the film industry and south african urban change

The Film Industry and South African Urban Change

Gustav Visser

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Internationally there has been considerable discussion on the role thatcreative industries play as a strategy by which post-Fordist cities can revive stagnanturban economies. Among those sectors of the economy that form part of the creativeindustries, the filming sector counts as one. On the whole, these debates have beenconducted with reference to the post-industrial cities of the north. Little attention hasbeen placed on the role of the filming sector in the developing south generally, itsspatial distribution, and its relationship to other economic and social geographies inthose urban places. The paper provides a spatial analysis of the filming industryin urban South Africa and relates it to general economic and social geographiesin two South African cities that have identified the filming industry as a keydevelopment strategy. In addition, an agenda for future research, in particularpertaining to urban South Africa is outlined. It is concluded that there is abroader urban planning and geography project at hand. Questions need to beasked about how the filming industry interacts with other governmentprogrammes and the ongoing transformation of physical and symbolic spacesin urban South Africa.

Introduction

Since the architect of the concept, Charles Landry, introduced “creative cities” to theurban studies lexicon, “various attempts have been made to tackle social and eco-nomic decline … through discourses of creativity and the creative city” (Chatterton2000, 390). A bewildering scholarship, focused on policy debates and how the“creative cities” construct might be implemented in a range of urban areas, haslittered urban studies scholarship over the past two decades. The concept has movedfrom mere rhetoric, with some commentators noting that “a conceptual toolkit” has

Urban ForumDOI 10.1007/s12132-013-9203-3

G. Visser (*)Department of Geography, University of the Free State,P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africae-mail: [email protected]

been developed—which has been adopted by many national and local authorities(Florida 2005). Part of those suggested “tools” to conger “the creative city” is thefilming sector (Mathews 2010).

In South Africa, the idea of using creativity through cultural industries wasestablished more than a decade ago with the publication of Creative South Africa:A strategy for realising the potential of the cultural industries (Department of Artsand Culture, Science and Technology 1998). It was argued in the prologuethat “Encouraging the cultural industries in South Africa is one of the mostpowerful means of enhancing the country’s identity and distinctiveness, whilesimultaneously creating employment, developing human skills and generatingsocial capital and cohesion. In a globalising world where every place beginsto feel and look the same, it is cultural products and activities that mark outone place from the next – difference in this sense creates competitive advan-tage” (Department of Arts and Culture, Science and Technology 1998, 6). Thereport identified four sectors it deemed to comprise the core of the creative industries ofSouth Africa: music, film and television, craft, and publishing (Department ofArts and Culture, Science and Technology 1998, 2), for which a range ofsupport strategies have subsequently been developed (see South AfricanRevenue Services 2001; Industrial Development Corporation 2001; Departmentof Trade and Industry 2005, 2007, 2010). Arguably, the film and television segment hassubsequently received the most policy attention and a slew of more detailed supportinitiatives, ranging information, industry associations, funding, tax incentives andeducation and training (see Booyens 2012; Booyens et al. 2013; Joffe and Newton2007; Rogerson 2008).

A number of studies of the South African film industry have been under-taken over the past two decades (Department of Arts and Culture, Science andTechnology 1998; Hugo-Burrows 2004; National Film and Video Foundation2011; Tuomi 2006b). In the main, these studies are concerned with the histor-ical development of the industry (Botha 2003; Botha 2005; Tomaselli 1988),some critical reflections on the political and social content of films produced inSouth Africa (Botha 2003; Tomaselli 1988), and the funding, as well asstructural challenges facing the local filming industry post apartheid (Paleker2010; Shepperson and Tomaselli 2002). An investigatory gap has been thebroader geography of the film industry. This investigation is concerned withthe economic geography of the film industry in two South African cities and itslinks to other policy decisions that interact with changes in their urban form. Itis shown that the South African film industry is highly clustered in themetropolitan areas. Whilst Johannesburg was historically the main focus ofthe filming industry, Cape Town has emerged as the most important of thefilming sectors in terms of business units supporting this sector. It is alsorevealed that the different segments that constitute the filming industry eachhave their own unique geography. Whereas some of those geographies are similarbetween the main cities, there are also significant variations between these locations.Finally, this investigation explores linkages between this creative industry and otherurban processes, as well as policy frameworks such as Central City ImprovementDistricts and urban regeneration that has had different expressions in South Africa’s

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two main film industry locations. Beyond the analysis of the filming industry in CapeTown and Johannesburg, an agenda for future research is provided.1

Creative Industries and the Structure of the Filming Industry

Creative Cities

Creative industries are often regarded as agents leading to urban regeneration,economic development and employment creation. The growth of creative industriesis linked to neo-liberal, post-Fordist economic restructuring in cities. A result of suchchange has been that the economic base of cities has moved away from manufactur-ing to knowledge and service-based industries. It has been observed by commentatorssuch as Pratt (2008) and Scott (2006) that in the presence of infrastructure such ashigh-level skills, superior transportation, capital and dense communication systems, akey feature of creative industries cluster in a limited number of unique city spaces.These spaces are often post-industrial, inner-city urban areas where creative firmslocate to, occupying and re-using old industrial premises or old-remodelled office andresidential spaces. Furthermore, “these industries are often organised as clusters ofrelated firms which share resources and collaborate on a project basis” (Booyens2012, 46). Owing to the flexible and modular nature of these entrepreneurs, they arealso generally characterised by small and micro enterprises (Booyens 2012, 46).

