpin, key grip Toni Schoeman, gaffer Simon Francis, art director Chris Bass and editor Ricky Boyd were the key crew who worked together to make an effective story come alive in a short space of time.

“I did the previous commercial so we were all on the same page. The story was relatively simple and I was given the task of visually telling it,” says Gray.

The commercial was shot using an Arri Alexa digital motion picture camera and Master Prime lenses over three days in

the week before Christmas 2013. Filming took place at a number of locations in Cape Town including Seapoint Library, Parow Library, Goodwood houses and central bookstores, a barber shop and a bar.

The advert continues to gain an incredible response by viewers, who are encouraged by the persistence of an extra special human spirit, that is celebrated with the clinking of tumblers filled with that “extra special scotch.” – Carly Barnes

It’s a battle to the death… but not for the two experts in contest, one a housewife, the other a demolition engineer. Instead, the two face off in an explosive challenge to find out whether a fast acting bug spray can compete with a blast of dynamite when it comes to clocking up cockroach fatalities. This new series of Doom commercials tests the seemingly impossible, the potentially dangerous and the categorically crazy.

Shooting over two days at a disused factory in downtown Johannesburg, the perfect location for a Mythbusters-esque real life experiment, director and DOP Lourens van Rensburg and his team from 7Films, set out to capture a reality-style spot which would stand out from the conventional commercials commonly seen in this product category.

Benjamin Kaufman, who produced the advert, said: “We approached the filming of the experiments like we would a TV show or documentary. We used four Sony FS700s and we had four GoPro Hero 3s. For the slow motion scenes we used a Phantom Gold.”

Everything seen in the video is real, from crew and cast to bugs and blast, requiring Kaufman to have a team of

experts able to handle the action, on board. Jason Plumbly, the executive producer, and Andrew Faber, the first assistant director, brought a wealth of

reality TV experience to the production having worked on shows such as MasterChef, Survivor and Fear Factor.

The jackhammer operators and the

demolitions expert were as legitimate as the experiment results, which were scientifically recorded. Animal wranglers and entomologists were brought on set to help control and manage the creepy crawlies and if you’re wondering about the action movie style flames – those were real too.

“Being an experiment, the majority of all SFX were done in-camera, the old fashioned way. We blew caravans up, we built the jackhammers. We did partner with Left and Blade from a post-production point of view, for them to add finishing touches. Their brief was to make things as real as possible and we believe they delivered well in that regard,” said Kaufman.

Of working with creative agency TBWA / Hunt / Lascaris Johannesburg on the project, Kaufman comments: “It was great partnering with them and we had a lot of creative freedom. Our brief was to produce an entertaining, fun and light-hearted campaign to watch, of which the message is to use Doom to control your pests – as per the client and agency. We just wanted to blow stuff up!” – Carly Barnes

Bell’s toasts a selfless act

Doom beats the boom!

AUTHENTIC, HONEST AND TOUCHING: A scene from King James and Velocity’s Bell’s advert, The Reader

A BATTLE TO THE DEATH: Behind the scenes on the set of Doom Death Matches commercial

Report on the South African commercials industry


OPINION | ADCETERA

The idea that one person can change the world might sound far-fetched, but Brent Lindeque has catalysed an online revolution which could render the biggest sceptic, a believer.

Though the origins of the social media phenomenon known as NEKnominating are unclear, legend has it that the chain activity, which requires the downing of an alcoholic beverage and the nomination of two more participants who have 24 hours to repeat and up the ante on their challenge, began as a bar drinking game in Australia – no surprises there. However, what is pleasantly surprising is that Brent Lindeque, director of brand activation agency The Chaos Theory, has turned the game into a pay-it-forward drive for positive action which he calls: Change One Thing.

“When we post something online we are essentially immortalising our actions and words. That is your product, that is the brand you are projecting for the rest of the world to see and you can either be

proud of it or not. I heard about the NEKnominations and my take was that we need to be a little more responsible about what we post online,” says Lindeque, who saw the movement as an opportunity to campaign for acts of kindness, instead of binge drinking. As it

turns out, inebriation is far less infectious than selfless generosity.

“I gave a homeless person a meal for lunch, thinking that it would at least reach and spread throughout my own friendship circle. I posted the video and within minutes it had over 100 views. An

hour later it had shot up to a thousand views and a few days later my Facebook inbox was filled with thousands of incredibly moving messages.”

What came next was an overwhelming response which saw people from Australia, Canada, France, Dubai and the UK uploading videos and creating their own NEKnomination campaigns for good causes – ranging from donations to literally giving the clothes off their backs to persons in need.

To date, Lindeque’s video has over 330 000 hits and stats continue to trend upwards, indicating an international movement which has caught the attention of Sky News, BBC, ABC Australia, Channel Ten Australia, UK newspaper The Metro and One News New Zealand, among others.

Lindeque concludes: “If you want to be part of Change One Thing, go and do something. If you’re waiting for someone to nominate you, I nominate you by default! Start your own ripple effect right now. Do the good deed and you’ll notice how you want to do more.”

Watch other NEKnomination videos and follow this worldwide charity drive on the official Change One Thing Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ChangeOneThingSA. – Carly Barnes

“I’m on holiday. It is nice. There is sun. There is sand. I am happy,” tweeted British songstress Lily Allen when she arrived on South African shores for a holiday in December 2013. Between exploring Franschhoek wine cellars and Cape Town cafés, taking a trip up Table Mountain and getting her nails glammed up, the queen of lyrical controversy squeezed in a shoot for her new music video, ‘Air Balloon’.

Orange Films in Cape Town was approached by UK production company, Friend, to produce the music video, which would feature Allen embarking on a dreamlike African Safari. Noel Paul and Stefan Moore, who make up the directing duo, That Go, were given free reign with the video concept which evolved throughout the process.

Though Orange Films predominantly services international commercials, they have vast experience working on both local and international music videos. Previous artists they have worked with include: Spoek Mathambo, Faithless, Corinne Bailey Rae, Beverley Knight, Chicane, Cornershop and M83, to name a few.

In the video Allen is seen casually hanging out with hillbillies, riding on the back of a zebra and sharing her affections with a cheetah. This could be construed as just another day in the life of an international superstar, but Orange Films producer, Jon Day said, that she “was

very down to earth, pleasant and relaxed.”

Typically South African lush mountainous landscapes from the two shoot locations, Boschendal in Franschhoek and Cornell’s Kop in Bot Rivier, frame the vibrant singer as she dances in a world which merges mother nature and make believe. Shot using an Arri Alexa camera, creative angles and special effects were applied to create what feels like a snapshot of the singer’s imagination. “The aerial shots are CG, the mushrooms and Jesus on the cross were done in post,” commented Day.

Other key crew members included Sonya Sier, the International Producer, JC Smuts, the local Line Producer, Luke Cornell, the first Assistant Director and Animal Wrangler, Mark Foster, the Key Grip, JP Hankins, the Gaffer, Carl Eksteen, the Focus Puller and Jako van Heerden, the Art Director. Aside from Allen and her animal companions, a small cast play four hillbillies in the video, all of which are South African actors.

‘Air Balloon’ is the second single from Allen’s forthcoming untitled album and was released on her official VEVO channel on YouTube on 7 February, racking up 1 965 786 hits to date.

“It’s a fun, colourful video and we had lots of fun making it,” concludes Day. – Carly Barnes

Goodwill goes viral

Lily Allen music video lifts off in Cape Town

PAYING IT FORWARD: Brent Lindeque

FUN & COLOURFUL: Lily Allen on the set of her Air Balloon music video in Cape Town


FILM |

B lood Tokoloshe – Dawn of the Beast was shot entirely on location in the township of Orange Farm about 45 kilometres from

Johannesburg. Jordan Harland wrote and directed this film about the infamous tokoloshe monster which, according to Zulu mythology, “is considered a mischievous and evil spirit and is called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others”.

Produced by Pascal Schmitz from Amariam Pictures, the film premiered at the 34th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) on 20 July 2013 where it screened in Kwamashu Township to an enthusiastic audience. The movie was one of only 12 local films selected for DIFF.

In December 2013, the movie screened at the Another Hole in the Head Genre Film Festival in San Francisco, and has been requested for consideration by several other international festivals following its successful run.

Tokoloshe curse

The film tells of strange attacks plaguing township women – and the community who are helpless to defend them. After each attack, Mthunzi (Msimbithi Mahamba), a shrewd businessman, becomes wealthier and more popular with the ladies.

The unsuspecting locals have no idea that Mthunzi has, with the help of a corrupt sangoma, conjured a ‘tokoloshe curse’ that brings him wealth and women in exchange for blood.

However, when he unexpectedly falls in

love, Mthunzi breaks the golden rule for controlling the beast and unleashes it on a rampage. Now, with an unquenchable thirst for blood, the monster hunts down Mthunzi’s lovers, killing them one by one. His only chance is to turn to the township’s reverend to try and save the woman he loves…

Developing the township film industry

“During the filming of Blood Tokoloshe – Dawn of the Beast, local talent from Orange Farm were used in an effort to contribute to the creation of a sustainable film industry, and develop skills where there is an obvious need and passion for filmmaking. This model, if successful, will create the first film of a sequel franchise bearing the Tokoloshe title, with the aim of shooting four movies per year,” says Schmitz.

The film was shot in 2012 for hard costs only and finished post-production in July 2013. In total, the movie cost R150 000 to make.

Schmitz comments: “All the crew and cast volunteered under a memorandum of understanding that all the profits of the first film will go into the production budget of the second film, and ultimately, the films will pay the participants during filming and support a sustainable film industry in Orange Farm.”

Empowerment

During the production of Blood Tokoloshe – Dawn of the Beast and the follow-up films, the project hopes to give participants certain skill sets in filmmaking and training to increase their chances of working in the industry outside of the franchise, as well as empowering participants to be more valuable assets to the franchise and therefore increase their earnings.

Schmitz concludes: “Local community members will be encouraged to establish small businesses and co-operatives to service the films with equipment hire, talent agencies and other relevant services.”

The DVD will go on sale later this year in various retail outlets nationwide and through Amazon.com in America, as well as other selected international Video on Demand (VOD) platforms.

Producers Schmitz and Mayenzeke Baza, of Mandela Bay Pictures, are taking the film to several markets in the first half of 2014 including the European Film Market (which was part of the Berlinale in February), the Rio Content Market in March and the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Blood Tokoloshe makes SA film history

MONSTER UNLEASHED FOR DOWNLOAD: A still from Blood Tokoloshe – Dawn of the Beast

By Martie Bester

In a first for South Africa, consumers will be able to download local B-grade horror film, Blood Tokoloshe – Dawn of the Beast, via wi-fi to their smart phones, in high-density commuter areas such as taxi ranks and spaza shops for under R5 per download. This will make the movie accessible to a much larger audience and overcome the problem of piracy that local films face.


| FILM

Fantasy love story Die Windpomp started out as a multi-award-winning short film from The South African School of Motion Picture Medium

and Live Performance (AFDA) in 2011, and was AFDA’s official entry for the Student Oscars during that year. Both the short and feature-length films were written and directed by Etienne Fourie, who was also at the helm of the 2013 box-office hit Klein Karoo.

Comments producer Chris Roland: “I knew I wanted to make an Afrikaans film, and based on research we had done, I knew the wider audience was not getting what they wanted. Die Windpomp’s story was the fit I was looking for.”

“From the start, I always set out to

make Die Windpomp a film for people, well, kind of like myself, like the people I know. People who are hungry for quality entertainment in their own language; their own culture. I truly hope that Die Windpomp will find a place with the right audiences. It is something that especially Afrikaans audiences are yet to see,” says Fourie.

In the movie, square-jawed and suitably handsome Armand Greyling reprises his role as the protagonist Hendri, who is forced to go and live with his grandfather. He arrives in the strangely familiar retirement village where flocks of flamingos of the fake variety adorn the environment. One night, Hendri sees some of the residents diving into a large dam, with a windmill rising from its centre, and that is when he meets the beautiful Margot, played by Leandie du Randt, who was chosen from 400 actresses who auditioned for the role.

Described as The Notebook meets Cocoon, two types of stories rarely produced locally, Roland says Die Windpomp as a film is: “... not too heavy, not overt comedy, yet endearing, humorous and moving, true entertainment.”

Roland comments that they followed a simple business model. “We looked at the realities of South African film revenue based on genre, cast, quality and marketing support, and came up with a number, then cut it in half. We produced on a very low budget, which our business model dictated. Experienced key crew members were paired with less experienced crew to ensure we got what we envisioned on screen.”

Without the pressures of imaging, an audience critiquing the short or worrying about the logistics, Fourie had much more freedom to explore the story and characters further than he might have originally done. Citing movies such as The Darjeerling Limited, The Jacket, Little Miss

Sunshine, Juno and Bridesmaids as inspiration, Fourie says the design of the film is perhaps the most crucial part, aside from the screenplay.

“The colours of the world of the film were crucial. All the characters and their specific environments are assigned specific colour palettes and, at the relevant times, blend into one another to have characters share certain colours, that is, certain qualities, emotions or agendas, depending on the situation.”

Enter Azell Bartizal, who adds her dash of magic to the wardrobe and costume design. “She designed and tailored a significant portion of the film’s wardrobe herself, which is exactly what it needed,” comments Fourie. “I encouraged the art department to make bold decisions and to enjoy the process – it’s always present on screen. This is perhaps something that very few audience members would consciously pick up on, but I truly believe that half the film happens below the surface.”

The team used camera movement sparingly, often opting for a static frame to cover all action instead. This augments the striking and very specific art design of the film, which often plays its own role, demanding attention from an audience almost as much as the characters do.

Die Windpomp was shot over 17 days in March and April 2013 in and around Cape Town, Lourensford Wine Estate and Silvermine Retirement Village on two Arri Alexas, favoured by director of photography Johan Prinsloo.

Continues Fourie: “Shooting in all the different locations was especially tricky because of the large number of different sites we needed to visit during that time. I was very conscious of this when writing the screenplay, but the world of the story was as much a character as any of those portrayed by our cast.

“The fictitious town, Dorp, and the retirement village on its outskirts,

Winterbessie Dagbreek, are all heightened versions of typical South African life and we spent a significant amount of time designing all the necessary aspects of it,” adds Fourie.

He says that it is for this reason that almost all of the interiors, with the exception of a church hall and a dance studio, were filmed on a sound stage. Having the ability to manipulate the environment was crucial for the overall design and feel of the film, on which Fourie and production designer Andrew McCarthy collaborated.

The windmill in the dam is a 3D model, animated and textured at The Refinery in Johannesburg. For the close-up shots involving Greyling, strapped in with safety harnesses from a rig, the crew constructed an actual, life-sized windmill in the studio, which was lit in front of a massive green screen.

Visual effects used in the movie are an extension of the stylised world of the story and include sky replacements, adding a forest where there wasn’t any, and merging the two locations of the town and the forest into a seamless environment.

Post-production was done at The Refinery and Area 5.1 in Johannesburg. Regarding sound design, which was handled at Soft Light City in Cape Town, Fourie worked closely with Johnny de Ridder from the bands Fokofpolisiekar and Die Heuwelsfantasties. Fourie cites De Ridder’s music as one of his biggest inspirations when writing the screenplay.

Concludes the filmmaker: “I can only hope that Die Windpomp finds a good home. I am biased as hell, but I truly believe that it deserves it. It really does.”

Die Windpomp also stars Ian Roberts, Grethe Fox, s Marga van Rooy and Marko van der Colff among others.

The movie screens nationwide in South Africa from 25 April through Times Media Films.

Quirky fantasy film first for Afrikaans cinemaBy Martie Bester

From South African production company ZenHQ, co-owned by Chris Roland and Lee-Ann Cotton, the makers of Stander and Hotel Rwanda, comes a new Afrikaans-language movie that is unlike anything local audiences have seen. In Die Windpomp (The Windmill), directed by Etienne Fourie, nothing is as it seems…

WASHED IN PINK: A scene from Die Windpomp


FILM |

how did you get into filM journAliSM And whAt SpArked your intereSt in MoVieS? One big help was getting a good start in the business by getting accepted on the news trainee programme operated by the BBC many moons ago. It provided basic training in all aspects of broadcast journalism – and that included several working attachments in different parts of the BBC. It was invaluable.

