A feature film usually has
a dramatic story and identifiable characters. Different countries have
developed different kinds of feature films:
USA - the Hollywood blockbuster, India – the Bollywood musical
melodrama, New Zealand – intense art-house films, Europe – the
Dogme 95 movement. African film has also developed its own story-telling
techniques, some of which derive from the continent’s rich tradition
of oral history and indigenous modes of communication. Since the end
of the colonial era, films have been produced which respond creatively
to the ever shifting conditions and dilemmas the continent faces. This
despite the fact that most African countries are poor (which means less
money available to finance films) and they lack the necessary infrastructure
(transport, film equipment and facilities).
Small West African
countries like Ivory Coast, Burkino Faso and Senegal have produced
(relative
to the rest of Africa) a large number of path-breaking
films, and important directors like Djibril Diop Mambety (from Senegal)
and Idrissa Ouedraogo from Burkino Faso have made a name for themselves
as African directors. Most of these films were co-productions with France,
which often supplied the money to make them. They did reasonably well
before African audiences, and before art-house audiences in Europe. Overall
however, they failed to earn their makers and backers (the people who
invested money in making the film) enough money to comfortably make more
films. Thus even Africa’s top directors only manage to make one
film every eight years or so. Other African directors never make more
than one or two films. As two academics described it, many African films
are stories that tell, rather than products that sell.This has been
both a strength and a weakness.
Feature films tell dramatic stories in such a powerful way that they
often shape how we see each other. How many of us modelled our kissing,
or our idea of being “tough” on the way we saw it done “in
the movies?” And how many of
us have formed our ideas about what life is like in the USA based on
the hundreds of American feature films and TV shows we have all been
exposed to? When a country does not produce many feature films telling
stories about the lives of its people, cinema audiences often find
themselves watching films which do not satisfactorily reflect their
own lives. Of course good stories all have a universal dimension, which
is why we can relate to stories from other countries, but we can relate
much
more to films which wrestle with our own fears, hopes and struggles.
You might not have seen them on TV or in a cinema, but
yes, South Africa does make its own feature films, telling stories
about South Africans
and reflecting the varied lives we lead here. Unfortunately, these films
are few and far between, and even when they are made they're not always
easy to get to see, especially if you don't live in a big city. That's
why South African cinema-goers are more used to seeing Los Angeles or
New York or London on the screen then they are to seeing Soweto, Jozi
or Cape Town. It’s why we recognize Eddie Murphy more easily than
we recognise local stars like John Kani. And it’s why we often
know more about American history - or at least Hollywood's version of
it - than we do about our own. Perhaps it is because there are so few
uniquely South African feature films that SA cinema audiences are largely
middle class and urban, while rural people, and people living in townships
or informal settlements rarely find the opportunity – or reason – to
visit the cinema.
Why do so few films - when compared not just with Hollywood (which dominates
the film industry worldwide), but when compared also with other countries
like Australia, Canada, Egypt and India - come out of South Africa?
Talking Points:
What
are the challenges that face the South African film industry?
Why did so few Black South Africans made films before the 1990s?
Why have so many major South African films featured non South- Africans in the starring roles?
Four important figures in the South African Film Industry
Perhaps it’s not just a South African problem, but a pan-African
one. South Africa is a part of Africa, and since the early 90’s
increasingly connected to the rest of Africa, both culturally and economically.
"African films work in rhythm with the African economy" says 47 year
old Pierre Yameogo, an established director from Burkino Faso. "It's almost
impossible to produce feature films...we don't have the infrastructure." Perhaps.
Yet SA does have a lot of the things needed to make films. More foreign films
are made here than anywhere else in Africa, and South Africa assists in the making
of more commercials than any other country outside of the US. The Western Cape
- particularly Cape Town - accounts for 25% of SA's Rand 2 billion annual film
industry. Durban is also becoming a sought after location.
The exchange rate
(i.e. the fact that the Rand is a weaker currency than the Euro, Pound
and Dollar), the beautiful locations , and
the experience and professionalism of SA film crews, attract foreign
companies here. More local television is consumed than anywhere else
in Africa, and South Africa is the continent's leader in satellite distribution
and interactive content. There are an estimated 25 000 people working
in the SA film and video industry.
So if its not a lack of technical capacity, then what might it be? Here
are a few possible reasons for our seeming inability to make good feature
films and to distribute them widely.
-
A lack of good scripts. South Africans have great
stories to tell, but don’t
have many people who can tell them in an entertaining way. There is
also not enough funding for script development – the
process in which a script gets rewritten and polished over and over again.
We need to come up with good and saleable scripts which speak with a
clear and unique South African voice...something, it seems, we have not
yet accessed.