Increasingly, countries in the developing South are also starting to embrace thecreative industries as a means by which to enhance their competitiveness and growtheir national economies (Booyens 2012). Policy makers in a range of countries in the

1 From a methodological point view this analysis draws a data set complied from the SA Filmguide, theNational Film and Video Foundation, Durban Film Office, as well as the Gauteng and Cape FilmCommission. These companies’ listing was arranged according to provider/service type and location, andthe location of the various businesses was mapped. It has to be stated that the database cannot be seen ascomplete, and in fact it is not possible to develop such a definitive database. In the terms of this database, ifbusinesses were registered in the various directories, they were included. In addition, and very importantly,their self-identification, in terms of whether they are a production company or casting agency etc., wastaken at face value. It was reasoned that a company best knew how to categorise and present themselves topotential clients. There is also data bias in the set as the large cities that have identified the film industry as akey component of their respective economic development strategies are inadvertently over representedthrough greater data availability. On the whole, small scale businesses in towns and smaller cities do notregister in the database in any great numbers. Businesses such as accommodation providers were excludedfrom the listing, though some of them were listed in a number of the base documents. There are a number ofreasons for this. First, the film industry, much like tourism, has countless linkages into local and nationaleconomies—it is a system or network of businesses that interact to produce a product and not a productionline. Some companies only work within the hard core of filming while others do so seasonally oroccasionally. A further challenge is that there are constant reconfigurations of businesses which merge orsplit into new firms. Thus, the same company might be rebranded and operate as a new concern but from alistings point of view indicate two businesses, or vice versa. This not only complicates the mapping to theindustry, but makes spatio-temporal analyses of broader filming businesses in South Africa very problem-atic. The true employment impact of the filming industry is also difficult to gauge as there are manyfreelance workers in the field who work on film but are also (by way of example) graphic designers orartists at other times. Although there are challenges in constructing a database of the filming industry inSouth Africa, for the purposes of what this investigations aims to achieve, the current database is, whilst notperfect, adequate.


developing South have therefore adopted creative industry policies, but which arealso often linked to broader social development outcomes. Even at the supra-national level, organisations such as the United Nations Conference on Trade andDevelopment UNCTAD (2010) have enthused about the role the creative industries canplay in a range of developmental outcomes. UNCTAD (2010), cited in Booyens 2012:44) estimates that world exports of creative goods and services amount to nearly $600billion, with exports from global South countries accounting for up to 45% of that trade.

Much of the excitement surrounding the creative industries is to be found in theirpotential to diversify economies and enable countries to leapfrog into a dynamicsector of the global economy. It is, however, also observed that the creative industriescannot be seen as a “cure-all” intervention for development (Cunningham 2009). Inaddition, the emphasis in Southern support for the creative industries is not always thesame as the developed North, as there is typically the dual objective of economic andsocial development without acknowledging that different strategies and processesunderlie each (Pratt 2008). Booyens (2012) observes that often there is a tendency tomimic interventions in the developed North without recognition of local specificitiesthat lead to successful creative industries growth. Moreover, it is also indicated thatthe creative industries can lead to new forms of marginalisation, increase existinginequalities and spatial exclusion through urban renewal processes such as gentrifi-cation. Notwithstanding, creative industries are now keenly supported and establishedin a range of developing world countries.

In South Africa, similar policy attempts have been made to pursue knowledge-intensive goods and services as a strategy by which to prompt development. This isseen in national policies that aim to transform the economy into a knowledge-based one.(Department of Science and Technology 2008). Investigators (Evans 2009; Lemanski2007; Rogerson 2006a) note that South Africa’s three main metropolitan areas, CapeTown, Durban, and Johannesburg, have emerged as the creative city hubs in the country,although the latter two have progressed furthest along this path of economic develop-ment. In both cases, there has been commissioned policy research for the respectiveprovincial and metropolitan governments. For example, the Gauteng provincial govern-ment has developed a number of strategies that aim to develop the region as a “smartprovince” (Gauteng Province 2005; 2006). Sectors that were identified as critical toachieving such a goal are: smart industries (including ICT and pharmaceuticals), tradeand services (including finance and film), tourism, agri-processing, and biotechnology,among others. Support for these economic sectors is repeated in subsequent policydocuments (Gauteng Economic Development Agency 2007; Gauteng Province 2007,2008). Similarly, Cape Town has developed a number of policy documents and associ-ated strategies which aim to reverse trends of increasing poverty and unemployment byexpanding jobs and increasing economic growth (Rogerson 2008).