But passion always plays a big role in career development and I really like what I do. One thing that I think is important for any journalist is having self-doubt whenever you’re doing a story – if you get too certain about the way things are you can end up making mistakes.

I got into film journalism accidentally. I was trained as a news journalist – but in the early 1980s I found I had to freelance to make a living and the only opportunities were in the areas of arts and entertainment – and that of course included film. So I took the plunge.

Certainly there were many, many film moments that I remember from my early years – there was Cliff Richard in a British summer movie called Summer Holiday which made a big impression on me – so did Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane – but these are memories going back decades – I keep getting inspired by newer film moments, which is great.

pleASe elABorAte on your BeginningS At TAlking MovieS And how the Show hAS ‘eVolVed’ Since you StArted preSenting it in 1999? Talking Movies began as a six-week experiment by the head of the BBC’s all-news channel in February 1999. Something went right because the programme is still here 15 years later – and I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to present every edition since we first went on the air.

When we began, we were much more Hollywood focused and we reported on the movie landscape through the prism of Hollywood. That’s changed. We’re much more global.

We don’t ignore Hollywood but we cover cinema across the continents. In recent times the show has travelled to Brazil, Singapore and France.

We’re now aiming to be a global programme trying to serve our audiences who’re interested in not just the latest Hollywood releases but also cinema from their own national film industry.

whAt Are the current trendS in filM internAtionAlly? One trend is that the US studios are deriving more and more of their revenue from audiences outside North America. So far this has led to a dumbing down of movies because the conventional wisdom has been that the simpler the concept the easier it will be to sell internationally.

What I hope will happen is that Hollywood will start catering to the international audience more intelligently by incorporating actors, filmmakers and screenwriters for their films who come from outside Hollywood’s backyard – in other words, I hope they will draw on a global talent pool, which could lead to some interesting cinema.

So MAny people predict the end of ‘cineMA’ AS An experience. do you think there iS Any truth in thAt? I hope this doesn’t happen – I love going to the cinema! I think more and more people will be drawn to viewing online or video on demand (VOD), but I think the cinema will stay around a while as a showcase for certain ‘event’ films. For instance, I can’t imagine not seeing a film like Gravity in a cinema.

whAt Are the MoSt exciting chAngeS in filM thAt you’Ve noticed during the pASt fiVe yeArS; And whAt do you predict will hAppen in the internAtionAl filM MArket oVer the next few yeArS? Obviously the arrival of 3D has been very exciting but I think it works best when it’s not used as a gimmick: Life of Pi and Gravity being good examples.

Another exciting development are alternative forms of movie distribution emerging, so people don’t have to rely on cinemas to get their films out – they can use a variety of online methods.

In terms of the future of the international film market I don’t quite know what will happen, but China will be playing a very big role – it’s been building cinemas at a very rapid rate and audiences are hungry for film content – so China will be key.

whAt iS the future of indie filMS? Indie films have never really gone away but in the last few years it’s been tough

for them – basically the old business model is broken – I noticed this at Sundance this year. It used to be that someone would come in and buy an indie film for a lot of money and distribute it in cinemas – that doesn’t happen.

But the good thing is that people are coming in – they’re buying them for less money and they’re ending up being seen in different ways – not necessarily in a cinema. So I think there’s a bit of hope that a new business model may be emerging.

do you think AudienceS Still VAlue A trAditionAlly well-told Story? Yes – a well-told story is very much respected by the audience – they feel nourished and inspired and it makes the world of difference to have a great narrative.

Scriptwriting iS cruciAl to filMMAking. do you think there Are enough Strong StorieS eMerging worldwide? No, there aren’t enough good stories – we need to tap into different cultures. I was in Singapore and India in recent months – there were great filmmakers in both countries telling very strong stories. We need to get their work out onto the world stage.

conSidering docuMentArieS, iS there A reViVAl internAtionAlly in terMS of QuAlity of content And Storytelling ABility? Yes – there’s definitely a revival – and the storytelling is getting better and better – take a look at The Act of Killing, which is a highly original and ingenious attempt to understand what goes on inside the minds of people who slaughter.

iS there A fAVourite interView thAt StAndS out through the yeArS; with whoM And why? Yes, interviewing Bette Davis was amazing. She totally intimidated me. I was young and as one member of the cast put it she made ‘mincemeat’ out of me. She had a lot of spunk – and I admired that – and I’ve always thought about that encounter. She was also a fantastic actress.

who Are SoMe of the directorS, internAtionAlly, thAt you regArd AS exceptionAl, And why? Iranian filmmaker and director Asghar Farhadi (The Past, A Separation, About Elly, Fireworks Wednesday) and British director and writer Mike Leigh (Mr Turner, Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake, Secrets and Lies, Naked) who are both great storytellers and good observers of human relationships.

Talking Movies with Tom Brook By Martie Bester

In an exclusive interview with Screen Africa, Tom Brook, internationally renowned and respected movie critic, film journalist and presenter of BBC World’s long-running show, Talking Movies, shares some of his views on film and the future of cinema with readers.

wAlk the tAlk: Tom Brook

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whAt MAde you decide on the Motion picture MediuM AS A cAreer And how did you MAke your StArt in the induStry?I was working at a black theatre company in legendary Dorkay House at the bottom of Eloff Street. A photographer / filmmaker I knew wanted to make a black version of Macbeth called Maxhosa, he called me and asked for my help casting the movie as there seemed to be no one else around at that time who was considered ‘qualified’ to cast a black movie in Jo’burg. Once I’d cast the film I worked as third assistant director on it, but soon found myself assisting the director with the performance work. I worked with Cornie Mabaso, David Phetoe and the beautiful June Buthelezi – I had worked with them for a long time at Dorkay along with legends like Jimmy Sabe, Sam Williams, Barney Rachabane, Dan Poh – some of the greats of black theatre at that time. I opted to go into commercial filmmaking because the long-form industry at that time was all SABC, status quo based, poor quality filmmaking, and there was some great commercial work being done at the same time, and ironically, in those days, with a great deal of freedom.

whAt reAlly inSpireS you AS A Storyteller?I think I’m an interpreter; I observe events and feel like I can interpret them in a particular way that reflects my particular take on things. That’s how I view performance

and it’s how I view events. So I’m inspired to tell those stories where I feel I have a particular take on the behaviour, manners, motives and events. That’s the key I use to open the lock that gives me my personal view on the script and the performance – and that’s the same whether I’m looking at a 30-second spot or a full-length feature film. Where’s the moment that resonates, that I can interpret? When the moments are there and you can see them and share them with the world, that’s the inspiration. The inspiration, the work and the reward all live on the same holy ground that you’re meant to get to as a director – it takes focus to get there and stay in that place with the growing amount of distraction that can pull one away from the core values that one’s meant to be looking for, to do honest work as an actor or a director.

in Four CornerS, you worked with A cASt thAt Blended eStABliShed ActorS, new ActorS And non-ActorS. AS A director, whAt chAllengeS did thiS wAy of working offer And how did you tAckle theM?The challenge is to get rid of acting. As soon as the audience sees the acting you’ve failed. So, because I was working with a lot of actors of varying skills and many non-actors, I spent time in improvising on the life they all really knew, to get them to see that the stories we were telling were moments that could have, and often had happened in their lives. So we got the actors to find the truth inside themselves, and to depict that truth. Indiewire in Los Angeles, which reviewed the film before its International Press Academy Best Foreign Film nomination, described the acting as “searingly honest”. The truth is it wasn’t acting. It was about finding the truth of the moment in ourselves. To do that there has to be a lot of trust between actors and directors, and a sense that this is a safe ground you’re working on to get to the truth without being judged by others.

if you were offered An unliMited Budget And A BlAnk cheQue to MAke whAteVer filM you wAnted, whAt would it Be?I’d be pursuing the next project that’s my next project anyway. The project you’re in love with is like a beautiful girl you’re in love with: you don’t change her because you’ve got more money. You take her out for a fancy meal and double your efforts to court her, but the girl remains the same. She’s the one you’re after. I’m already in love with my next project. I think you have to be in

order to get anything done when the odds are stacked pretty steeply against independent filmmakers.

whAt chAngeS hAVe you Seen in the induStry Since you firSt StArted out?Agency briefs have shrunk and become more rudimentary over the years. There’s a proliferation of work, and a shrinkage of budgets that suggests to me that clients are not being kept abreast of where they need to be to get the sort of advertising they desperately want and will always need. Products get more and more expensive year after year, but the quality of the advertising often diminishes and gets too generic. There have been some great brands in this country with great advertising, that have allowed their brands to slip, and now those brands are not that distinguishable from their competitors. They know who they are, but they may not acknowledge that trimming their budgets year after year to make their bottom line grow is part of the problem, which is of their own making. I think there’s also a massive amount of on-the-floor second guessing and ‘me tooism’, micromanagement of directors’ work by agency creatives, suits, production and anyone else who happens to be passing by.

whAt do you think needS to chAnge in the South AfricAn filM induStry?We need to figure out how best to make the industry grow so that we’ll all be proud of what the industry gives back to us and contributes to the day-to-day lifestyle of our pretty fragile South African community. There’s a lot of obsessing about what we can gain from this job or that choice, and not much focus on how life or our industry is getting better, or what’s to be done about that. Thich Nath Hanh says: “no mud, no lotus”. Getting our hands dirty in practical ways to grow the lotus in our community is not a bad idea. We had the dark mud of apartheid once.

People who had vision, not just in politics but in our business too, recognised that mud and did something about it – that vision caused the lotus to grow in those days. We’ve got new mud these days, and only a few willing to recognise, and dip their hands in. For most it’s all a pretty blinkered celebration of the status quo, just as it was during the bad old days of “braaivleis, sunshine and Chevrolet”. When we recognise the mud, and start to speak up about it, we’ll get to watch the lotus of the new generation grow.

DirectorSpeak

Ian GabrielAward-winning theatre, feature film and commercials director Ian Gabriel, aside from having been at the helm of several notable advertising campaigns, is also the writer-director of South Africa’s submission to the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, Four Corners.

Ian Gabriel

INTERPRETING STORIES: Ian Gabriel focuses on attention to detail in a controversial commercial for Sissy Boy


TELEvISION |

“Reality is about the contestants,” says Kennedy who worked as content director on seasons one and

two of MasterChef South Africa. “Over the past few years I have been working more and more in reality television. I am committed to reality being real and not manipulated. I am naturally curious and fundamentally compassionate, and therefore past ‘victims’ and producers alike refer to me as the gentle prober or the ‘people whisperer’.

“Once the infrastructure is in place and we’re all on the same page, the biggest challenge is to stay in integrity and to allow reality, the story and encounters to unfold. With MasterChef South Africa we want situations in which people fight their own battles and come out stronger for the experience. The series is about the individual’s journey,” adds Kennedy.

Storytelling, affirmation, inclusivity

With seven cameras on set, Kennedy and the seasoned crew try to pre-empt where the action is going to be and how the contestants will react. “For me the process starts with the characters, the faster you get to know them the more likely it will be that you are going to anticipate their responses, which makes for good television.”

The director says that reality television is fundamentally about storytelling and understanding how stories, their arcs and structures work. “That is probably one of the most important skills as well as being

aware of the ‘bigger picture’ perspective. Reality is like a drama in a sense, except that you don’t get to direct the actors. As it is a much more controlled environment you need technical experience, and know how to choose your crew. It’s not about doing it all yourself, it is about finding the best person in each department who wants to deliver on set.”

Addressing her leadership style on MasterChef South Africa, Kennedy favours working in a team and growing people, both contestants and crew members, which yields positive results. “For me it’s about affirming people, and being completely inclusive,” she says.

Crucible for emotions

On previous shows, Kennedy worked very closely with the contestants, getting them in touch about why they chose to participate. “For them, it’s a deep psychological process. Reality becomes a crucible for emotions. I choose the softer approach to directing, as the contestants are going through a deeply emotional journey. As a result, they need to be supported by the crew, who also need to be in touch with their own process and with themselves, which in turn enables the contestants to deliver to the best of their abilities.”

In an emotive and engaging

experience, the contestants experience intense personal growth in front of millions of people. “I want to honour that and be respectful of what they go through, and do feel deeply for them.”

There is no doubt that reality television is permeating all levels of society and a series such as MasterChef South Africa, which is aspirational in nature and attracts audiences who become involved with much more than the talent’s cooking skills.

Audience satisfaction

Adds Kennedy: “MasterChef is about dreams. I believe there is a hunger for us to see other people succeed because it gives us hope, which in turn makes success become more attainable. We want to give viewers real journeys and I think that is what audiences tune in to see.”

The minute the contestants start cooking, despite careful planning and preparation on the part of Kennedy and her crew, reality starts playing out and constructing situations is impossible. “From that moment we have to anticipate what is going to happen next,” says Kennedy. “We need to establish where the ‘heat in the kitchen’ is in order to capture it appropriately.”

As things can get quite sophisticated

with cooking, Kennedy stresses that the audience must never feel alienated. “In reality we work on many levels to entertain and grow our audience, that is the biggest reason we’re here,” she remarks.

That’s why choosing the ‘right’ contestants is very similar to combining the correct mix of ingredients. Kennedy says, “It really is a collaborative process and as a director you have to realise that not everything begins and ends with you. I am only able to work with my style of directing because I have the support of the two executive producers Donald Clarke and Harriet Gavshon with Donald’s reality directing experience and his complete intimacy with the MasterChef format and Harriet’s big picture perspective.

Kennedy regards directing MasterChef South Africa as a great opportunity to create a show where everyone is allowed to bring different strengths to the table. “You never know where the next brilliant idea will originate from. It’s a dance to a piece of music you’re not necessarily familiar with, but to which you are completely committed,” Kennedy concludes.

Season three of MasterChef South Africa screens later in the year and is produced by Lucky Bean Media and Quizzical Pictures.

Directing for reality television: bringing integrity to the tableJane Kennedy, experienced South African director and producer is at the helm of pay-channel M-Net’s third instalment of reality television series MasterChef South Africa, and gives her views on how to keep things real behind the scenes and on set.

By Martie Bester

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KEEPING IT REAL: Jane Kennedy and crew on set


| TELEvISION

As I hand over my valuables and any device which could connect me to the outside world, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve gotten myself

into. My would-be housemates have the same bewildered look on their faces and as we are lead through the final door at Sasani Studios, I’m transported into a kind of pseudo-reality where there are no clocks, no ad breaks and no escape routes.

Social experiment

It isn’t long before the initial excitement and clear awareness of the cameras and microphones dwindles, leaving human nature to its own devices. Friendships are forged, leaders emerge, irks begin to simmer and defences slowly disintegrate, along with PG13 language.

It’s only when the booming voice of Big Brother announces a new challenge or calls us into the diary room that we realise we are all just part of a microcosmic social experiment, which for the actual contestants, will mean a whopping one

million rand prize, if they can withstand the isolation – and each other.

As Big Brother’s guests for the evening, we are made to do our own housekeeping, our own cooking and our own entertaining which is when the popularity contest ends and the shortlist of potential evictees begins to stir our minds. If we really were going to be trapped here for 63 days, as the real housemates will be, perhaps the first contestant to go would more likely be the one opting out of chores and challenges, instead of one who is the most potentially threatening to the end prize.

Setting the scene

Inside the house we are surrounded by modern Afrocentric décor, indigenous plants and a plethora of voyeuristic equipment. Every move we make is captured by 30 Sony Q-ball cameras capable of recording 360 degree movement, 10 GoPro cameras, two Pencil cameras, 11 Dome cameras and nine Sony handheld cameras.

Sennheiser EW 500 G3 microphones are permanently attached to each housemate, barring shower hour and the time we spend asleep. Ambience around the house is recorded by a number of discretely placed microphones, including: 23 Sennheiser MKH416s, four Sennheiser Boundaries, 27 Sennheiser KM184s, four Sennheiser MKH60s, five Sennheiser MKH70s and three Sennheiser K6s.

There really is nowhere to hide. Even the blacked out screen where the toilet camera and audio is set up can be uncovered and unmuted, should housemates partake in any non-bathroom related activities.