There is a lack of budget for marketing and distribution. It is not enough just to
make
a film. You also have to
have the means to
distribute it. This is the problem that African film has faced. The North
American film industry tends to dominate global cinema, and has developed
extremely effective marketing and distribution mechanisms to get its
product out there.
In South Africa marketing
budgets - the money made available to advertise a new film - are tiny.
For example, about R80 000.00 was
put aside to
market Akin Omotso's feature film G-d is African. Compare this to budgets
of R10 million and more made available to market Hollywood films. But
its not just money which gives North American product its advantage.
When Hollywood (or Vancouver, or Sydney for that matter) make a film,
they supply distributors world wide with electronic press kits, posters,
display stands and other items to help create public awareness of the
film. South Africa needs to learn from the North American industry’s
thoroughness and attention to detail. NGO's like Film Resources Unit
(FRU) have been doing this to some extent. They put in an extra
R300 000.00 to distribute the film Lumumba ( a French speaking film from
the Democratic Republic of Congo, about assassinated leader Patrice Lumumba)
in South Africa and the film did exceptionally well at the box office
in 2002, despite there being only two prints of the film.
Lack of
respect for intellectual copyright laws: Unfortunately there is much piracy
in
Africa. Let’s say a filmmaker gets R7 million
from investors to make a film (a miniscule amount by Hollywood – and
even Bollywood standards – but quite a lot for an SA film). They
hope to earn this money back by box office sales (cinema tickets sold
to the public), and more importantly by the sale of video and DVD copies
of the film. However, the film is often illegally duplicated by people
who want to make money quickly and exploit the hard work of others; they
sell pirated copies cheaply and the filmmaker and investors receive nothing
for the sale of these illegal copies. The filmmaker is unable to fund
the making of future films, investors are scared off, and the whole film
industry – a potential creator of jobs and prosperity is affected.
A lack
of appropriate government intervention. Media globalization means that.no country’s
film industry is operating in a vacuum, or on some little island. South
Africa is operating on an audio-visual
playing field where – as large companies merge to form even larger
ones - fewer and fewer people control production and distribution. It
becomes harder and harder to make a film and even harder to penetrate
the distribution barriers. Without assistance and intervention from those
who can influence this playing field – The South African government
and our own private sector - South African films do not stand a good
chance in the global market. In countries like Australia and new Zealand,
which have both built thriving film industries over the last 30 years,
there is massive state assistance and intervention (via the Australian
Film Commission and New Zealand Film Board) who help fund the distribution
and marketing of their countries’ feature films.
It would be pleasing
to end this discussion with the conclusion that the South African film
community is successfully addressing
the challenges
listed above and is on the way to becoming a viable industry which will
represent South Africa in the same way as the Australian, Senegalese
and New Zealand industries have managed to do. We certainly have the
capacity, talent and infrastructure to do as well as these countries,
and bodies like FRU and the NFVF are certainly addressing the issues – successfully
or not remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, however,
the various elements have not yet come together, and the invisible
something which divides between
the “we did it” camp
and the “we came so close to doing it” camp seems to be very
much at play here. In 2003 The SA industry is at an absolute crossroads,
and without the necessary interventions – and magic something -
it will not make it as a contender amongst the world’s feature
film heavyweights.
Who’s who in the Movie Zoo – a
few terms explained
The producer usually finds the money to make the film. The producer also
hires cast and crew and not only supervises the production process
but the film's distribution and makes sure it gets into cinemas.
The scriptwriter, or screenwriter, develops original screenplays or
adapts existing material such as books or plays. Sometimes a screenwriter
is hired to write a script.
Director - The director breaks down the screenplay, visualizes how the
film should be shot and works with cast and crew to carry out his vision.
The director is a movie's main creative force.
DOP or Director of Photography - The DOP works closely with the director
and is responsible for the photographic look of the picture. In small
films or documentary films, the DP may operate his or her own camera
and adjust light as well. In studio films, the DP instructs camera operators
and gaffers (lighting technicians) on how to arrange shots and lighting.
Editor - The editor is responsible for putting together all the shots.
The editor generally screens each day's film footage (called dailies
or rushes) and edits while the picture is being shot. However, most of
an editor's job occurs after all the filming has been completed, when
he and the director sit together for weeks and put together the film
in its final form. Music Com
Film market - a place where broadcasters, producers, directors, distributors
and others come together to buy and sell films, film scripts, ideas for
films and to find sources of finance for their film projects (via, for
example, co-production deals.)
Location – the
place where a scene from a film is shot. A feature film will typically
use dozens of different locations.
South Africa has
superb locations, from deserts and bushveld to modern cities with stately
homes.
Budget – the
way the amount of money available to make and distribute a film is
divided up.