It is observed that the city’s economic strategy needs to signal new economicdrivers of growth (Rogerson 2008). The key drivers in this regard are seen as theservices sectors which will be supported by a re-framing of the manufacturing sectorand the promotion of investment. Indeed, it is argued that Cape Town has to positionitself as a knowledge hub, as well as a centre of innovation and creativity. The tensectors identified in the city include ICT, Craft, Clothing and Film, which are singledout as only the tip of the creative industries sector and likely to become moreimportant in the future. In terms of the creative industries, the film sector is noted

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as big business with significant benefits for the city and with considerable potentialwhere Cape Town can become one of the world’s premier film destinations(Rogerson 2008).

From a policy and strategy perspective the economic development plans of CapeTown and Johannesburg have been framed as cognisant of the fact that thesemetropolitan regions are competing for the same investment funds, both nationallyand internationally. It has been argued that in terms of competition with Johannesburgfor investment with other cities, Cape Town in fact faces minimal competition fromother locations in South Africa in most of its main industry development targets, andthat Cape Town and Durban do not really compete against each other for investments.Among four major creative industry segments, however, important areas of overlap inpriority sectors and clusters that overlap or compete, film was identified as of keyimportance for Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Structure of the Film Industry as a Developmental Agent

Governments support the film industry, in part because of its dependence upondifferent skills-sets, business types, sizes, and consequently, its broad reach into thelabour pool (Joffe and Newton 2007). The film industry covers a number of interre-lated activities and industries and can be conceptualised as a value chain containing atleast five components and covering a number of genres; long or feature films,documentaries, commercials, short films, photo shoots/stills, etc. (Department ofArts and Culture, Science and Technology 1998, 75; Fig. 1).

The creative milieu in which the industry functions is the starting point of films,video, documentaries, as well as commercials both above and below line (that is,moving images in the former and print media in the latter case). Ultimately these

BeginningsProduction

Audience Consumption

Delivery

Circulation

BroadcastingCommissioners

Scriptwriters

Producers

Cinemas

Retail video

Rental video

Television

ExhibitersBroadcasters

Film and video distributors

CastingagenciesMake up

Equipmentand facilitysuppliers

Cast and crew

Post productionfacilities

Financiers

Crewing agencies

Set designers

Fig. 1 Film and television production process (source: after Department of Arts, Cultural, Science andTechnology, 1998, 75)


productions start with some sort of idea which is influenced by the social, politicaland cultural context in which it operates. Those ideas are then written as a script thatis an essential input into the production process. Generally, it is argued that thecreative artistic milieu is thus determined by the availability of scriptwriters and thewealth of interesting “stories” to be told (Department of Arts and Culture, Scienceand Technology 1998). However, a point that in the South African context has beenmurky, particularly in government led research, is that films can be made where theseideas are not necessarily those of the locale in which the production and filming itselftakes place (Department of Arts and Culture, Science and Technology 1998). Indeed,much of the filming industry in Cape Town, for example, is not supported by ideasthat were developed from that local context but are produced there drawing on ideasfrom other countries, often in Europe. Something else that should be noted is that thispart of the production cycle is in the main performed by the highly skilled. It is onlyin the four following processes where the impact of the filming industry really fansout to become more inclusive of broader skills-sets and consequently potentialparticipants and impacts upon the urban form.

This then brings us to the second component, and the main focus of this investi-gation: production. Production, in the context of film making, refers to pre-production, production and post-production. Pre-production concerns the planningphase of a production and includes finding the location(s), planning and schedulingthe shoots, budgeting, and employing casting and crewing agents. This is followed bythe actual production of feature films etc., while post-production is the editing processwhere the production is creatively refined. The entire production process isinfluenced by the availability of key inputs, such as finance, scripts, location, humanresources, and support facilities, such as set design and make-up artists (NationalFilm and Video Foundation 2011).

Again, this segment of the filming industry is highly complex not only in terms ofwhich types of businesses are involved but also where they are located. There is anendless number of potential combinations of role-players involved and so too theassociated geographies of the filming industry as a consequence. In terms of SouthAfrican policy documents and strategies, it is clear that the aim is to capture as manyof these interlinked role players as possible and increase the retention and reach ofmore of the total cost of a production.