The diary room and store room are the only places where members of the production team are able to gain access to the house. Through a mirror in the diary room, they leave printed instructions, fresh batteries for housemate microphones and any other props required. Access is controlled throughout the house by the use of Maglocks.

Technical tenacity

As we prepare to leave the house, our fingers itching to tweet, type and tap against the screen of a smart phone, we are given an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour and begin to understand the effort and efficiency it takes to run a 24-hour live production.

Endemol’s crew of 120 professionals, including 12 technical directors, 11 content directors, shaders, audio operators, loggers and co-ordinators work in relay-style shifts, day and night, to deliver an around-the-clock broadcast as well as daily and weekly highlights shows, which audiences will watch on M-Net’s Mzansi Magic. Stories and plots are directed and planned as the action takes place; only four seconds before it appears

on television, while highlights shows are created from footage which is roughly cut in an offline edit and then sent immediately to a final edit.

The signals from 120 microphones are fed through five Yamaha digital audio mixers while the Big Brother voice and house music is distributed by a Yamaha DME64 digital mixing engine, cascaded to a Yamaha DME16 and fed to five Electro-voice amplifiers powering 23 Electro-voice speakers.

The main desk mixing stream consists of two digital Yamaha M7s. Ambience microphones are connected to seven Yamaha SB-168 Ethersound stage boxes, which convert analogue signals to digital, and are linked to three Yamaha LS 9 mixers. The video is controlled by a Pro-Bel router able to send any source from the master control room.

During my session in the diary room, I was asked if I could ever partake in the real-life Big Brother Mzanzi competition, to which I smugly replied: “Why, of course! In fact I think I’d stand a good chance of snagging the million rand prize!” In retrospect I think I may have taken too lightly the challenges faced by a group of strangers, who for an extended period of time, have to live together in close quarters. Even greater was my underestimation of what a hard working crew is required to run such a well-oiled reality churning machine.

24 hours of Big Brother lockdownScreen Africa journalist Carly Barnes spent a day with other media personnel under the watchful eye of ‘Biggie’ and ventured beyond the two-way mirrors and through blacked out passage ways, where a steadfast crew work around the clock to produce Season 11 of the hit reality series (Season Three of the Mzansi edition).

nowhere to hide: Carly Barnes taking part in a team challenge on Big Brother’s media day


TELEvISION |

HD Tv… circa 1950

The invention of the television cannot be attributed to one man; it was a slow process of collective improvement between researchers

from different countries and tinkerers whose initial concepts date back to the 1880s. It was the successive discoveries in electricity and electronics that helped to achieve the theoretical projects of the first researchers.

Enter René Barthélemy, a brilliant French engineer responsible for numerous impressive electronic achievements in the broadcasting field through the ‘20s and ‘30s including developments of the Nipkow lens disc and research into adopting a worldwide standard for transmission.

As head of French Television, Barthélemy initiated regular broadcasts, using the Eiffel Tower as a transmission mast with a power of 10 kilowatts, on 4 January, 1937, in 180 lines of definition. In July 1938, a three-year decree defined a standard of 455 lines VHF. In 1939, broadcasts continued despite there being only 200 to 300 individual television sets in Paris. With the entry of France into World War II the same year, broadcasts ceased and the transmitter of the Eiffel Tower was sabotaged.

During the war years Barthélemy, now a member of the Academy of Sciences,

continued to work effectively in the field of television, using his inventive genius and rigour to develop a 1015-and 1042-line system before settling on a more stable 819-line structure.

When Europe resumed TV transmissions after WWII (ie. in the late 1940s and early 1950s) most countries standardised on a 576i (625-line) television system. On 20 November 1948, François Mitterran, (the then Secretary of State for Information), decreed a French broadcast standard of 819 lines; broadcasting began at the end of 1949 in this definition. France was the only European country to adopt it.

This was arguably the world’s first high-definition television system and by today’s standards it could be called 755i (as it had 755-lines active) with a maximum theoretical resolution of 408×368-line pairs (which in digital terms can be expressed as equivalent to 816×737 pixels), with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

By comparison, the modern 720p standard is 1280×720 pixels, of which the 4:3 portion would be 960×720 pixels. The choice of number of lines has to do with frequency divider circuits. Before the advent of ICs you could only do odd numbers (usually primes like 3, 5 and 7) of divisions of a main clock frequency to obtain the line and field rates. With a

mains power frequency of 50Hz the values of 13 x 7 x 3 x 3 give 819 lines.

The development of a high definition standard was an impressive achievement, – but, was France and its overseas territory markets large enough to sustain the format in the face of a globally developing broadcast industry with its cheaper sets on the consumer side and broadcast equipment on the technical side? The signal also took up a relatively whopping 14mHz, double the amount of 625 line systems, meaning that fewer channels were possible, plus there was the small matter of colour.

Despite some attempts to create a colour SECAM version of the 819-line system, France later abandoned it in

favour of the Europe-wide standard of 625 lines (576i50), with the final 819-line monochrome transmissions from Paris in 1984. TMC in Monaco were the last broadcasters to transmit 819-line television, closing down their System E transmitter in 1985.

What makes the Teleavia type P111 television set unique is that it was a ’dual standard‘ TV, with the capability to show 441 lines along with a high definition facility of 819 lines. It is speculated that Teleavia may have been trying to ’future-proof‘ the P111 in case the French government decided to change their minds and standardise with their European colleagues earlier than they did.

future proof: The 1950 Teleavia P111 television set recently auctioned at Bonham’s

By Ian Dormer

In December 2013, an extraordinary collection of early technologies went under the hammer at Bonhams in London. Among the treasure trove was a working Teleavia type P111 television set from 1950. Designed by Citroën DS designer Flaminio Bertroni, the odd-looking set is one of the earliest examples of high-definition TV. High-def from the 1950s?


| TELEvISION

The Zamani Project is a mission dedicated to documenting heritage sites across Africa. For almost 10 years the Zamani team, comprising

only four academics from the University of Cape Town, has crisscrossed Africa, documenting previously almost unknown or unheard of heritage sites, using cutting-edge technology.

When Jac Williams, co-owner of production company Man Makes a Picture (MMaP), heard about this exceptional labour of dedication and love, led by Emeritus Professor Heinz Rüther, he knew that the project would make for a groundbreaking documentary television series.

“I was amazed by the detailed historical studies and even more so by the cutting-edge, 3D laser scanning technology and stunning 3D visual imagery created by the Zamani team,” says producer and director Williams who co-owns the Cape Town-based production company with editor, head of post and director Jacques le Roux.

Unique to Africa

“I instantly knew that this whole concept of mapping and study was unique, more so unique to Africa. Aside from the journey back in time and the ‘wow’ factor that the imagery will create, I hope that Zamani will instill a sense of cultural heritage awareness and pride in all people under the African sun,” Williams comments.

The Zamani Project, which has been selected for the official programme of the World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 will be officially launched in July at the Iziko Castle of Good Hope where MMaP will introduce their project and invite a number of heritage specialists to discuss the importance of awareness and conservation of our sub-Saharan African heritage in a bid to find funding for filming the series.

Series runner, Joanna Tomkins, says

that The Zamani Project is looking for financial support from international broadcasters and private investors. “The series’ profile is suited for channels such as National Geographic or Discovery, as well as a public broadcaster with slots available for one-hour historical, human interest or travel documentary series. We have already funded a 15-minute pilot, which will be produced within the next three months. With that tool in our hands, the production should move forward in leaps and bounds.”

Extraordinary visual journey

The series will primarily be broadcast in 2016, it will be shot 4K with two cameras for a total of six months, over a period of 12 months in Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon, Mali, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. Each episode will include an average of four specialised experts (local and international) who will come on site, plus the Zamani team and

local residents. Adds Williams: “The content is

absolutely fantastic. It is informative and takes the viewer on a visual journey never experienced in the world of television. Zamani explores lost worlds and brings them to life in viewers’ living rooms. There is never a dull moment, with multiple new and exciting sites in each episode, based around central themes such as the gold trade or the slave trade.”

According to Tomkins, research work is the motivation for the sites that are to be visited in the series. “We have selected a number of sites for each episode based on their diversity and interest and will follow the team as they ‘discover’ the sites. They will introduce the other storylines that are included in the series’ concept, such as history and discussions of architecture, conservation and society, incorporating, for example, 3D models and virtual tours of the monuments, as well as interaction with the experts studying and working on these sites and also with the local residents.”

Along with Rüther, the other team

members are Roshan Burtha, Ralph Schröder and Stephen Wessels who will provide the primary site investigation and the 3D archive for the documentary series.

Extensive 3D archive

These skilled scientists have ensured that the existing Zamani database provides millions of polygon points which have been scanned with laser scanners on the one hand, and close range photographs of all the textures of the buildings on the other. For the purpose of broadcast, an overall texture for the models that have been selected will be created by using a small number of these photos, as they do not require the accuracy that an archeologist would require.

Adds Tomkins: “We would film video ‘walk-throughs’ or ‘walk-arounds’, which can then be created identically with the 3D models. Then the 3D models will take us to a further level including ‘fly-throughs’, ‘fly-overs’, x-ray scans, plans, sections, and so forth.”

She continues: “The most challenging task is that we’ve decided to include the ‘recreation’ of a number of scenes within the sites which will require original research animation and modeling pertaining to the decoration and lifestyle of the times.

“The Zamani Project documents Africa within Africa and promotes conservation in the future through a time travel to the past and a fascinating adventure in the presence of these sites and these countries,” concludes Tomkins.

Zamani – An adventure in African heritage conservation

The zamani Project documents Africa within Africa and promotes conservation in the future through a time travel to the past and a fascinating adventure in the present of these sites and these countries.

Under Songo Mnara – Swahili City

A conservation project almost 10 years in the making, Zamani is set to become the basis for a new documentary series, complete with top-of-the-line 3D image technology.

By Martie Bester


OUTSIDE BROADCAST |

The changes in technology in outside broadcast over the past three decades has been so drastic that anyone who has only entered the

industry within the last ten years or less, would look at the way things worked back then and wonder, “how did they do that?” When television first took to the air in South Africa back in 1976, the entire OB industry in the country amounted to three four-camera units (big by the standards of the day) owned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) – two in Johannesburg and one in Cape Town – plus one three-camera unit in Cape Town. In a world where solid-state, tapeless video recording had yet to be heard of, let alone video servers and VSMs, the all-analogue equipment in these units required a considerable amount of labour intensive preparation.

Warming up

About three or four hours before an event was due to go out live, the crew of an OB unit would have to switch on all the equipment to make sure everything was operational when showtime came around. The cameras had to be warmed up to an operational temperature, as did the two-inch quadruplex tape machines on which the footage was captured, and the monitors, which of course, still ran good old-fashioned cathode ray tubes.

Expansion and integration

The sole purpose of the OB unit in those days was to be on location to capture the necessary footage. All titling, running of slow motion replays and other extras were done in the studio. This required a great deal of coordination and the synching of the OB and studio, which was done via the uncertain medium of telephone lines. Today things are very different, with all aspects of the production now being facilitated within the OB unit. When producers step into fully equipped OB units, they have

everything from cameras (now in the region of 18 or 24, rather than a maximum of four in the old days), six video servers (each capable of playing out six channels of video), slow motion replay and on-air graphics at their fingertips.

In the early days, the skills required by engineers operating OB units were component-based. This would enable them to set up the unit and troubleshoot on a piece-by-piece basis. Now the kind of expertise required is more system-oriented. VMS controllers hold the entire system together and the engineers need to have the IT-based systems knowledge to operate that. While the equipment incorporated in each unit has grown massively – and the technology being used is sufficiently scalable to allow even further growth – it has become relatively more manageable, provided that the unit managers have the necessary systems skills.

Industry growth

Aside from the growth that has taken place within the individual OB unit, the OB sector has grown tremendously since its beginnings in the 1970s. The SABC maintained a monopoly over it until the mid-1980s, when M-Net first launched. M-Net and its sister channel SuperSport then built up formidable fleets which offered stiff competition to the national broadcaster. In addition, a number of independents sprang up which have all taken their own bites out of the market. Some of these were founded by SABC-trained veterans who struck out on their own. Others – the more recent additions – are the creations of younger entrepreneurs who have entered the industry in a newer world in which not all roads lead to the national broadcaster anymore.

Production content and output has increased significantly over the years, especially since 1994, meaning that there is sufficient work to necessitate the industry’s growth and diversification. The major broadcasters now occasionally

have to outsource to one another and to the smaller operations in order to stay on top of their workloads.

Challenges

While the evolution of technology may have improved the performance and ease of use of outside broadcast, it can’t solve all problems. Like the television industry as a whole, the OB sector faces a number of challenges today.

Travel costs are a natural and unavoidable part of OB work and, with increases in fuel prices and the implementation of e-tolls on Gauteng’s highways, the logistical aspect of these operations have become pricier than ever. Another cause of escalating costs is the weak rand, with the majority of the hardware being used in OB units being imported.

Another problem identified by several industry players is a shortage of training and the worryingly high average age of OB technicians in South Africa. There is a group of operatives who have been working in the industry since the 1970s and the knowledge and experience base they have gathered is vast. The extent to which their skills are being passed on to the next generation has been questioned by some. Of course there are younger experts already making their mark but the industry is growing and is set to do so even further and the question is whether the skills base of the new generation is sufficiently deep and wide to fill the specialised labour demands of the OB market.

South Africa’s economy is unique among those of African nations in that it is on the verge – at least in some sectors – of evolving from an industrial base to one centred around services and information, much like in developed nations. Practitioners in the OB sector would do well to keep this in mind. As one member of the industry told Screen Africa, “We all have the same toys. It’s how we use them that sets us apart from one another.”

Outside broadcast then and nowBy Warren Holden

As the first quarter of 2014 reaches its end, the business of television outside broadcast in South Africa celebrates its 38th year. Starting as a small division within the national broadcaster, OB now boasts a number of operators – large and small, corporate and independent – across the country’s television production hubs. While there are a number of challenges facing the industry, it certainly has come a long way.

fully eQuipped: Inside one of SABC’s OB units

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Having been in the television industry for just over a decade, EFX has been involved in the production of numerous live concerts, sporting events, series and documentaries. It provides either a fully equipped OB van or lightweight flyaway kits, as the demands of a production may require. As far as concerts are concerned, EFX provides the facilities both for the production of live performance videos for DVD or streaming, and for the coverage that is presented on the big screens during the performance. In February, EFX was called upon to provide these services for Carlos Santana’s South African tour.

In building up its equipment base, EFX takes advantage of certain affordable, high quality production solutions now available on the market. Among the newest additions to its facilities is the Blackmagic Design ATEM 2M/E 16-camera input switcher.

Among its features are 16 simultaneous inputs, a SuperSource multi layering compositing engine, two multi-view outputs, two mix/effect (M/E) rows, and a total of six auxiliary outputs.

Also being utilised by EFX is a new LEMO fibre optic camera cabling system and a four-channel HD Media/ Replay Server – HD/SDI I/O. The system is built to spec for each project and is capable of Full HD and instant replay. It includes a 5.1 audio desk and is operated by well trained, competent crew. Both standard

and high definition outputs are provided for, as well as 16x9 and 4x3 aspect ratios, satellite uplinks and internet streaming.

Aside from the recent Santana concerts, other feathers in EFX’s cap include FIFA World Cup 2010 coverage for SuperSport HD, Andrea Bocelli’s One Night in Africa Concert, three seasons of the Saints Easter Rugby Festival, all the

games in Tanzania’s Football Federation Premier League tournament and Simphiwe Dana’s Live at the Lyric Theatre. EFX also offers its services for corporate videos. One recent example is a production made for Bidvest, shot in 3D HD.

In the past year, EFX has massively increased its capacity. Its OBs now offer

full spec for any purpose, which would not have been possible this time last year, but has now been facilitated by the reduction in the price of high-end equipment. EFX, says its owner, Brendan Marsay, is capable of taking on any live event, from an intimate performance in a small concert hall to a major sporting event in a packed stadium.