Once a film has been produced, it is then circulated. However, it needs to be keptin mind that much of the activities the film making industry engage in are notnecessarily feature films and television series but commercials. In that case, thisprocess is somewhat different. Nevertheless, in the case of film the product is thencirculated in the marketplace, through the distribution process within South Africaand the international audience (NFVF 2006, 2011).

The fourth component of the filming industry is that of audience consumption.This refers to the response of the market to the product either through the publicmedia or by other means. This response then feeds back into the beginnings orcultural milieu that provides an environment in which the industry can either flourishor flounder. The fifth component relates to financing. It can be argued that at the heartof the filming industry is financing. The whole filming industry is based on whetheror not funds can be secured for all the other components of function.

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Collectively these components involve a plethora of business units, mainly SMMEs,that generate, according to government estimates around R12 billion per annum (Stead2011, 10). Although these components can and are linked to one another in countlesspossible formations, spatially the industry does necessarily have specific geographies,with these geographers, as will be argued below, linked into other urban processes andsometimes even unrelated externalities.

Notes on the South Africa Filming Sector

Historically there is no academic reflection on the spatiality of the South Africanfilming industry or its links to other physical urban processes. Those limited inves-tigations on this sector have in the main documented what types of products weremade, their socio-political value, the number of products, incentive programmes, andof course, a chronology of their development. The purpose of this investigation is notto trace these developments; suffice it to say that the contributions made by Botha(2003), Blignaut and Botha (1992), Botha and Dethier (1997), Botha and vanAswegen (1992), Paleker (2010), Schelfhout and Verstraeten (1998), and Tomaselli(1988) fulfil that role.

The post-apartheid government identified the film industry as an economic sectorwith excellent potential for growth. Although South Africa’s contribution to globaloutput stands at a mere 0.4 %, the local film industry is getting stronger (HumanSciences Research Council 2004). In 1995, when the country first became a viablelocation venue for feature film and television productions, the industry was reportedto have employed around 4,000 people. This has since grown to around 30,000people, with further jobs—and earnings—created in film-related transport, hospitalityand catering sectors not included in this estimate. From an analysis of the businesstypes included in the HSRC report and my own survey, it is clear that the SouthAfrican film industry, as elsewhere, has extended networks of firms dominated inmany cases by large business entities but also incorporating a proliferation of manysmall firms in which producers and service providers focus narrowly on one type ofoutput, but where that output’s design specifications are constantly changing (Scott2006, 3). Empirically, the average number of full–time employees is 49, but rangedfrom hundreds employed by large industry players, such as Endemol, Primedia, andSasani, to one-man operations. However, more than half (54 %) of the respondents intheir survey, are small companies, with five or fewer full–time employees.Furthermore, just over one quarter (26 %) are medium–sized businesses, with be-tween six and twenty employees, one tenth have between 21 and 100, with only 2 %of respondents being companies with an excess of 100 fulltime employees (HumanSciences Research Council 2004, 4). In addition, the companies involved in the filmindustry also employ a larger number of freelance employees, which can varydramatically in number and are generally linked to specific projects. The nature ofemployment and income is also diverse, ranging from highly skilled, high payingpositions to rather mundane, and poorly remunerated ones (Human SciencesResearch Council 2004, 5). This is typical of the creative economy with its proclivityto engender sharp social bifurcation (Scott 2006, 4).


Generally, on the one hand of this network of production, many clusters of neweconomy industries are associated with low wage, low skill workers in the filmindustry such as workers clearing sets, cooking for catering companies, clearingand cleaning streetscapes prior to shoots etc. On the other hand, some clusters employlarge numbers of highly qualified workers such as set-designers, multimedia pro-grammers, directors, etc. Often these different participating segments in the produc-tion network are also raced and classed (Scott 2006, 4). From the HSRC survey(2004, 8)—subsequently confirmed by the National Film and Video Foundation(2011), 66) 10 Reviews of the South African Film and Video Industry 2010—it isevident that more males than females are employed in the industry in both permanentand freelance/temporary categories. The male/female ratio is slightly higher (61:39)amongst permanent employees than freelance/temporary employees (56:44). In termsof race, amongst permanent employees the white/black ratio is 59:41, the “black”category here including black Africans, coloured and Indian employees. The oppositeis the case amongst the freelance/temporary worker category, where the white/blackratio is 23:77.

Gauging the size and economic impact of the film industry is by virtue of itscomplex and fluid structure extremely difficult and statistics on its size vary markedlybetween sources. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa’sentertainment industry is valued at around R7.4 billion, with film and televisiongenerating more than R5.8 billion in economic activity each year. Furthermore, arecent economic impact assessment study commissioned by the Cape FilmCommission, reported that the industry has a direct annual turnover of more thanR2.65 billion and contributes an indirect annual turnover of more than R3.5 billion tothe country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The benefits of a burgeoning film industry are clear, especially when it comes toearning in foreign exchange. Co-productions with international companies result inthe direct investment of millions of rands into the economy. South Africa has signedco-production treaties with four countries: Canada, Italy, Germany, and the UK. Thismeans that any official co-production is regarded as a national production of each co-producing country, making it eligible for any benefits or programmes of assistanceavailable in either country. South Africa also has a memorandum of understandingrelating to film with India.