With the increasing costs of transport and the weakening of the rand, the movement of large amounts of heavy equipment – which is par for the course when it comes to outside broadcasts – is becoming more and more expensive. The use of flyaway kits, aside from enabling greater mobility, is a way to reduce these costs. Many equipment rental and outside broadcast facilities are already assembling these kits on a regular basis and the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) TV OB division is no exception. Recently the technical department at TV OB created a complete, six-camera OB unit capable of being carried on board a commercial aircraft, without incurring excess baggage costs.

Using the latest technology and the weight saving capabilities it offers, the

team assembled the unit, which is divided up and housed in separate cases which can be carried on board airliners by commercial and technical crew like any other piece of luggage. The housings incorporate, not only the various pieces of video and audio technology, but work surfaces and frames as well. With redundancy and reliability as key requirements, the unit is fully equipped with vision mixer, digital video effects, router, monitors, configurable recording system, multiple editing, audio mixing, vision control, communications and lightweight tactical fibre cabling.

With this innovation the SABC intends to offer the industry a lightweight solution to make production more affordable.

For more information on SABC TV OB’s offerings call 011 714 4853 or visit www.airtime.co.za.

EFX Productions increases its OB capacity

SABC introduces lightweight flyaway kits

liVe eVentS froM Big to SMAll: One of EFX’s camera set-ups at Carlos Santana’s Cape Town concert in February

greAter MoBility, reduced coStS: A crew with flyaway kits


COMPILED BY WARREN HOLDENOUTSIDE BROADCAST |

ADDING A NEW DIMENSION

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Since December 2013, a large new OB truck has taken up residence at the Roodepoort headquarters of Dimension TV, the independent, one-stop outside broadcast facility which has been in operation since 1997. The new trailer, which the Dimension TV team has been assembling for months, is a double expandable rig wired for a maximum of 24 cameras. This unit is the latest addition to Dimension TV’s extensive fleet of large, medium and small OB units.

The new OB truck, which is called OB6, can accommodate 20x Grass Valley LDK8000 cameras plus 4x Grass Valley LDK8300 super slow-motion cameras. The video router is a Grass Valley Trinix

224 x 256, with eight TMV boards, controlled by virtual studio manager system (VSM). The production room is outfitted with 18 x25” Sony OLED monitors and the facility also includes an EVS room (the facility includes six EVSs) complete with 12 x 23” LCD monitors. There is also a video tape (VT) room, which can accommodate up to four EVS X-Files. Vision quality control is done on five 17” Sony OLED monitors.

As far as audio is concerned, OB6 comes with an Artemis Light audio console with Bluefin 2 High Density Signal

Processing, 32-multi-layer faders and five Hydra 2 I/O wall boxes, providing 88 microphone line inputs, 73 line outputs, 32 AES (audio engineering society) inputs and outputs, two MADI (multichannel audio digital interface) interfaces, eight Opto inputs and eight relays. All connectivity is via single-mode RC fibre. Also included are two Lawo PRO-V de-embedder and embedder units, a Telex ADAM-M Frame Digital Matrix Communication system with 64 ports and 16 MADI ports, supporting analogue 4W, MADI, AES, RVON and OMNEO, with full

redundancy. Joining all of this together is a Grass Valley Apex 512 x 512 stereo audio router with VSM manager control system. Also included are 24 x KP12 CLD panels, a CTP camera talk-back system, four telephone hybrids and two AEQ ISDN codecs.

OB6 was first put to the test on a golf tournament in February, and appears to have been a complete success.

To find out more about OB6 or any of Dimension TV’s fleet and other offerings, call 011 472 7512 or visit www.dimensiontv.co.za.

Dimension Tv makes new addition to its fleet

NEW OB TRUCK: The inside of OB6


EQUIPMENT RENTALS |

As service providers to both the film and television industries, equipment rental facilities offer an interesting window into the state of

both. In an attempt to gain an overview of the equipment rentals business, one is inadvertently offered a look at the industry as a whole since equipment rentals are so closely tied to it. The view through this window is a rather bleak one, though not without its silver linings.

Scarce work, low budgets

The film industry in South Africa has undoubtedly experienced a significant boom in the past few years. More films are being turned out at a higher rate than ever before and, if recent offerings at local film festivals are anything to go by, the quality is improving too. However this boom is not enough to drive the overall production industry in the country. Films remain a minimal output of an industry that relies on television for its bread and butter. According to owners and managers of equipment rental facilities, there is not a sufficient amount of that bread-and-butter work to keep the industry comfortably moving forward. Broadcasters, they say, are not commissioning large volumes of work. What is commissioned, with the exception of certain ‘blue chip’ titles, such as some hit reality shows, have low budgets. As a result, the crew members who pass through the rental companies’ doors are often overworked, underpaid and lacking motivation.

Knock-on effects

Lower budgets and less work mean less business for the equipment rentals. The only way to compete in such a market is to lower prices, which most of the businesses are willing to do insofar as is reasonable. Price, rather than service, is the major consideration for production companies in an environment where funds are scarce. So whoever offers the lower price is going to get the business. Small rental companies can only go so far in this regard as they are, for the most part, still trying to work much of their equipment as hard as possible in order to pay it off. Some of the larger, better established companies on the other hand, are in possession of certain pieces

of equipment that are long paid for and which can therefore absorb some of the costs that would usually have to be born in the case of competitive price reduction. Competition, therefore, is often skewed in favour of a handful of larger companies who are able to slash their prices in order to undercut the smaller operations. Several smaller companies have decried these aggressive pricing tactics, while admitting that they can hardly fault the ‘culprits’ for using whatever competitive edge they can get in a very difficult market.

Competition and cooperation

There are major barriers to entry into the equipment rentals market due to the sizeable capital investments that need to be laid out to purchase the requisite gear. As a result the sector remains small and very competitive. Yet, as might seem strange to an outsider, there is a relatively high degree of cooperation between the competitors. It is not unusual for one company, in attending to a client’s brief, to find that it is short of a particular piece of equipment and then simply outsource it from a competing facility, thus spreading the business around a little. There appears to be a strong sense of everyone being in the same boat and although the operators continue to

compete, it is often with a certain degree of mutual understanding.

Running after technology

The ongoing problems of the industry notwithstanding, probably the most pressing and ever-present challenge faced by gear rental companies is that of keeping up with the ceaseless march of technological development and the accompanying fads and trends that pass through the industry. Time was, in the heyday of film, when certain pieces of equipment – cameras in particular – would remain industry standards for years. A gear rental company could hold on to an Arriflex 35mm camera for an extended period of time, knowing that cameramen would keep renting it out, and before long it would pay for itself. The advent of digital cameras and formats completely destabilised the technological part of the industry. Now there is little chance of predicting whether a camera in demand today will still be what the industry wants tomorrow.

Goran Music of Visual Impact says that developers of production and broadcast tech used to have a ‘roadmap’ that could be used to plan and predict the development of new products. Nowadays, no such roadmap exists. Manufacturers may start on a certain course, only to change midstream when

consumer tastes appear to shift. The end users’ side of the market is just as fickle. Users are always on the lookout for the next camera that offers more for less, or that perhaps gives a more filmic look or better definition. HD had barely established itself before 4K was being pushed onto the scene. Now people are already talking about 8K.

Henk Germishuysen of Puma Video says: “We carry significant risk by buying new equipment and introducing it to the industry. The incentive and appetite for this risk is becoming less and less.” Martin Smookler of Nates agrees: “The object is to buy the gear and ensure that you work it hard enough to pay back its cost. Resale or salvage values are not the point. But sometimes you find yourself having to settle for the best possible salvage value on a particular item because it’s just not being booked out often enough anymore.”

It all seems so gloomy when this list of challenges are considered together. But it is easy, when caught in the middle of rapid change, to perceive it as a disastrous ending, rather than a transition. As Germishuysen says: “Like any industry the game is constantly changing, as are the playing field, players and rule makers. All this means is that we have to adjust our game plan… It forces us to come up with new business models to try and make it work...”

Equipment rentals: a sector in transitionTo state the obvious, equipment rental companies are at the mercy of the industry they serve. The relative success of the gear hire sector is exceedingly sensitive to the rather unpredictable ups and downs of both the production and tech industries. Rental facilities thus appear to ride intrepidly along the road with no way of seeing what is waiting over the next rise or in the next valley.

By Warren Holden

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Cam-A-Lot operates out of the Randburg suburb of Ferndale and offers a variety of rentals and services ranging from cameras (both video and still) to a fully HD-equipped studio space. Due to client demand in Pretoria, the company has also opened a branch in the east of the capital, providing for what appears to be a quietly growing market in that city.

The facility services a broad cross section of the industry. “It’s amazing how the industry is changing and growing due to the increased accessibility that the internet provides,” says Cam-A-Lot’s Glen Theron. “This has opened the doors to the incredibly diverse clientele we now have. The majority of our clients used to be professional crew members in the television industry. But now we have requests to supply gear for churches, as

well as functions, where the programming is often streamed to the web. Corporates have also seemed to embrace the power of video, not just for marketing and training purposes but also for ‘fun’. We are seeing more and more videos being made on which the staff get involved and use video as a medium for team building exercises. Both church and corporate sectors have now become major parts of

our business.”One of the main challenges for those in

the equipment rentals sector of the production and broadcast industries is the need to stay on top of constantly evolving technology. “It is impossible to keep 100 per cent up to date with all the latest gear all the time,” says Theron. “However, as always, we do our best to accommodate our clients. If we don’t

have the gear we will go out of our way to get it. We are very good at making a plan for our faithful clients.”

Among the new gear that Cam-A-Lot has recently added to its stock is the Sony PMW150, which is a popular and capable replacement for the EX3. In the lower end of the market, the Panasonic AC90 and the Sony NX70 are very popular for shoots with lower budgets or where a smaller camera is needed. On the other end of the spectrum is the Sony FS700, with its Super 35mm sensor and its ability to shoot 4K. On the lighting side, Cam-A-Lot has a large

array of LED lights.The past year was a good

one for Cam-A-Lot and 2014 is looking just as good if not better, with a number of major projects lined up. It has also scored a major coup through being contracted to be involved with news gathering work in Brazil during the FIFA World Cup.

Contact Cam-A-Lot on 011 787 6234 or visit their website at: www.camalot.co.za.

Cam-A-Lot diversifies its client base

GROWING WITH THE INDUSTRY: The Cam-A-Lot crew


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“A lot of television these days is reality based,” says Goran Music, company director of Visual Impact South Africa. “Even news channels are starting to resemble reality television in the way they are formatted. Reality formats dominate TV viewing these days and for us this is not a bad thing because that is where most of our business is coming from. We have been working on these kinds of shows for years. We were actually

involved with a precursor to reality television, having worked on MTN Gladiators for several seasons. That was before reality television even existed. And we have been involved with a lot of major reality formats since then.”

These productions require gear. They are multicam shoots that need substantial technical support and, in many cases, it is just not feasible to purchase such equipment. It is best for the production

company to approach a facility that can provide the kind of quantity of gear needed as well as technical support. This is what Visual Impact provides. Not only does it rent out the gear but will often have technicians on set as well as offering data management services, which are vital on shoots that yield hours of footage from multiple cameras. This kind of large-scale production facilitation is the backbone of Visual Impact’s business, although it works with productions large and small, from corporate videos to major local and international film shoots.

Being affiliated with the international Visual Impact brand, Music and his team have the advantage of being able to call upon their European partners when a client requests a specific piece of equipment that they may not have on hand. They can thus expand their

capacity quickly without any capital investment.

Although Visual Impact stocks a wide range of brands, if it could be said to have a speciality, it would probably be Sony. Visual Impact is an authorised Sony dealer and thus holds a good range of its products and is particularly well equipped to offer technical support on them. “We have a workshop, we have access to spare parts and we can service those products with confidence,” says Music. “That’s not to say that we don’t supply other gear. We will work to fill a customer’s requests and to provide a solution that best suits their needs. We listen to the client and apply our experience to advise them. Then together we decide on the best tools for the job.”

visual Impact partners with reality Tv production

reAlity ByteS: The Visual Imapct team in action


COMPILED BY WARREN HOLDENEQUIPMENT RENTALS |

Based in Randburg, Puma Video is a well-established equipment rentals facility catering to the film and television industries with a particular focus on the latter. Over the past year, it has embarked on a major mission to upgrade most of its camera inventory to current models.

The latest arrivals include the new Sony PMW 300s – the new generation version of the classic Sony EX-3. Puma has also acquired the baby in this series, the Sony PMW-150. This offers the same quality as the PMW-300 but in the smaller Sony Z5 body, making it a lot cheaper than the PMW 300.

Another addition is the new Sony LA FZB1, a ZF to B4 lens mount adapter that many cameramen in the industry will find very exciting, as it allows for the use of all Canon ENG 2/3” and Canon KLL Cine

lenses on Sony F-3 or Sony F-5/55 cameras. The adapter has some very clever and expensive glass that ‘spreads’ the light to fill the S-35 sensors of these cameras to fully utilise the super 35mm sensor with 2/3” lenses. It reserves the same angle of view as the 2/3” lens being used, and a 12-pin interface allows control over iris, zoom and camera functions.

Puma has also introduced the TV-Logic 5.5” on-board monitors to its inventory. These work extremely well with the Sony F-55, Sony FS-700 and Canon 5D kits that the rentals company regularly sends out.

They are extremely light, packed with features and offer a full 1920 x 1080 display.

A handy accessory for users of the Sony FS-700 is the HXR-IFR5 RAW interface for the camera, which Puma now has on hand. This allows one to record RAW onto the Sony AXS-R5 recorder. Both the FS-700s and F-55 are on the latest firmware versions.

Finally, Puma recently added the HME wireless comms system from Clear Comm. This augments its existing cable comms systems from Pro Sound, with

which it is fully compatible. The HME has proven hugely popular and is a welcome addition to the fly-away multi-cam units that Puma has put together.

This is just the beginning of Puma’s effort to augment and upgrade its equipment in 2014, with further new acquisitions set to take place during the course of the year. Due to the constant upgrades, Puma is always able to offer excellently maintained, used kit for sale.

Contact Puma Video on 011 886 1122/3/4 or visit www.pumavideo.co.za.

Nates Audio Visual, a gear hire company offering a broad range of solutions in camera, lighting and grip equipment, has gradually transformed itself over the past few years, shifting its emphasis from merely renting out equipment, to offering more interactive and flexible service to its clients.

Martin Smookler, managing director of Nates, says: “Throughout the last two years we have consistently focused on improving our business with emphasis on our professionalism towards servicing our clients. We feel that where we can add an edge is by giving our clients the personal touch on already stressful and chaotic shoots. We go the extra mile and pride ourselves on going beyond the call of duty. We have reshaped the company over the past couple of years and we intend to continue thriving and flourishing into the years ahead.”

Nates’ major client base includes small, independent filmmakers and music video productions. These sectors of the market don’t have access to the kinds of budget that commercial or television productions offer. At the same time, the companies are often made up of younger, less experienced crew who may require more after-sale, technical assistance. Although Nates also works with the more

established, better funded and more experienced crews, its flexible prices and personal attention make it particularly attractive to the independents and keeps them coming back.

The development and transformation of Nates since Smookler took over the

leadership of what had been a somewhat troubled company up to that point, has been so extensive that a complete change of branding and identity is now on the cards. “We are so impressed with our current results that this is even necessitating a name change to reflect

our new look and new feel. Watch this space,” says Smookler. “We would like to thank all our clients for their loyalty and business and assure them that we will always do our utmost to take the gear hire stress out of production,” he concludes.

Puma video invests in inventory upgrade

Nates Audio visual offers a personal touch

NEW KIT: A Sony F55 equipped with the new Sony LA-FzB1 lens mount adaptor – one of Puma’s latest acquisitions

PERSONALISED SERVICE: The team at Nates Audio Visual: Dan, Jason, Craig and Martin

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POST PRODUCTION |

Many will remember the 1970s and 1980s as a period considered the most prolific within the filmmaking industry in South Africa. It was also

a time when the South African government offered extremely attractive subsidy schemes designed to encourage film production. Regrettably the schemes had their shortcomings as they were widely abused and finally, in the 1990s, they were officially terminated.

These subsidies did however result in the birth of ‘African Cinema’ in South Africa – where a handful of filmmakers produced hundreds of films for the oppressed majority, telling universally entertaining stories in their languages and giving rise to a generation of African film stars. These films were widely distributed to rural communities by means of informal distribution ‘road show’ networks – where films for the people, were taken to the people (reaching audiences of hundreds of thousands).