In terms of challenges facing the current filming industry a number of reports havepointed in the same direction (Human Sciences Research Council 2004; NationalFilm and Video Foundation 2011; Tuomi 2006a). Tuomi (2006b, 81–100) argues thatinherent stumbling blocks in the industry are: limited access to funding, distribution,and facilitation facilities; few viable training opportunities; few talented scriptwriters;and the slow growth in the number of cinema complexes. The Creative Industry inSouth Africa Report (National Film and Video Foundation 2011; 62–64) also adds tothis list highlighting clear weaknesses, creative, and business skill gaps, problemswith co-ordination between various role-players, erratic production patterns, andissues of market access. As threats, they draw attention to among others the problemscreated by foreign exchange rate fluctuations; lack of competing incentives viz. othercountries; international perceptions of South Africa, and reduced government sup-port. Other challenges, it is argued, include a lack of coordination between govern-ment departments and parastatal agencies and the apparent disagreement about roles

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and responsibilities between the DTI, DAC and NFVF over research, incentives andrepresentation (National Film and Video Foundation 2011).

A key general observation is that knowledge on the South African film industry islimited empirically. The documents and reports, most of which are by now outdated,are recirculating the same data and working from extremely small sample sizes. Inaddition, there is a total lack of secondary literature and current academic reflectionsare at a low ebb, with the same debates resurfacing in whatever limited discoursethere is. Against this backdrop, the aim of this investigation is to provide a spatialreflection on the film industry in urban South Africa and reflect on its relationship toother processes that impact the urban form.

Spatial distribution of the Filming Industry in South Africa

At the macro level of analysis it is seen (Table 1 and Fig. 2) that the South Africanfilm industry is concentrated in the provinces of Gauteng and the Western Cape. Thecontribution of most other provinces is negligible. In terms of specific places, it isclear that there are two main concentrations in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Thereis a secondary cluster in Durban. The remainder of the filming businesses aredistributed among South Africa’s secondary cities and larger towns. That said, thereare myriad contributors to the production networks, such as freelance service pro-viders, that need to be kept in mind. Some providers in the production network, forexample, dealing with editing of film material, might be located in small townsor secondary cities across South Africa. Thus, although they are participating inthe filming industry they do not necessarily fulfil that function in the mainmetropolitan regions.

In terms of the number of businesses supporting the broader filming industry, CapeTown is clearly in the lead position. However, it has to be acknowledged that thisdoes not reflect on the size of the particular service providers, nor the network(s) ofservice providers supporting them. In fact, the largest role players as single businessunits in the South African filming industry, such as Endemol, Primedia, and Sasani,are based in Johannesburg. In 1998 and 2004, it was noted that more than 70 % of thenational film industry (in terms of number of employees) was located inJohannesburg (Department of Arts and Culture, Science and Technology 1998,2006). Indeed, nearly all South Africa’s soap operas, most television news casting,as well as productions such as Big Brother, Fear Factor or Let’s Dance are stillproduced in the Johannesburg region. In many ways this reflects the historic linkbetween the SABC and MNet, the main locations of which are in Auckland Park,Linden and Randburg, and programme producers in the private sector that havedeveloped as service providers in Johannesburg over time. However, Cape Townhas over the past decade aggressively marketed itself as an ideal location for thefeature film and commercials market abroad. In the intervening years since the lastactual census on the filming industry, much has changed. The point is it would bewrong to argue that the industry is necessarily larger in Cape Town than Johannesburgbased on the number of businesses involved in the filming sector, but that the companiessupporting the filming industry are differently sized and focused on different products.For example, a sampling of company websites of the Cape Town businesses suggested


mainly small business; whilst in Johannesburg, there was a number of very largecompanies because of the particular focus of productions and their broadcasting clients.

At the intra-urban scale it is recorded that the locational patterning of businessesconnected to the film industry differ for different service provider types and varydramatically between the main urban filming clusters. It has been argued that in thedeveloped North, creative industries, such as filming, cluster in a small number of

Table 1 Distribution of filmingbusinesses in South Africa

Source: Author Survey

Province Number of businesses %

Eastern Cape 12 0.8

Free State 6 0.4

Gauteng 369 27

KwaZulu-Natal 93 7

Limpopo 9 0.6

Mpumalanga 7 0.4

North West 6 0.4

Northern Cape 6 0.4

Western Cape 854 63

Total 1366 100

Fig. 2 Spatial distribution of filming businesses in South Africa

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unique city areas. It is generally observed that such areas are usually post-industrialinner or sub-central areas which creative firms move into and occupy, re-using oldindustrial premises (Booyens 2012). This trend is clearly visible in Cape Town. At thecity wide level, it is clear that film industry role-players in Cape Town are heavilyclustered in and around the Central Business District, very often in redeveloped officebuildings and old clothing factories, as well as other former light industry buildings.This fans out in smaller clusters along the main arterial routes towards suburbia, aswell as light and heavy industrial areas (Fig. 3). Although the general distribution ofbusinesses connected to the filming sector clusters close to the CBD and adjacentneighbourhoods such as Gardens, Green Point, Sea Point, and Woodstock, differentbusiness types, nevertheless, display their own types of spatial patterns.

The international record shows that these sub-components of the creative industriesalso tend to organise as clusters of related firms which share resources and collaborate ona project basis in cities (Scott 2006). For example, production companies, commercial

Fig. 3 Distribution of all film industry business in Cape Town


services, casting and model agencies are all highly concentrated in the Cape Town CBDand adjacent City Bowl neighbourhoods (Fig. 4a, b). It has to be highlighted thatalthough these companies provide the context and casts for filming, the actual produc-tion can potentially take place anywhere in the city or region generally. It also reflects onthe type of employee base required for such functions: in the main, well-educated andhighly skilled service providers. This employee cohort is more likely to be positioned inmiddle and higher income groups. In addition, these types of employees are likely to beattracted to a broader economic and social context, reflective of a desire for high qualityleisure and entertainment amenities. In the case of Cape Town such a milieu is found inand adjacent to the CBD and City Bowl areas. There is also an infrastructure aspect tothe industry, that of the hardware that makes productions possible. Business types suchas equipment rental, transportation and props are located in industrial areas such asEpping, Bishop Lavis, Paarden Island, and Maitland (Fig. 4a, b). By definition thebusinesses require different physical space, with lower land rents and employ labourcohorts that are less educated and skilled.

As far as filming is concerned, the international trend of creative industry cluster-ing is not reflected in Johannesburg. In this case, the filming industry businessesdemonstrate a diffuse spatial pattern, but a general tendency to be located in thesprawling northern suburbs and part of the more industrial east in places such asKempton Park, Isando, Germiston, and Boksburg (Fig. 5).

A further noticeable difference is that, unlike Cape Town, nearly all filmingbusiness types are located outside of the CBD, with a number of clusters in thedecentralised business nodes of the northern suburbs. Thus, the general internationaltrend of clustering in post-industrial inner-city or adjacent neighbourhoods is notrecorded to the same degree in Johannesburg. However, the filming related busi-nesses are nevertheless, like their counterparts in Cape Town, located in similar socio-economic areas. In the case of Johannesburg such services, experiences and amenitiesare not located in the CBD, but at some distance from it in a number of decentralisedbusiness nodes. In addition, it has to be noted that other creative industries such asadvertising and graphic design studios are also mainly located in these areas, so theidea of the clustering of related firm types is at play, just not in the CBD. As withCape Town, filming businesses are almost exclusively located in former white groupareas. However, there does not seem to be the same spatial division between businesstypes supporting the filming industry. With the exception of transportation businessesand to a lesser extent props, the different components of the filming industry displayvery similar geographies (Fig. 6a, b). In addition, one filming role-player that iswholly contained within Johannesburg and reflecting the historical importance ofthe city in this industry segment are the key national institutions regulatingvarious aspects of the South African film industry by way of statutory and informalassociations.

The Interplay Between the Filming Industry and Urban Change in Cape Townand Johannesburg

An opening observation relates to why Cape Town has become the dominant playerin terms of the number of firms linked to the film industry and why it seems to link

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Fig. 4 a, b Distribution of selected business types in Johannesburg


Fig. 4 (continued)

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more directly into international debates concerning creative industries and new urbanspace creation. Firstly, Cape Town was faster and more aggressive in developing apolicy environment conducive to stimulating the creative industries as part of its localeconomic development strategies. In Johannesburg, by contrast, there was a slowerpolicy response of role-players such as the Gauteng Provincial government and the Cityof Johannesburg council. Their assumption that the filming industry was somehow“naturally” embedded in Johannesburg appears to have underpinned the slow responseto more aggressively court the filming industry. In addition, it has to be acknowledgedthat the filming sector was and remains small relative to other industry segments inJohannesburg. But how does this relate to the notion of creative industries playing a rolein processes such as urban regeneration and gentrification?