In the early 1990s, the Department of Home Affairs launched an investigation into the subsidy schemes and it was during this period that filmmakers were encouraged to submit their master prints to the National Film Archives – only a fraction of the African films were ever submitted and the majority simply disappeared.

Gravel Road African Film Legacy (GRAFL) has been launched to locate, acquire and restore once discarded and forgotten African cinematic gems, making them available to a whole new generation of cinema lovers around the world.

Benjamin Cowley, CEO of Gravel Road Entertainment Group (Pty) Ltd, is an industry veteran who started in television 14 years ago, co-producing NBC’s International Day of Broadcasting for Children in 1998, which won the Emmy Award for best live production that year. He explains the process.

“We operate out of the new Waterfront Film Studios complex, and while we are

not part of that group, they are partners in the legacy initiative. Restoration is only a small part of our business (although taking up most of my time at the moment!). Our core focus is development and production of feature films for export purposes. 2014 is really our first year in operation as the majority of the last two years has been spent setting up models and structures, and building relationships. This year we are planning on completing two feature films,” says Cowley.

“In terms of the legacy project, the movie Joe Bullet is the tentpole project with which we are launching the initiative. We’ve just delivered six films (including Joe Bullet) to SABC1 for broadcast in April this year. The others are Bona Manzi, Isiboshwa, Ukuzingala, Ezintandandeni and Ambushed. We have secured the rights to over 100 titles to date and are in the process of digitising all of them for broadcasters to view.”

Once they have made their selections, the films undergo a full restoration

process which takes between two to six weeks depending on the extent of restoration required. The restoration process is complex and painstaking. “Since most of the content is in vernacular we are focusing on the local television markets,” says Cowley, “although the opportunity to reach into the rest of Africa and other platforms (including mobile and IP) does exist and is being actively explored.”

The restoration process involves the cleaning and physical repair of the film which is generally in the form of a 16mm print. The next step is scanning the film in HD using a Spirit Classic Telecine machine and from there the audio and picture are separated. Step three is processing the film for restoration using Diamant, which is specialised software that is able to digitally remove scratches, dust and sparkle. This is quite a long process and it literally works frame for frame.

The audio is restored using a Protools

based restoration application. “At the same time we have a team who handles the subtitling,” concludes Cowley. “Once all this is done, the picture is sent for final grade on the Pablo and then audio and subtitles are married to the picture and the fully restored master is generated.”

The process is indeed painstaking and the attention to detail extreme. As the original features were completed without the sophisticated equipment now available – and it would seem on low budgets – the quality was poor, with picture artefacts and sound glitches being commonplace. The restoration process used by the Legacy Project renders features otherwise unacceptable for broadcast not only acceptable, but now in full HD with clean pictures and perfect soundtracks. This is a major achievement, allowing a plethora of films that have been unavailable for years back onto the broadcast and theatrical market.

Restoration – done to perfection

RENEWED FOR A NEW GENERATION: A sample of the 1980s film Joe Bullet before and after restoration

Benjamin Cowley and Reginaled PIllay of Gravel Road Entertainment, in the lab

By Andy SteadCape Town-based production house Gravel Road Entertainment Group has launched a new initiative aimed at restoring some all-but-forgotten South African films from the 1970s and 1980s to their former glory.


| LIGHTING

The TV Industry in general has, over the past 30 years, undergone many changes, but the one that has affected lighting the most was the

change from tube-based cameras to CCD (Charge Coupled Device) based pick-up devices in cameras.

In later years, the CMOS- (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) has also been used with much success. These devices have far increased sensitivity and the result of the increased sensitivity of these receptors meant that the level of light required to excite the photons in the solid state unit to generate good pictures, decreased dramatically.

Lighting and power

In the early years in TV, with studio lighting having to satisfy light-hungry camera tubes, the major problems encountered were in dealing with the

control of heat being emitted from studio lights. Most people are aware that incandescent lights get extremely hot and as such are far better heaters than lights. For every R1.00 of power consumed by these lights, only 11 per cent is made up by visible light. The rest is re-distributed as heat. So with as many as 50 x 5kw and 2.5kw lights being used, almost at full power, the heat build-up was massive. While vast amounts of power were being used to power lights, more was in turn required to re-cool the studios, via massive air-conditioning units. So, for every kilowatt of power consumed to generate light (and heat) another kilowatt was required to power the air-con units to cool the studio down.

Limitations

Added to this, a phenomenon known as video noise plagued us at every turn. This is when the picture battled to display any detail in a dark area but rather displayed a jumble of pixelated picture information or alternatively, lag – whereby any bright spot, such as a light or mirror reflection that the camera panned through, left a comet-tail of highlights dragging behind it, often remaining on the screen for many minutes after the bright source had disappeared. This meant that the camera could not be used until the tubes had recovered, resulting in unscheduled tea-breaks during production.

Careful lighting control important

This era was however a magnificent training ground as it taught us about light control and balance, and that more was not necessarily better. We learnt very

quickly that you could not use colours that were too light for costumes and sets and that controlling the light spill was supremely important. Whites and sheens were taboo and caused major problems in the picture composition. If you did not carefully manage the excesses of light spillage, lights that were not necessarily part of a specific scene could cause many unintended problems.

Technology changes

With the advent of CCD technology, the camera’s optimum sensitivity of 2000 lux (lux being the unit of measurement for illuminance) at ƒ4 in the 1970s and 1980s jumped to 2000 lux at ƒ5.6. This meant that the camera could be excited by 50 per cent less light to achieve the same picture quality. This started a drive to use smaller lighting sources to achieve the same result.

In addition, the development of alternative light sources was being examined and in the early 90s experiments were being conducted in using fluorescent technology as a lighting source. However, the base materials used in the ‘florrie’ environment in conjunction with mercury, caused these lights to produce a greenish hue which gave faces a very weird colour. This was unacceptable for the sensitive TV camera system as, psychologically, a green face indicated either a person being sick or being a Martian. Great if you were doing a science-fiction programme but hopeless if you were presenting news.

Many hours of research were conducted, using alternative methods of producing a lower power but higher lumen output type of light that could be used in film and TV.

Technological improvements

As time and research have progressed, so has the quality of the CCD and CMOS and, with this improvement in receptor quality, the light-level requirement has also dropped. The advent of the HD-CCD has been one of the biggest steps in the technology evolution as the light level required to generate good static picture quality has dropped down to a quarter of what it was 20 years ago.

Concurrent with the CCD development, the realm of TV lighting has undergone many changes over the past 30 years. Initially the 2kw Fresnel spot replaced the 5kw unit as the studio workhorse for the main lighting level setter.

In fact, many 5kw spot lights have been adapted to hold the 2kw CP 41/73 bubble, immediately bringing about a halving of the power output. We could have resorted to dimming lights to reduce the output, but by doing that, we would bring the lights’ colour temperature down to an unacceptably low level. This would engender a red cast over all the talent. Changing the actual source was a better way to reduce light level, as the colour temperature could be maintained as an acceptable level.

Another point in this regard is that the larger light surface from the light source covers a larger floor area, meaning a large area of movement can be covered evenly.

With the new LED technology, the big advantage is that there is a reduction in the physical size of some lights. As it’s a new technology, it is still undergoing ongoing development as more efficient ways of applying the technology is being further researched.

The art of lighting: part 3

In the third part of Angus C Clarke’s overview of film, stage and television lighting, he looks at some of the ways in which the technology has changed over the years.

By Angus C Clarke

eVolution of light: An incandescent light bulb and an LED


TRACkING TECHNOLOGy |

EVS, one of the leading broadcast technology and video productions suppliers globally, is set to unveil several new broadcast solutions at NAB 2014, held in Las Vegas in April. The new solutions will cover different areas including sport, entertainment, media and news.

The enhancements will include a number of new additions to the EVS range, including:

for sportThe C-Cast Xplore web-browsing interface, which provides immediate access to live multi-camera recording feeds and clips on XT servers, giving production teams unprecedented capability to work remotely, enhance content on the fly, and reduce the number of onsite production personnel.

The Cisco StadiumVision Mobile (SVM) solution uses the technology to make multi-camera content instantly available on web-connected mobile devices in sports and entertainment venues.

for newsThe XS NewsFlash, a compact, cost-effective end-to-end solution that provides smaller newsroom environments with full production capabilities. Based on the robust XS server for ingest and playout, XS NewsFlash provides everything from file and feed ingest, metadata and quick-turnaround virtual editing to disaster recovery and fast breaking news playout.

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is a super high resolution 4K digital production camera for Ultra HD television production. Capturing high quality ProRes™ files this camera offers a complete solution for shooting amazing high resolution music videos, episodic television productions, television commercials, sport and documentaries.

key features• Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 resolution• ProRes 422 (HQ)™ recording• Super 35 sensor• Global shutter• EF and ZE compatible lens mount• Built-in SSD recorder• 5” LCD touchscreen• Metadata entry• 6G-SDI output for 10-bit HD and Ultra HDComes with full copy of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve for high quality

grading and finishing for MacOS X and Windows computers.

Harmonic has announced sophisticated improvements to playout and graphics capabilities for the company’s ChannelPort™ integrated channel playout system. The latest Spectrum™ software also enhances the complete Spectrum media server platform with augmented ingest, storage, and playout broadcast workflows.

Substantial functional gains for the ChannelPort system include: • Options for supporting up to six live sources, which may include two

key-and-fill pair inputs (one key-and-fill pair usable at a time) and HD and SD simulcast output.

• Audio down-mixing, which ensures that the audio output – 5.1, stereo, or mono – matches the HD or SD output needs of the channel.

• Features for integrating rich graphics directly into workflow.• Dynamic closed-captioned file insertion.• An enhanced channel mode that enables dual DVE support and

independent branding of simulcast SD and HD channels.• Spectrum 7.5 software also includes a number of core server

enhancements:• Directory-based user-rights access and a key file-system security measure

that enables more granular control over read, write and delete access.

• WSS blanking feature that allows widescreen signaling to be stripped for ancillary data as needed and supports the insertion of SCTE-104 triggers during playout, which eliminates the cost and complexity of using external insertion devices downstream.

• The MediaStore™ 5000 storage array can now accommodate 1.2 TB 2.5-inch drives, a 33% gain in storage capacity compared with the previous version.

EvS presents new workflow solutions Blackmagic Production

4k Camera

Harmonic boosts features and functionality


| TRACkING TECHNOLOGy

The new XS live production server delivers the fastest access and distribution of multi-camera recorded content, for enriched tv programming.

www.evs.com/XS

XCEEDINGSTANDARDS

111-155_SCREEN AFRICA_EN.indd 1 17/02/14 13:55

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4 Camera SD Flyaway KitVarious Multi Cam Mix Kits

HD DSNG Vehicle4 Camera SD OB Van (Triax)

8 Camera HD OB Van (Triax)

The Flex DSR02/04+ is a satellite receiver with a flexible platform that allows for the insertion of four audio interfaces. Later upgrades are easily facilitated through the addition of plug and play audio interfaces. It can also be used as an Audio over IP device. General features include:• Transportstream inputs• DVB-S/S2 256 k Sym/s – 45 MSym/s single and

multiple channel per carrier• DVB-S/S2 Tuner module 16 APSK (128/64 kSym/s –

45 MSym/S) (optional)• ASI (optional)• Gigabit IP (optional)• Local ad (vertisement) / commercials / regionalised

audio content• Provision of local ads and regionalised radio

content network wide• Existing 2wcom Systems transport and scheduling

system (SIRC)• Flexible interface to existing automation system• Flexible regionalization server and receiver concept• Full featured satellite receivers with regionalisation

possibility (integrated memory)• Audio output• Up to four balanced analogue or digital AES/EBU

(XLR connector) audio outputs

data output (eg. RDS, DRM)• Serial, IP and optional X.21 interface• FlexDSR02+: 3 serial RS232 outputs

(optional: 5)• FlexDSR04+: 9 serial RS232 outputs and

18 relays• Optional: high speed IP data (MPE)• Transport stream output• ASI• Gigabit IP• Decoding• Audio decoding professional MPEG decoder:

MPEG 1/2 Layer 1, 2, 3 (optional: MPEG 2/4 AAC LC, HEv1&v2 and AC3)

• RDS decoding (built-in RDS/UECP decoder)• Control• Via web interface• Optional: satellite in-band remote control

(e.g. relay switching, regional advertising)• SNMP v2c• Monitoring• RF and MPEG parameters via SNMP v2c

and relay• Monitoring of up to eight audio programmes

via IP• Sync FM• Prepared for synchronised FM transmission

within FM SFN Networks

2wCOM Flex DSR02/04+ DvB Satellite audio receiver

X10, created by the Belgian company, I-Movix, is a flexible, turnkey, ultra slow motion camera solution that has the capability of delivering up to 10x normal speed with full HD visuals.

The camera can be used like any other broadcast camera because it records continuously, while most high-speed cameras require an internal memory management process. It is therefore the first ‘always on’, ultra slow motion solution that delivers groundbreaking 300fps real-time, non-stop ultra slow motion in full HD. The X-10 was developed in conjunction with EVS and is designed to work with the EVS XT3 production server.

I-Movix X-10 ultra slow motion camera system


COMPILED BY CLAIRE DIAOAFRICA | ALGERIA | TUNISIA | MADAGASCAR | MOZAMBIQUE | EGyPT |

ALGERIAles Jours d’avant (The Days Before) by karim Moussaoui

Shot in Algiers in 2013, this 40-minute piece depicts the 1990s memories of two teenagers (Mehdi Ramdani and Souhila Mallem), just before the Algerian civil war broke out.

First written as a support to Moussaoui’s feature film project Waiting for the Swallows, Les Jours d’avant uses sensitive storytelling to follow the characters while a Handel soundtrack and an adult voice-over introduces the memory sequences. “What matters to me was the theme of youth. We don’t talk enough about it. First love, first emotions, feeling... this is what I wanted to tell,” says Moussaoui. More than a memory of the peaceful moments predating a war, Les jours d’avant is a subtle tale about youth, love and social barriers.

A co-production between France (Les Loupiottes) and Algeria (Taj Intaj), Les Jours d’avant has won prestigious awards all around the world: Namur (Belgium), Oran (Morocco), Cordoba (Spain), Fameck and Angers (France) and Algiers (Algeria). In Clermont-Ferrand, it received a Special Mention.

TUNISIASelma by Mohamed Ben Attia

Mohamed Ben Attia’s fourth short film, Selma, depicts the story of a single mother (Nejma Zeghidi) who decides to get a grip on life after her husband’s death. As he was a taxi driver, she starts to take driving lessons without the consent of her husband’s family.

This 20-minute film from Tunisia is a brilliant analysis of what widows face all around Africa. After being the ‘property’ of their own parents, women then belong to their husbands, before becoming part of their husband’s family when the latter dies.

Produced by two Tunisian companies (Propaganda Production and Nomadis Images), Selma tells about the daily struggle of a woman from her point of view, without using effects to describe the violence of the mother-in-law’s power. Moreover, Mohamed Ben Attia sensitively underlines the Tunisian conservatism that the Arab Spring movements fought, which still remains a contemporary issue.

MADAGASCARMadama esther by luck Ambinintsoa razanajoanaThe selection of this short film is a sign of the Malagasy coming out in the world’s cinematographic circuit. Luck Razanajaona, a graduate of the Moroccan cinema school ESAV, is one of the leading filmmakers on the island.

Selected at last year’s Clermont-Ferrand festival with his previous short, Le zébu de Dadilahy, he returned this year

with a movie supported by the Serasary Fund, a film production grant initiated by the first Malagasy film festival, the Rencontres du Film Court.

Madama Esther tells the story of an unemployed cleaning lady in her 50s who wishes to take her grandson to the seaside, and hosts illegal cockfighting in her backyard to earn the money.

With stunning cinematography by Toky Randriamahazosoa, Madama Esther dives into the daily lives of poor Malagasy people. Without falling into a simplified depiction of the good (hard working people, like the main character) versus the bad (illegal workers, like the cockfights organiser), Madama Esther offers a hard inside look at Malagasy society.