It is argued here that specific policy responses for economic development bymeans of creative industries alone cannot be seen separately from other types ofpolicy responses that potentially impact creative industries. The fact that there was far

Fig. 5 Distribution of all film industry business in Johannesburg


Fig. 6 a, b Distribution of selected business types in Johannesburg

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Fig. 6 (continued)


greater growth and clustering of creative industries such as filming in Cape Town’sCBD and adjacent post-industrial locations must be read against the backdrop ofother urban policy frameworks implemented in the city, such as Central CityImprovement Districts, tax incentives and the expansion of other economic sectorsuch as tourism. For example, Cape Town declared a number of CCIDs as early as1999 and was clear on both its business and leisure tourism ambitions by that time.However problematic this ambition might be, the CBD had to “look” the “right” way(see McDonald 2007). In the case of Johannesburg, similar projects truly got under-way only by the mid-2000s with the creation of the Johannesburg Inner City BusinessCoalition (2006). There was also the clustering of new developments linked to the V&AWaterfront (which predates interest in creative industries) and the Cape TownInternational Convention Centre. It also has to be acknowledged that the decline of theCape Town CBD was never nearly as severe as in Johannesburg and perceptions of,though empirically misplaced, greater safety shielded the CBD from large-scale aban-donment. In addition, post-apartheid Cape Town experienced large scale tourism expan-sion, much of it in areas close to the CBD. Zones of widespread urban decay around theCBD frame were quite limited. Moreover, as highlighted by Pirie (2007), the City Bowlarea also saw very substantial investment from both private and public sector role-playersby themid-2000s, in large part because the ambitions of both the public and private sectorwere very similar in terms of becoming a “world city” (McDonald 2007). In addition, ithas to be noted that Cape Town’s CBD is significantly smaller than that of Johannesburg.It is this combination of decisions, rather than merely policy focused on creativeindustries, that propelled perceptions of Cape Town’s CBD and the City Bowl area asdesirable places, which were significantly more positive than that of Johannesburg ingeneral and its CBD in particular, to attract creative industries in the first place.

In Johannesburg, authorities were not only slow in their policy responses to creativeindustries but were, until recently, none too interested in large-scale regeneration of theCBD, andmainly unsuccessful in stemming inner-city decline and creating areas that areattractive to the creative industries and creative classes. The inability to cluster inter-ventions might also be argued to have limited the success of those interventions made inplaces like Newtown and Braamfontein until recently. Perhaps also at issue is that thedecentralisation of the Johannesburg-based film industry had already taken place sincethe move of the SABC out of the CBD to suburban Auckland Park in the 1970s. Thatpart of the creative industry has not been present anywhere near the CBD for decades.This is not to say new clusters of film related firms are not developing in Johannesburg.Perhaps a case for early adopters in locating creative industries closer to the CBD andsites of urban regeneration is being seen on the outer fringe of Johannesburg’s CBD inthe form of the Atlas Studios at the Stanley Road development in Millpark. Nevertheless,this development is nowhere near the scale seen in Cape Town nor enabled by a suite ofinterventions initiated by the Johannesburg City Council related to urban renewalframeworks.

A further difference between the two cities can be seen in the adjacent neighbourhoodssurrounding the filming clusters in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The City Bowl area isnearly exclusively of middle, high to exceptionally high socio-economic status, and it isphysically, both built and naturally, amenity rich. In part, this is because the relevantauthorities have taken the preservation and development of these areas seriously—notalways related to attracting creative industries but to drawing tourists.

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There are also other issues at stake that are not directly bound to policy frameworksthemselves but simply a combination of the cost of the skilled labour pool, the amenityvalue of a city, in addition, to unexpected externalities that can impact the developmentof creative industries which cannot directly be planned for. For Cape Town changes inthe fashion industry, for example, played a role in establishing part of the productionnetworks associated with the filming sector. The modelling industry of the mid-1990s,started to focus on Cape Town as a popular destination for fashion shoots, not only fordomestic but also European fashion magazines. In part, this was fuelled by the fact thatat the time it was more cost effective to do shoots in Cape Town than Johannesburg or inmany Europeans countries. In addition, the physical characteristics of the city appealedto European aesthetics concerning desirable locations for fashion shoots.

An upshot of the visual “chameleon-like character” of Cape Town’s urban formwas that increasingly more advertisements were filmed in Cape Town, again for costreasons and the fact that the urban fabric and surrounding nature presented so manydifferent “looks” within close proximity. Both these factors made Cape Town in-creasingly visible to film makers abroad and stimulated the filming industry further.In turn this led to a differentiation in the South African filming industry which wouldkeep the Johannesburg sector growing slowly whilst providing large-scale growthopportunities in Cape Town. A key point is that the Johannesburg filming sector wasnot necessarily undermined because of its growth in Cape Town. Rather, a differen-tiated industry subsequently developed with programming content for local televisionnetworks, such as DSTV, e-TV, and the SABC produced in Johannesburg and CapeTown, more strongly geared toward the international producers.