MOzAMBIqUE A Tropical Sunday by fabian ribezzo

It’s been a long time since Mozambique was last featured on international screens. The most recent was Mickey Fonseca’s Dina in 2011. Directed by Argentinean director Fabian Ribezzo – based in Maputo for the past 10 years – and produced by the Italian producer Silvia Bottone, A Tropical Sunday depicts a group of street children in their struggle to get tickets for the local funfair.

Presented as a light comedy, featuring children cast from all over the city, the

film’s point of view shifts between an adults’ perspective (parents or guards) to that of the children.

“I went to Luna Park with my child and I saw these same situations several times,” explains Ribezzo, who received great feedback from local viewers after a screening in Maputo. “I’m not a Mozambican, so it’s interesting when people accept the movie.”

Financed through friends and an Italian crowd-funding platform (Kapipal), A Tropical Sunday is proof that not only documentaries, institutional films or commercials can still be made in the country of Kuxa Kanema.

EGYPTWardyat Yanayer (january Shift) by emad Mabrouk

When the Arab Spring started it was interesting to see how film festivals persued North African filmmakers to get a fresh and immediate look at what happened. In fact, this was premature because filmmakers had first to assimilate their country’s turmoil, before producing movies, like this one, which recount it.

In the vein of 2014 Oscar nominee Ibrahim El Batout’s Winter of Discontent, Emad Mabrouk recounts the daily life and duties of Ibrahim (Hany el Metnnawy) during the Egyptian Revolution.

Dated 25 January 2011, the plot deals with the revolution in an intimate way. While the character continues his duties, his wife watches the scenes on TV and through the window as all the international audience did. Through a personal story, Wardyat Yanayer questions a national issue: Who took part in the events? Who did what? Why?

By telling his story without any judgment, Emad Mabrouk addresses an interesting issue: participants versus onlookers. No one is innocent.

Africa well represented at French short film festivalAt the 2014 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France from 31 January to 8 February 2014, five productions from African countries were entered into competition. Film journalist and critic Claire Diao was there to see the work and speak to the filmmakers.


kENyA | AFRICA

Through her use of mixed media, Mukii addresses the distorted view people have of themselves in her cinematic investigation of the

concepts of race and skin and what they imply.

With hand-drawn animation, computer animation, pixilation and live action, Yellow Fever challenges individuals susceptible to practices such as skin bleaching, but also the people who create these ideals.

Yellow Fever was Mukii’s thesis movie, made in 2012 at the Royal College of Art in London. The young Kenyan said she had no expectations of the project, which has now gone on to screen at festivals around the globe, receiving numerous nominations and awards.

The movie has received various accolades such as Best Animation at the 7th Kenya International Film Festival, Best Short Film at the 2013 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards, The Silver Hugo for Best Animated Short Film at the 49th Chicago International Film Festival and Best Animation at This is England Film Festival in France, to name a few.

Additionally Yellow Fever screened in competition and showed at 40 other film festivals in the world.

Unexpected success

“When I completed Yellow Fever I was only focused on making the deadline for my exam, I wasn’t thinking beyond the classroom. Now, looking back, I realise how naive I was in terms of the festival circuit and how these things work, such as the potential for one’s film to travel and gain worldwide exposure, and what this can mean for one in practical terms as a filmmaker,” says Mukii.

“I’m still learning about these things every day so mostly I’d say I have been pretty surprised by it,” she continues. “When I completed my film I remember I

sent a DVD copy to my mom in Nairobi, and she called me and asked if there was anything more to my film. She nicknamed Yellow Fever my kafilm which means ‘little’ film. I think we all had ‘little’ expectations of the film and had not realised what would happen as a result of making it.”

Game-changer

Now regarded as a game-changer in African film, Mukii comments that it is only natural that women would rise in prominence with the general buoyancy of filmmaking on the continent. She adds that the profile of the medium is definitely rising: “People are becoming more

exposed to the work that is being created on the continent, and are more open to consuming this

work, which was perhaps not the case previously.

“Globally there is more access to digital equipment and less costly methods of filmmaking, so naturally regions where it has been more complicated to create films are now opening up and producing more and more work.”

Along with this comes the increased interconnectivity between countries. “We as Africans (and as a planet really) can learn from each other and share ideas with the world in a way that just was not possible 20 years ago. I think this influences the way we consume and make films on a very conscious level,” Mukii continues.

Subsequent projects

Following the success of Yellow Fever, Mukii now has two projects in development, of which one is a documentary animation called 50 Steps, for which she has received development funds from the DocuBox East African Documentary Fund.

She says: “The film seeks to define the Kenyan identity using recollections and personal stories. The other is called The Teapot and it’s a live-action-animation fusion film following the day in a life of a woman with a hyperactive imagination, living in Nairobi.”

Mukii has received an Africa First grant from Focus Features to shoot The Teapot, but is looking for more funding during its animation and post-production phases.

Apart from drawing inspiration from her worldwide travels and her immense love for her Kenyan homeland and heritage, Mukii says that the movies Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry and Rungano Nyoni’s Mwansa The Great, have fuelled her imagination and creativity. “These brilliant movies have a timeless beauty and play with the boundaries of magical realism, fantasy, and social reality in a very tactile and artistic way.”

Still coming to terms with her achievements, Mukii concludes: “Personally, Yellow Fever’s worldwide acclaim has significantly helped to boost my confidence in terms of believing in myself as a filmmaker, as long as I apply myself in my work. Of course this reflects professionally as this confidence helps to direct the decisions I make in my career.”

kenyan film leads the way in African animationBy Martie Bester

LITTLE FILM... A BIG SUCCESS: A still from Ng’endo Mukii’s film Yellow Fever

A poster of Yellow Fever

In her award-winning animated short Yellow Fever, Kenyan filmmaker Ng’endo Mukii tackles the effect the media has on African women and their perception of beauty, in particular ideals of a classic European concept of what defines good looks, such as fair skin and flowing locks of hair.


GHANA | CHAD | BURkINA FASO | REPUBLIC OF CONGOAFRICA |

For years, West African filmmakers have lamented the death of traditional movie theatres. DVD piracy, TV and satellite broadcasts had taken over. But right now, film professionals in the region are driving a new movement to reopen cinemas.

In 2010, Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with his feature A Screaming Man. By achieving international recognition for his country of birth, Haroun woke up the Chadian government, who invested heavily into the rehabilitation of N’Djamena’s oldest cinema, Le Normandie.

Built in the 1950s by a Syrian-Lebanese family, Le Normandie was the only covered cinema in Chad. Closed in 1981, it reopened on 8 January 2011 with Haroun’s A Screaming Man. Run by another Chadian filmmaker, Issa Serge Coelho (Daresalam, N’Djamena City), Le Normandie now has a 12m screen, 440 seats and is equipped with Dolby Digital sound, and 35mm and HD projectors.

With tickets sold for prices ranging from R23 to R68, Le Normandie mostly shows American movies twice a day (three shows during weekends). These are supplied by French distributor Jean-Pierre Lemoine who built two Megarama multiplex theatres in Morocco. Thanks to Tigo, a Latin American mobile company operating in Chad, Le Normandie was recently provided with 3D equipment.

In 2012, the Burkinabe film Les Films du Djabadjah initiated the reopening of Ciné

Guimbi in Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second largest city.

Built in the late 1950s under the French colonial government, Cine Guimbi (formerly Ciné Rio) was an open-air theatre. First run by a French company, then by the Burkinabe National Cinema Company (SONACIB), Ciné Guimbi was taken over by a filmmaker association, AARPA, which went bankrupt in 2003.

The Association de soutien du cinéma au Burkina Faso was set up by Swiss director Berni Goldblat to manage the project in 2012. It initiated a massive fundraising campaign among several international film festivals and 140 seats (R4 540 each) were sold. Out of the final budget (R18 861 062), 44% was secured.

Still under construction, Ciné Guimbi

will be a covered cinema with 154 and 323 seats for each screen. The goal is to equip it with DLP (digital light processing) projectors and a high quality sound system.

On 31 December 2013, industry professionals were able to buy the site thanks to a R2 088 378 grant from Michèle Berset Swiss Foundation. “We would like to open at the end of 2015,” said Goldblat, “but we need to ‘Englishise’ our campaign. For the moment, we only reach Francophone partners.”

In Ghana, Lebanese immigrants built the 350-seat, open-air Rex Cinema in 1937. Established in Central Accra, this government property was first abandoned then used afterwards by evangelical churches.

The American-Ghanaian director Akosua Adoma Owusu, winner of a 2013 African Academy Movie Award for her short Kwaku Ananse, decided to revive the place by turning it “into an alternative creative space for art, music, and film”.

With a one-month kickstarter campaign entitled ‘Damn the Man, Save the Rex’, the 30 year-old director raised R11 068 (113% funded) thanks to 185 international backers. “Words cannot express my sincere gratitude,” proclaimed Owusu. “I am still hoping to find other funds to run the cinema.”

On 7 December 2013, the Rex Cinema successfully reopened as an alternative to the SilverBird multiplex based in the Accra Mall nearby. As Goldblat says: “If we, from the film industry, don’t do this, no one will.” – Claire Diao

Through a cooperation deal signed with the Republic of the Congo’s national broadcaster, Télé Congo, Euronews is set to launch Africanews, which is being promoted as ‘the first pan-African, multilingual news channel, broadcasting around the clock’.

Founded in 1993, Euronews is best known for its strong pan-European content and viewpoint and its multilingual broadcasting. The channel broadcasts in up to 14 languages, depending on the territory in which it is received. Here in South Africa (DStv Channel 414), the channel offers four optional audio tracks – in French, German, Spanish and English respectively. It also has a very particular editorial and news delivery style, consisting only of voice-overs spoken over live news footage, with no studios or

anchors speaking to camera. The major criticism that Euronews has faced in the past is a perceived pro-European Commission bias – the European Union is, in fact, one of the channel’s major funders.

Télé Congo is quite possibly the oldest television broadcaster in sub-Saharan Africa, having begun broadcasting in 1962. It is also heavily underfunded and struggling to compete with privately owned broadcasters across the continent, and with its biggest rivals across the Congo river in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The new channel, to be broadcast across Africa, will follow the same formula as Euronews; it will present a distinctly pan-African viewpoint, follow a similar editorial approach and offer multiple

language options. It will start broadcasting in English and French. Other major languages on the continent, such as Arabic and Swahili, will then be added later.

The channel will be based in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, with regional offices being opened across the continent. In its press release published just after the deal between Euronews and Télé Congo was signed, Euronews stated that the new channel will not be “a mere African

window made by Euronews, as most international news channels do, but rather a fully-fledged pan-African network, with editorial choices made by Africans for an African audience.”

Africanews is to be funded primarily by advertising, with the doors remaining open for various private and public partners, particularly as the channel expands into surrounding countries by setting up regional offices and adding new languages.

With none of the major players in the deal available for comment at the time of going to print, many details about the channel, its offerings and the deal that gave rise to it have yet to be made public. It is not known why the Republic of Congo has been chosen for the channel’s base – a somewhat unexpected development when the continent’s broadcast industries are dominated by countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. It is not clear how the deal came about, only that it arose under the auspices of Congolese president, Denis Sassou Nguesso. The launch of the channel is scheduled for mid-2015.

Cinema revival in west Africa

Euronews to launch an African sister channel

The newly reopened Rex Cinema in Accra, Ghana

Le Normandie cinema in N’djamena, Chad

REVAMPED: The planned exterior of the newly revamped Ciné Guimbi in Burkina Faso

PAN-AFRICAN VIEWPOINT: Michael Peters, CEO of Euronews SA, and Jean Obambi, Managing Director of Télé Congo, signing the agreement for the launch of Africanews in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo


| BOX OFFICECOMPILED BY MARTIE BESTER

Schucks! your Country Needs youAfter three months on circuit, Leon Schuster’s latest prank movie, Schucks! Your Country Needs You, produced by André Scholtz and distributed by Ster-Kinekor, keeps on delivering the laughs with hefty earnings of R26 824 422 to date. First released on 100 screens on 29 November 2013, the film now has limited screenings with 13 prints nationwide. Schuster and Gray Hofmeyr wrote the movie with Hofmeyr directing.

Mandela: Long walk to FreedomUIP’s release of producer Anant Singh’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a co-production between South Africa and the United States, remains strong with earnings of R23 000 118 after its 28 November 2013 opening. The movie showed on 90 screens nationwide and now nears the end of its run. Written by William Nicholson, adapted from his book about late President Nelson Mandela’s life, the movie was directed by Justin Chadwick.

Faan se TreinProducer Helena Spring’s film Faan se Trein, based on the celebrated stage play and released by Ster-Kinekor, steamed ahead after a month of its release with impressive earnings of R7 158 787 to date with 47 prints nationwide. The movie was adapted for the screen by Koos Roets, who directed as well.

South African audiences support local films at the box office in February

figures supplied by SAfAct

Pad na jou HartBilled as the first Afrikaans romantic adventure film, Pad na jou Hart, produced by The Film Factory and Magic Box Productions and distributed by Ster-Kinekor, took top honours at the local box office over its opening weekend on 14 February, raking in R3 992 106 with 56 prints. At the time of going to print, the film had earned R5 744 599 after two weeks on circuit. Pad na jou Hart was written by Ivan Botha and Donnalee Roberts and was directed by Jaco Smit.

ElelweniCelebrated Venda-language film Elelwani, produced by Shadowy Meadows Productions and Blackboard Trust, and released through Indigenous Film Distributors, had a limited six-print run when it opened on 31 January, but still managed to earn R231 268 at the box office. The movie was written and directed by Ntshaveni Wa Luruli, adapted from the novel by Titus Ntsiene Maumela.

International filmsOn the international front, Catching Fire, the second instalment of the wildly popular Hunger Games franchise, and distributed by Times Media Films with 79 initial prints on 21 November 2013, had earned R18 616 696, followed by the Oscar-nominated film The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, with R11 159 880. The movie was released through Crystal Brook Distribution on 10 January with a print run of 70.

The action movie 47 Ronin, distributed by UIP, had earnings of R9 822 441 at the time of going to print and after 10 weeks on circuit, screened on a limited print run, while multi award-winning and Oscar-nominated movie Gravity (including 3D), released through Times Media Films, had generated earnings of R8 761 851 with a low print run.

Animated feature-length film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (including 3D), a Ster-Kinekor release with 61 prints, resonated with its target audience and after a month of its release, the movie had earned R7 294 758.


wEB NEwS | www.SCREENAFRICA.COM

Visiting key film executives from Hollywood received an overview of the South African film industry at a briefing in Johannesburg hosted by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and Gauteng Film Commission in partnership with Brand South Africa.

The executives were Vance van Patten, Executive Director of the Producers’ Guild of America; Mary Ann Hughes, Vice President of Film and Television Production Planning at Disney; Sara Spring, Senior Vice President of Feature Production at Paramount; and Kate Beyda, Senior Vice President of Physical Production at Warner Bros.

Van Patten said that South Africa’s film landscape presents a range of creative and cost effective-opportunities and that they want to make movies here that will benefit both the local and American industries.

He also reiterated that there are opportunities for credited South African producers to work with the Association by

stating that it is a professional trade organisation aimed at protecting, promoting and educating producers globally.

The aim of the discussions was to provide an overview of locational advantages and opportunities for filming in South Africa. Topics that will be addressed include government incentives, the tax regime, prime locations, availability of state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, the depth of the human resource capacity and bandwidth capacity for directors who rely on high-speed internet to send daily ‘rushes’ to their overseas bases.

Interested bidders have been invited to apply to partner with Telkom, Africa’s largest integrated communications company, to provide video-on-demand (VOD) services to its customers.

Telkom has been promising a VOD solution for years and this announcement comes after the company stated in 2013 that it was in discussions with potential VOD partners, such as Netflix, to launch a product.

In a prepared media statement, Telkom said that it had been progressing well with its efforts to deliver the ultimate connected home experience to

South Africans. Telkom said in a tender that was

published on its website on Thursday 20 February: ‘The management and process of this tender will be conducted through Telkom’s standard procurement process. A bidder’s conference will be held on 27 February 2014.’