Over the past decade, the filming industry has not only consolidated in the Cape TownCBD but has moved into lower income neighbourhoods such as Woodstock andObservatory. The cumulative effect is that the CBD and the bordering neighbourhoodshave gone through processes of urban regeneration and in some cases gentrification.Booyens (2012) has already highlighted issues of gentrification linked to creativeindustry establishment inWoodstock and the CBD (Visser and Kotze 2008). What shouldbe noted is that the CBD and surrounding areas have seen the replacement of poorercohorts by wealthier ones, the in-migrants often connected to the creative industries insignificant numbers.

Some Concluding Remarks

Within the South African context there has been far less interest in specificallyspatialising these changing modes of capitalist accumulation—of which the filmingindustry is but one expression. Changes in firm types and their location has seen somereview (Rogerson and Rogerson 1996, 1999) and the contribution that creative indus-tries, such as urban tourism and fashion can make towards urban economies, has seensome interest (Rogerson 2006a, b).More general works include those of Beavon (2004),Beall et al. as well as Crankshaw and Parnell (2013) on Johannesburg’s spatial trans-formation. The general spatial analyses of the South African urban form have been moreby way of critiques of the neoliberal state and its impact on the urban poor in moregeneral terms than truly spatialising them (McDonald 2008; Visser 2013). The changingeconomic base of cities linked to creative industries, whilst often seen as emblematic of


the neoliberal turn, has not been investigated to show the actual spatial distribution ofthese industries relative to other creative industries and a range of urban processes suchas gentrification and urban regeneration (Lemanski 2007; Visser and Kotze 2008).

It is clear from the spatial analysis presented that the filming industry’s mainconstituent segments are differently spatialised, in the main filming centres reviewed.The general theme is that the Cape Town example points to significant clustering of thefilming industry as opposed to greater dispersion in the other case. The more importantobservation is the overlap between this creative sector’s component parts and processessuch as urban renewal and gentrification in Cape Town, which is lacking in prominencein the case of Johannesburg. The issue that arises is that a creative industry such asfilming is no guarantee to urban renewal or fundamental locational repositioning ofeconomic opportunities. It might have an impact on the urban economy generally, butnot necessarily those neighbourhoods in most need of socio-economic and physicaltransformation. What makes Cape Town different is the clustering of the film industrysub-components and other sectors of the creative industries such as urban tourism, aswell as dedicated Central Business Improvement Districts, and large-scale investment inpublic space redevelopment and tax incentives through to development of leisure andresidential property in the CBD and surrounding neighbourhoods. Both cities have arange of programmes in place to develop their creative industries generally and filmingin particular, but perhaps the difference in Cape Town is that they are more closelyconnected to other physical improvement and investment programmes and industrysectors that create something of a virtuous upward spiral. However, as Visser and Kotze(2008) have noted regarding what is essentially state-led gentrification in Cape Town,spatial bifurcation might then be associated with the creative industries. There aredifferences between these cities but I would argue that they are similar to the sharpinequalities associated with the different employment opportunities and business typeclusters that constitute the creative industries and their associated spatial divisions. Thoseplaces that are attractive to the creative classes are in some ways attractive to those thatcontrol or are prominent in the film production networks, those are the very people whoengage renovated and expanded cultural tourism/leisure offerings and live in reworkedloft developments in the inner-city, consuming food in high-end restaurants, catering tosophisticated tourists and business people from other creative cities. The point is that aspecific policy intervention, such as focusing on creative industries does not necessarilylead to anticipated developmental changes. It is only when policy frameworks interact thaturban change, in terms of issues such as urban regeneration, might occur. In addition,unpredictable positive or negative externalities change the production and consumption ofurban places such as CBDs that cannot be predicted in policy frameworks.

What is clear is that there is a very substantial gap in our knowledge of the SouthAfrican filming industry and its relationship to city space. Very basic informationregarding the size and the composition of this industry is lacking. Although manypolicy recommendations and industry incentives have emerged over the past decade,the real impacts of the filming industry still need to be understood through systematiclarge-scale research. Furthermore, merely being able to quantify the size and propor-tions of the South African filming industry, a number of other research questionsshould be considered. We need to systematically investigate in what way encouragingthe cultural industries, through film in South Africa, are related to it:

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1) being a powerful means of enhancing the country’s identity and distinctiveness2) having created employment, for whom and where3) having developed human skills and generating social capital and cohesion (all

stated goals of the South African government’s support for the culturalindustries)

In addition, there is a broader urban planning and geography project at hand. Questionsneed to be asked about how the filming industry interacts with other governmentprogrammes and the ongoing transformation of physical and symbolic spaces in urbanSouth Africa. It is clear that these impacts and interaction are differently spatialised andlocally negotiated. More insight into such variations is required.

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