In the statement, Telkom concluded that it was eager to begin this phase of its connected home journey and looked forward to appointing the best service provider to deliver on this key milestone.

Big Brother Mzansi Secrets’ contestant, 26-year-old Mbali Zulu, was disqualified from the 63-day reality television series on Saturday 15 February ‘for breaking the rule strictly prohibiting violence’, according to a statement issued by Mzansi Magic and series producer Endemol SA.

On Friday 14 February, an incident between Mbali and Iris escalated during an argument in which Mbali’s inappropriate physical action against Iris resulted in him contravening the rule.

The statement further reads: ‘The

safety and wellbeing of Big Brother contestants is the primary concern of the producers and Mzansi Magic, and both have confirmed that they will continue to take action against any violation of the

game’s rules.‘Mbali has left the game and is in the

care of the show’s producers who will offer all housemates the opportunity to engage with a trained psychologist should they require this service’.

Log on to: www.bigbrothermzansi.tv for more information on the show.

Official delegates from South Africa, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Nordic Region and the USA are attending this year’s edition of Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market, which runs from 24 April to 4 May in Toronto.

During the festival, delegates comprising reputable producers and broadcasters working in social, cultural and political documentary genres, will partake in a variety of networking opportunities, market events and conference sessions.

Visiting delegations will also be featured participants at International Co- Production Day, which takes place on Monday 28 April. International Co- Production Day consists of a full programme of events including

co-production case studies, producer-to-producer meetings, and a networking lunch and cocktail.

As accredited participants throughout the festival, and at Hot Docs’ internationally renowned co-financing event, the Hot Docs Forum on 30 April and 1 May, the delegations will be able to network with fellow delegates.

South Africa’s official delegation is led by the National Film and Video Foundation.

A selection of approximately 200 exceptional documentaries from Canada and the rest of the world will be presented to Toronto audiences and international delegates at Hot Docs.

Satellite and cable additions in Latin America, China and India, added to increased Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) subscribers in China, are forming the engine of the global pay-TV market, according to a study from international market research and consulting firm, Infonetics Research.

Cable subscribers are favouring IPTV and satellite to take advantage of promotional offers, Infonetics Research’s Pay TV Subscriber Database found.

Comcast Corporation, the world’s leading provider of cable TV services was used as the prime example after the company lost 335,000 subscribers over four quarters, with 21.6 million subscribers as of Q313.

However, satellite providers are enjoying more success as is shown by DirectTV Latin America’s 15% year-over-

year increase in satellite subscribers, which now see the company ranking third in the list of direct-to-home signal providers.

The study found that DirectTV US, DISH Network, DirecTV Latin America, Tata Sky and BskyB are the global top five companies by subscribers; with AT&T, Chine Telecom, Iliad Group, Orange and Verizon ranking as equivalent IPTV leaders.

Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay-TV at Infonetics Research, commented on the trends: “Latin America’s economy, in particular, is performing well, with companies investing in Brazil ahead of the FIFA World Cup and consumers signing up for pay-TV services to the tune of 9% growth in the third quarter of 2013 from the year-ago period.

Koos Bekker, who has been CEO of media and technology group Naspers since 1997, will be succeeded by Bob van Dijk, the group’s head of e-commerce, on 1 April.

According to a statement issued by Naspers, Bekker will stand down from the group’s board for a year to allow Van Dijk the space to settle in with both Naspers’s top management and the board.

It is further stated that Bekker intends to travel to places such as Seoul and San Francisco to establish where the group’s next growth spurt could originate.

He will remain on the board of rapidly developing Chinese internet company Tencent, in which Naspers, the largest

media group outside the US and China and larger than any in Europe, has an estimated one-third stake.

The outgoing CEO has had an illustrious career at Naspers since the mid-1980s when he led the launch of terrestrial pay-television service M-Net. He was also in charge of the team that launched MultiChoice and was

instrumental in Naspers’s reinvention as an internet company, which is now the group’s biggest segment.

According to the Naspers statement, the group had a market capitalisation of R5.6bn when Bekker took over as CEO. Today, Naspers’s market cap is valued at R533bn.

Bob van Dijk

Bob van Dijk to succeed koos Bekker as CEO of Naspers

Telkom set to deliver vOD services to customers

Contestant Mbali Zulu disqualified from Big Brother Mzansi Secrets

South African delegation to attend Hot Docs festival in Canada

key Hollywood film executives visit SA to discuss opportunities

Pay Tv grows in emerging markets as cable falls


| wEB NEwS

Newly shot Afrikaans drama Swartwater premiered on Tuesday 11 February at 19h30 on SABC2 after the successful screening of the series Geraamtes in die Kas, which was created by Luke and Joshua Rous and produced by Rous Hous Productions.

Swartwater was shot over six months in Arniston, a picturesque fishing village in the Western Cape, with additional filming in Johannesburg.

Produced by Quizzical Pictures, Swartwater was jointly directed by John Trengove, Jozua Malherbe and Denny Y Miller.

In the series, married couple Francois

(Louw Venter) and Karen (Jana Strydom) go through the tragic experience of losing their only child and move to Swartwater to get away from everything. While living there, they both find their place in the community, which leads to revelations about their (and others’) deepest secrets, scandals, loves and much more.

Swartwater also stars, among others, Dirk Stoltz, Viljé Maritz, Rika Sennett, Louis van Niekerk, Annie Malan and Noluthando Meje.

View the teaser trailer: http://vimeo.com/86033068

SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE: Shotgun Garfunkel, directed by Johnny Barbuzano, won Best Feature Film at the third annual Jozi Film Festival (JFF) while iNumber Number by Donovan Marsh took the Audience Choice Award.

JFF came to a close on Sunday 23 February with an awards ceremony hosted by stand-up comedian John Vlismas at The Rand Club.

The winners are: • Best Student Film: Across the

Colour Bar by Luscious Dosi • Best South African Short Fiction

Film: Security by Mark Middlewick • Best International Short Film: That

Music (Colombia) by Dario Vejarano• Best Short Documentary: Bamba

(Senegal) by Yirmeyah Beckles • Best Feature Length South African

Documentary: The Devil’s Lair by Riaan Hendricks

• Best Feature Length International Documentary: American Promise (US) by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson

• Best Feature Film: Shotgun Garfunkel by Johnny Barbuzano

• Audience Choice Award: iNumber Number by Donovan Marsh

JFF founder Lisa Henry and Brendon Burmester, festival director, concluded the three-day event which, for the first time, included international films in the line- up, by thanking all the filmmakers for entrusting their films to them. Burmester said: “We are excited to have reached this point with JFF, the festival can only grow from here.”

Shooting a scene for Swartwater

Johnny Barbuzano recieving the award for Best Feature Shotgun Garfunkel

Shotgun Garfunkel wins Best Feature Film at JFF

New Afrikaans series Swartwater screens on SABC2

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80 MINUTESperiphery Filmsdir: simon taylor / Julia taalFeature

ArE AgANENg/ASAkhANENImichics Global communications Exec prod: mishack motshwenitalk show

A LION IN ThE BEDrOOMtwo Oceans productionprod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha spiekerFeature

AT ThE CrEEk WIThOUT A PADDLEZen crewprod: laura tarlingdocumentary

BrEAD AND WATErperiphery Filmsdir: simon taylor / Julia taalFeature documentary

CAMPINgtwo Oceans productionsprod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha spiekerFeature

CAPE OF gOOD hOPEtwo Oceans productionprod: Giselher Venzke / Bertha spiekerFeature

ChILDrEN OF FAMOUS ACTIVISTScurrent affairs Filmsprod: Jane thandi lipmanFeature

CINDErELLAtwo Oceans productionsprod: Giselher Venzke/ Bertha spiekerFeature

DAISYBamboo media (ptY) ltddir: marguelette louwFeature

DIE VErhAAL VAN rAChELTJIE DE BEErnostalgia productionsprod: Brett michael innesFeature

DIE VErVOErDErGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand prod: Jarrod de JongFeature

ESCAPEcurrent affairs Filmsprod: Jane thandi lipman / Beata lipmanFeature

Those productions in red are newly listed this monthPASSArES (BIrDISh)White Heron pictures / casa de criacao cinemaprod: themba sibekoFeature

PIPPIE SE TOWErkOMBUISGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand prod: Jarrod de JongVariety

PONTEnostalgia productions/ Black irish productionsprod: Jamie Ramsay/Brett michael innesFeature

rAChEL WEEPINgnostalgia productionsprod: Johan Kruger/ Brett michael innesFeature

SArAh grAhAM: BITTEN 2Okuhle mediadir: chris lotzseries

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SIN BINdiamond Hill / Engage Entertainment / coco tVprod: sisanda Henna / stephen lorenzodocumentary

ThE BLOOD kINg AND ThE rED DrAgONcurrent affairs Filmsprod: Jane thandi lipman / mtutuzeli matshobaFeature

ThE DANDELIONshootaway productionprod: patrick Waltondrama

ThE DrEADED EVIL EYE FrOM PAST TO PrESENT AND ACrOSS CULTUrESBlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothadocumentary

ThE ExChANgEEngage EntertainmentpROd: stephen lorenzoFeature

ThE gIFTFerguson Filmsprod: shona & connie Ferguson, Bobby HeaneytV Feature Film

ThE hITChErS: A ghOST STOrYBlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothashort Film

ThE MOUNTAIN OF ThE NIghTnostalgia productionsprod: Herman mabizela & Brett michael innesFeature

ThE rEggIES rUShnostalgia productionsprod: Brett michael innesFeature

Ex PATScurrent affrairs Films / French connectionprod: Jane thandi lipmanseries

FOrSAkENdO productionsprod: marlow de mardt / Brigid OlënFeature

grIZMEktwo Oceans productionprods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha spiekerFeature

hEAVEN – AFrICA 2two Oceans productionprods: Giselher Venzke / Bertha spiekerFeature

hhOLA hhOLA Vuleka productions prod: Julie Frederikse/ madoda ncayiyanaFeature

hIgh SChOOL MODELINgmichics Global communications Exec prod: mishack motshweni Feature

hOTEL SONgOLOLOthe media Workshopdir: Benito carelsenseries

IIQsukuma mediadir: Bonginhlanhla ncubeFeature

kINg SEkhUkhUNEsukuma mediaprod: leonard sekhukhune / Bonginhlanhla ncube Feature Film

LEADErS OF AFrICA the Expeditionary Force dir: nicholas schofield / alexis schofielddocumentary

LEkkErkAMPPLEkkE Grey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand prod: Jarrod de JongVariety

MANChE, ThE AFrICAN SAINT Get the picture prod/dir: Jacky lourens/ Fiona summersdocumentary

MOM’S ChOICEsukuma mediadir: Bonginhlanhla ncubeFeature Film

NEW BEgINNINgZsukuma mediadir: Bonginhanhla ncubedocumentary

PALACE OF ThE FAIThLESSWhite Heron picturesdir: themba sibekoFeature

Tel: +27 (0) 11 431 3053 Fax: +27 (0) 86 689 9233 Cell: +27 (0) 83 426 6634 Email: [email protected] www.mojapeleproductions.co.za

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DIY MET rIAANprod: Riaan Venter-Garforthmagazine

EASTErN MOSAICRed carpet productionsprod: saira Essa / mark corlettmagazine

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913 Tempest Screen Africa Print Ad FA.indd 1 2014/02/04 2:27 PM

FACE OF gEMINI Footprint media tVprod: cheryl delportseries

gENErATION FrEEOkuhle mediadir: Jemima springseries

hIDDEN hOLOCAUST IN ThE DUNES: gENOCIDE IN NAMIBIABlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothaseries

JUB JUB DOCUMENTArY (WOrk-INg TITLE)Baxopath mediadir: nolitha tshinavhadocumentary

LOVE MOrE: POLYAMOrY IN SOUTh AFrICABlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothaseries

MArrY ME IN MZANZIBlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothaseries

SAkEgESPrEk MET ThEO VOrSTEr SEASON5dirk mostert camera productionprod/ dir: dirk mostert series

SEATBELT MEDICFc Hamman Filmsdir: Fc Hammancommercial

SLENDEr WONDEr INFOrMATION VIDEOGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brandinformation Video

STICkS+STONES (WOrkINg TITLE)Fireworx media/ tunc prodcutionsprod: Bridget pickering telenovela

ThE MASCFootprint media tVprod: cheryl delportshort film

ThE MESSENgErspirit Word ministries/ Footprint media academyprod: annalise Van Rensburgseries

UNAShAMEDLY EThICALmedia Village productionsprod: diane Vermooten awards & Gala Evening

WOrkErSLIFE NETWOrk MArkETINgFc Hamman Filmsdirector: Fc Hammanmarketing Video

IN PRODUCTION

3 TALkurban Brewtalk show

20 AND FrEEX cOn Filmsdir: munier parkerdocumentary

50/50clive morris productionscurrent affairs

53 ExTrAm-net inhouse productionsdir: navan chettymagazine

AFrICA 360enewsnews Head: patrick conroycurrent affairs

AFrO CAFÉ SEASON 7Bonngoe productionsprod: pepsi pokanemusic

ArTSCULTUrEx TALENT 1000 ChAMPIONShIPSmichics Global communications Exec prod: mishack motshweniseries

BIg BrOThEr ThE ChASEEndemol south africaReality

BINNELAND stark Films prod/dir: Friedrich / Elsje starkseries

BODA BODA ThIEVESswitch Filmsprod: James taylerFeature

BrAVO!Homebrew Filmsprod: Jaco loubsermagazine

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CArTE BLANChE (INSErTS)modern timesprod: sophia phirippidesnews

CArTE BLANChE ShOrTStia productions prod / dir: tarryn lee crossman news

COOL CATSRed pepper picturesprod: cecil Berrychildren’s show

COrTEx MININgFc Hamman Filmsprod man: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

COME DINE WITh ME SOUTh AFrICARapid Blueprod: Kee-leen irvineReality

CUTTINg EDgEsaBc newscurrent affairs

DINNEr DIVAS2 Blonds and a Redhead Filmingprod: anne myersseries

DITOkELO TSA MEDUPIlmOl productiondir: lizzy molotoFeature

ThE SCOrES ArE INcurrent affairs Filmsprod: Jane thandi lipmanGame show

TIENErWErELDGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand prod: Jarrod de JongVariety

WEEr DEBrA Khaki productionsprod/dir: christelle parrott , Wynand dreyerseries

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WESTgATE ShOPPINg MALL ATTACk (WOrkINg TITLE)media Village productionsprod: diane Vermootendocumentary

WhIPLASh Get the picture prod/dir: Jacky lourens / meg Rickards Feature

ZAkOUMAtwo Oceans productionsprod: Giselher Venzke/ Bertha spiekerFeature

ZEN FILM CrEW MANAgEMENTZEn Film crew managementprod / dir: laura tarlingcommercial

IN PRE-PRODUCTION

ABLAND PrOPErTY DEVELOPErSFc Hamman Filmsdir: Fc Hammanmarketing Video

ALEx ON 7ThXcut studiosdir: Engelbert phiridocumentary

ANDOLExXcut studiosprod: Guy BraggetV commercial

ATTAChMENT PArENTINgBlue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothainsert

DIE LAASTE UrE: INCONNU FrENCh FILM FESTIVALGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand producer: Jarrod de Jongshort film

DOMESTIC BLISS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filmingprod: anne myersadvertising Funder project

EL ELJON PrOJECTSFc Hamman Filmsdirector: Fc Hammanmarketing Video

ESPAFrIkA PrESENTS ThE CAPE TOWN INTErNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2014Espafrika prod/dir: Rashid lombard / Yana lombard / John Bright documentary


SChOEMAN BOErDErY – MOOSrIVIErKhaki productionsprod/dir: christelle parrott / Wynand dreyerdocumentary

SELIMAThUNZIsikhoyana productionsprod: Baby Joe correiraVariety

ShIZ NIZRed pepper picturesprod: allen makhubeleVariety

ShIFTurban Brewtalk show

SISTErhOODRed pepper picturesprod: andy lezeVariety

SIYAkhOLWA – WE BELIEVEX cOn Filmsdir: munier parkerEdutainment

SLENDEr WONDEr DOCTOrS CONFErENCEGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand prod: slender Wondercorporate Video

SLENDEr WONDEr PATIENT TESTIMONIAL VIDEOSGrey cloud productionsdir: Jacques Brand corporate Videos

SOCCEr ZONEsaBc sports Head: sizwe nzimandemagazine

STUDY MATEEducational improvement and study Help (EisH)Exec prod: lisa BlakewayEducational

SWArTWATErquizzical picturesprod: Bianca isaacdir: John trengove/ Jozua malherbe/ denny Y millerseries

ThE ChAT rOOMEclipseprod: thokozani nkositalk show

ThE CODE BrEAkErnHu africaprod: Vyv simson / donfrey meyerdocumentary

ThE COMMUNIST rEPUBLIC OF SOUTh AFrICAJam tV, creative south africa, nkhanyeti productionprod: Barthelemy ngwessamdocumentary

ThE JUSTICE FACTOrenewsprod: debbie meyercurrent affairs

ThE LAST grEAT TUSkErSnHu africaprod: Vyv simson / donfrey meyerdocumentary

LATE NITE NEWS ON E.TVdiprente productionsprod: tamsin anderssonseries

LIVEurban Brewmusic

LIVE LOTTO ShOWurban BrewGame show

MANDELA’S gUNdV8 filmsdir: John irvinFeature

MArANg ESTATE: MIxED USED DEVELOPMENT NOV/ DECOur time productionsdir: Jaun de meillondocumentary

MAShELENg1lmOl productiondir: lizzy molotoFeature

MAShELENg 2lmOl productiondir: Jonny mutebaFeature

MASSMArT CSI rEPOrTsummertime productionsprod/dir: Roxanne Rolando / sean Gardinercorporate Video

MATrICS UPLOADEDEducational improvement and study Help (EisH)prod: lisa BlakewayEducational

MILLIONAIrEStwo Oceans productionprod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha spiekerFeature

MOTSWAkOcarol Bouwer productionsprod: Grant paul Roytalk show

MUVhANgOWord of mouthprod: pieter GrobbelaarFeature

MY NAME IS FUNEkAsabido productionsdir/prod: catherine Ricedocumentary

MZANSI INSIDErBonngoe productionsprod: pepsi pokanemagazine

NET1 – SASSABetta Beta communicationsprod: tommy doigcorporate

NEWS NIghTenewsprod: nikiwe Bikitshacurrent affairs

OSCAr PISTOrIUS DOCUMENTArY INSErTStia productionsdir/ prod: tarryn crossmandocumentary

PASELLAtswelopele productionsdir: liani maasdorp / Werner Hefermagazine

PBS ExTENDED NEWS PrOgrAMMINgcurrent affairs Filmsprod: Jane thandi lipmanFeature

PhOENIx rISINg... ThE BUSINESS OF STYLEphoenix Entertainment and productionprod/dir: Koketso sefanyetsoReality

POWEr COMBAT ZONEmixed motion Entertainmentdir: dieter Gottertsport

PrOJECT MVZen crewprod: laura tarlingmusic

rANDS WITh SENSE 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filmingprod: anne myersEducation

rhYThM CITYquizzical picturesprod: Yula quinnsoapie

rhYThM CITY INTErACTIVEquizzical pictures / e.tvprod: Viva liles-Wilkininteractive platform media

rIVONINgOasi-B Filmsprod: asivhanzi ‘asi’ mathabachildren’s show

rOCkINg FUTUrEsummertime productionsprod: sean Gardiner / tanya VandenbergEducational Video

rOLLINg WITh kELLY khUMALORed pepperprod: cecil BarryReality

rOOTSukhamba communicationsprod: alfred mpofumusic

SAINT & FrEEDOM FIghTEr Blue marble Entertainmentdir: Eugene Bothadocumentary

SA’S gOT TALENTRapid Blueprod/dir: Kee-leen irvineReality

SA TOP MODEL FOr A DAYmichics Global communications Exec prod: mishack motshwenitV series

SOUTh AFrICAN TOUrISMRapid Blueprod: Kee-leen irvineReality / commercial

SCANDALOchre moving picturesprod: Romano Gorleisoapie

ExPrESSO (SEASON 2)cardovaprod: paul van deventerseries

FACILITY MANAgEMENT LECTUrES (A4FM)panache Video productionsdir/ prod: liesel EiselenEducational

FOx NEWS ChANNEL Betta Beta communications prod/dir: tommy doig news

FrENZYRed pepper picturesprod: morena sefatsaVariety

gENErATIONSmorula picturesprod: mfundi Vundlaseries

gOOD MOrNINg AFrICA planet image productions sa prod/dir: Wale akinlabi magazine

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hAD BETTEr DAYSuniquely novel productions prod/dir: deon Vd merweFeature Film

hECTIC 99Okuhle mediaprod: Wilna van schalkwykmagazine

hITAChI POWEr AFrICA MEDUPI & kUSILE Betta Beta communications prod/dir: tommy doig documentary

hOPEnHu africaprod: Vyv simson / donfrey meyerdocumentary

hOUSE CALLizwe multimedia / urban Brewprod: annalie potgietertalk show

IgNITEFootprint media tVprod: cheryl delportReality

IMIZWILILIukhamba productionsprod: alfred mpofumusic

INkABAurban Brew studiosprod: John Kanitelenovela

ISIDINgOEndemol south africadir: Raymond sargent / Johnny Barbazanoseries

JAN SMUTS: AN INTErNATIONAL ICON AhEAD OF hIS TIMEtekweni tV productionprod/dir: sandra Herrington / neville Herringtondocumentary

JOU ShOWHomebrew Filmsprod: Jaco loubsertalkshow comedy

kOkkEDOOr 2Homebrew filmsprod: Jaco loubser and paul Ventercooking reality series

kOLLIgHomebrew Filmsprod: Jaco loubsermagazine

kONA the directors team (pty) ltd prod/dir: laurence lurie / cathy sykes series

kOOLCON COrPOrATE VIDEOFiX post production/ marketing aVmarketing Video

kWELApieter cilliers productionsprod/dir: pieter cilliersmagazine


FINAL MIXSOUND DESIGNCOMPOSING & ARRANGINGMUSICAL DIRECTION FOR CORPORATE EVENTS

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MArch 2014

8 AfricAMAgic ViewerS’ choice AwArdS Lagos, Nigeria www.africamagic.tv

24 – 31 colourS of the nile i nternAtionAl filM feStiVAl Addis Ababa, Ethiopia www.coloursofthenile.net

16 – 24 luxor AfricAn filM feStiVAl Morocco www.luxorafricanfilmfestival.com

April

3 – 7 the 2nd AnnuAl firSt tiMe feSt New York www.firsttimefest.com

4 – 5 ShowBiz, entertAinMent And ArtS (SeA) expo Nasrec, Johannesburg www.seaexpo.co.za

5 – 6 South AfricAn filM And teleViSion AwArdS Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg www.nfvf.co.za

7 – 9 MiptV Cannes, France www.miptv.com

10 Screen AfricA golf dAy 2014 CMR Golf Club, Johannesburg [email protected].

22 – 24 digitAl rAdio BroAdcASting SuMMit Cape Town www.bspmediagroup.com

24, 25, 27, 28 Sound on Screen MuSic filM feStiVAl The Bioscope Independent Cinema, Johannesburg www.flamedrop.com

26 – 2 MAy Sound on Screen MuSic filM feStiVAl Labia Theatre, Cape Town www.flamedrop.com

MAy

6 – 7 cloud world foruM AfricA 2014 The Maslow, Johannesburg www.cloudwf.com

14 – 25 cAnneS filM feStiVAl Cannes, France www.festival-cannes.com

20 – 21 the BroAdcASt Show AfricA Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg www.terrapinn.com

20 – 21 SAtcoM AfricA Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg www.terrapinn.com

21 net prophet Artscape Opera House, Cape Town www.netprophet.org.za

ThE LIghThOUSE rUN – 42 MArAThONS, 42 DAYSsummertime productionsdir: tanya Vandenbergdocumentary

ThE rEAL gOBOZA 7urban BrewEntertainment

ThE rEVOLUTION BETrAYEDshadow Filmsprod/dir: david Forbesdocumentary

ThE rUDIMENTALSperiphery Filmsprod: simon taylorFeature

ThE STOrY OF LITTLE FOOTpaul myburgh Filmprod: paul myburghdocumentary

ThE TECh rEPOrTHomebrew Filmsprod: Jaco loubsertechnology magazine

TOP BILLINgtswelopele productionsprod: patience stevensmagazine

TOP TrAVEL (SEASON 3)cardovaprod: Bradley van den Bergseries

TrOOPShIP TrAgEDY ( WOrkINg TITLE)sabido productionsprod/dir: marion Edmundsdocumentary

TShIPE BOrWA MANgANESE MINE Betta Beta communications prod / dir: tommy doigdocumentary

UNFrIENDtwo Oceans productionprod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha spiekerFeature

VASELINE ExPErIENCEXcut studiosdir: lee anne theron4d aV production

VILLA rOSAspectro productionsdir: luhann Jansen / andries van der merwe/ leroux Botha/ isabel smitseries

VOLkSPELE SOUTh AFrICAGrey cloud productionsdir:Jacques Brand prod: Bertie Brinkdocumentary

WArD 22tia productionsprod/dir: tarryn crossmandocumentary

WEEkEND AM LIVEsaBc newscurrent affairs

WOrLDSOUThleago afrikan arts Foundationdir: sakhile Gumbidocumentary

YILENgELO LAkhOprod: nndanganeni mudaucurrent affairs

ZOOM IN Footprint media tVprod: cheryl delporttalk show

IN POST-PRODUCTION

A BUShMAN ODYSSEYOnetime Filmsprod: Richard Wicksteeddocumentary

A DIFFErENT COUNTrYsabido productionsdir: lisa Henrydocumentary series

A LOVE LETTEr TO LUxOrshadow Filmsprod/dir: david Forbesshort Film

AFrOx CO2 PLANTFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

AFrOx FINANCIAL rESULTSFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

AFrOx rAU INSIghTFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

AFrOx ShEQ INDUCTIONFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcommercial

BUA NNETEOwami Entertainmentdir: charles Khueleshort film

ChALLENgE SOS 2 Blonds and a Redhead Filmingprod: anne myersReality

COLLIDEmedia Village productionsprod: ardeen munnik tV series

FOrMIDABELE VrOUE: ANNEkIE ThErONKhaki productionsprod/dir: christelle parrott/ Wynand dreyerdocumentary

FOrMIDABELE VrOUE: CISSY gOOLKhaki productionsprod/dir: christelle parrott/ Wynand dreyerdocumentary

hEAr ME MOVE coal stove pictures / FiX post production dir: scottnes l.smithFeature

hOME OF ThE LEgENDS l. dukashe productionsprod/dir: lumko dukashe / lulu dukashedocumentary

IQILIimpucuzekoprod: sharon KakoraFeature

JULIUS hAS A DrEAMcreative south africa, nkanyethi productions,Jam tVprod: Bathelemy ngwessamdocumentary

LIFE UNDEr ThE FLAglifeundertheflag.comprod: prince angelo doyledocumentary

NEW LANDplexus Films/ Four corners mediadir: Kyle O’ donoghuetV series

NOrThMENtwo Oceans productionsprod: Giselher Venzke & Bertha spiekerFeature

NYAOPE gANgSTErSlmOl productiondir: lizzy molotoFeature

PErFECT ShIShEBOquizzical picturesprod: nthabiseng mokoenaseries

PLAY MOrE gOLFFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcommercials

PUShI- PASSIONlmOl productiondir: lizzy molotoseries

rOCkVILLE SEASON 2 Ferguson Filmsprod: shona & connie Ferguson, Bobby HeaneytV series

SAFE BETsukuma mediaproducer: nokuthula sakhile mguni / Bonginhlanhla ncubeFeature Film

SANOFIXcut studiosprod: Guy BraggeaV production

SIYAYAFrancois Odendaal productionsprod/dir: Francois Odendaalseries

SLENDEr WONDErFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

SLENDEr WONDEr MJ LABSFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

SOLO FLIghTtwo Oceans productionprod: Giselher Venzke/ Bertha spiekerFeature

SPUD 3: LEArNINg TO FLY Rogue star Filmsdir: John BarkerFeature

ThE ChEETAh DIArIES SErIES 4nHu africaprod: Vyv simson / donfrey meyerdocumentary

ThE CALLINglmOl productiondir: lizzy molotoFeature

ThE LIghThOUSE rUNsummertime productionsdir: tanya Vandenbergdocumentary

ThE MESSAgEReel Edge studiosdir: david GoldentV drama series

ThE TrANSPOrTErSsukuma media/ Reality motion picturesdir: Bonginhlanhla ncubedocumentary

UNDEr ThE MOUNTAINplexus Filmsprod: miki Redelinghuys,/ lauren Groenewaldshort film

VkB LANDBOU BEPErkFc Hamman Filmsprod: Odette van Jaarsveldcorporate Video

WhEN I WAS WATErshadow Filmsdir: david Forbesdocumentary

xJ-1Eternal Film productionsprod: marius swanepoel/ dana pretoriusFeature

UPCOMING EvENTS |

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: [email protected]



PAD nA Jou HART PREMIéRE

VRou Soek ‘n BoeR PREMIéRE

JOzI FILM FESTIVAL

Caz Friedman and Shannon Gloyne

Donovan Marsh, director of inumber number, winner of the Audience Choice Award

Amalia Uys and Stefan Ludik

Kirsten Clarence (Egg Films) and Alison Ellard (Velocity / Wink)

Nikki Baillie, Ashleigh Lambson (Upstairs) and Deenan Naidoo (Velocity)

MC John Vlismas with Luscious Dosi, winner of the award for Best Student Film: Accross the Colour Bar

Ivan Botha and Donnalee Roberts

James Hosking (Upstairs) and Kerry Hosford (Egg Films)

Mark Middlewick, winner of Best South African Short Film for Security

James and Anel Alexander

Greg Shaw, Tracy-Lee Portnoi and Charmaine Greyling

Johnny Barbuzano, Tiffany Barbuzano, Bryan van Niekerk and Meren Reddy with their Best Feature Film Award for Shotgun Garfunkel

Director Jaco Smit

Almarida and Maynaard Kraak

Nico Panagio and Lika BerningBouwer Bosch and friend, Niklaas van der Walt, Nadia BeukesBok van Blerk and Hanna Grobler

Afrikaans band Adam

SOCIAL |

Vicky Vilakazi performs at the launch

zanele MbokaziBongi and CollinTshepo Maseko

GoSPel ClASSiCS LAUNCH

UPSTAIRS POST VALENTINE’S DAY HIGH TEA

Date: Thursday 15 May 2014

Venue: CMR Golf Club in Maraisburg, Roodepoort

Networking function prize giving: CMR Clubhouse

Sponsorship: R6 500 ex vat (Hole 1)

R5 000 ex vat (all other holes)

Green Fees: R350 per player (includes VAT, cocktail snacks and prize giving and R50 donation to Rhino Fund)

Halfway house: For your own account

Bookings for 4 ball and sponsorship: Ellen Oosthuizen

Competition format: Better Ball Stableford

Start time: Shotgun start @ 11:30am

Contact: Ellen Oosthuizen

Cell: +27 (0)83 268 6868

E-mail: [email protected]

Book your 4 Ball and Hole Sponsorship NOW

G O L F D A Y 2 0 1 4

new dates

www.pansolutions.co.zaContact: Sean Loeve Cell: 083 677 4917 Tel: 011 313 1622

Official Worldwide Olympic Partner

Authorised Broadcast Dealers: AVMARK SYSTEMS

DIGIVISION

NATAL VIDEO

TIMBRE BROADCAST SYSTEMS

Panasonic has been the Official Worldwide Olympic Partner since 1992.

Panasonic is the TOP sponsor in the AV Category and has delivered the

following Panasonic equipment to cover the 2014 Sochi Games:

• AVC-Ultra P2HD Cameras x 114 units

• AVC-Ultra P2HD Recorders x 100 Units

• LED Large Screens Displays x 1 727m2

• Professional Audio Systems x 16 venues

• LCD monitors x 4 993 units

• Security Camera Systems x 6 903 units

• Projectors x 207 units

screen africa march 2014

Documents