Perks of my profession...

It's tough as hell to make a movie in South Africa, but there definitely are perks.. like getting to drive the cars we have for the movie, hanging with famous peeps and of course, moving FHM models around the set.. heh heh

Fast cars, pretty girls.. and then my favorite, mentoring youngsters who share my passion for film!

In the pic with the girls in it, you will note a young girl wearing a white, long-sleeved top with a red vest thingie over it. That is Juanita - a fireball of encouragement and wisdom who has an epic future in film making!

You get tired of the other stuff, Cars and Hotties are great eye Candy but 13 hours later on set, you are irritated and exhausted and all you want to do is go home and sleep!

Enter the excitement of the teen-ager who has found her niche.
A 'you can do eeeet' speech from her is like having Red-Bull intravenously!

It's like that with all the youngsters we have around us on set! Their passion and energy have no limit! I reckon you could climb Mount Everest with nothing but toothpicks and elastic bands with that kind of positive energy around you!

Someone commended me the other day on my passion to mentor youngsters in their skill sets. "How nice that you put up with them" was the sentiment.

Hell no!

Mentoring them is merely the small price you pay for their energy and drive! They freely give input, serve with all their hearts and expect nothing in return except your attention here and there and an opportunity to learn while they show off their developing skills! It's awesome!

Whats' it like on a film set?

I'm the stressed looking guy on the right wearing the bright wastecoat thingie with the cheap hat from Margate.

My expression about sums up the question posed in the title of this blog.

(Well.. I hope I look more focused than stressed.)


Film making is the island in the middle of the sea where discipline and creativity meet, where the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.

You have two teams around you consistently:

1) The Creatives who need to express themselves artisitically and represent their characters in a manner that will feel natural on screen.

2) The scientists who make sure the lighting and camera movement is as flawless as possible from scene to scene.

It's a case of 'hurry up and wait' as the creatives step aside for every lense or angle change. To get the shot from any angle differing from the starting point, you have to move the lighting.. and then any equipment that might be in shot.

The Art department will kill you if you have a light stand or a sandbag within the Director of Photography (DOP)'s blocking area (The area actually in shot).

When it's time for a reversal again, it's the art departments' turn to flee before the lighting department because the grips and lighting teams will kill you if your decor is in the way of their gear...

Whenever that Camera moves, the entire world moves around it.

This is an idea of the chaos behind the Camera. If we decide to look this way with the camera, all this stuff has to move.



Glamorous eh?

Haahahaha.

I hope that gives you an idea...

And herewith the result of all that chaos:

Ian Roberts... awesome dude!

On Set, it's a combination of chaos and order. I'm not quite sure how you get the two living together harmoniusly, but you do.
I gues if my disciplined perfectionist wife can live harmoniously with a nutter like me, order and chaos can get on just fine in the workplace!

Some days though, the chaos of scheduling and resource meltdowns can kill you. No, seriously, it feels like you're not gonna make it...

*play superhero music here*

Enter Ian roberts, acting legend and the most relaxed dude in South Africa!

This guy stands in the middle of a typhoon and creates his own bubble of calm.. it's friggin amazing!

I'm spinning like a top and he's just: "Ja boet, lets try this" or "No man, it's easy boet".

The guy is awesome.

He'll jump in and help the crew, help newer actors learn their lines... awesomeness!




 

On set, when he is not busy with his character responsibilities, he chills in his old Yellow Volkswagen Kombie, playing his guitar and making coffee or chow on a little gas stove...

It's such a cool vibe, this awesome contradiciton against the backdrop of digital film making.
Like a reminder that there is more to life than running around like a chicken with my head chopped off.

Ja, Nee, Kyk...

The oke is a legend.. of note!
I think a lekker nugget here would be:

Don't get so busy with life that you don't get a chance to live it...

Rev

Get ready for the Blitzkrieg!

It's time to market this baby!

One month before the South African Cinematic release of the movie and we are running around like crazy!

I have to do the last touches on the movie, make sure that March is swamped with all things Race-ist and hope like hell that someone comes to watch our film!

This morning I had the eventing team (NIMA) and Mobile/Web guys (MMS) here going over my strategy for the March blitzkrieg.

if you realize that you have to hit Cinema, TV, Mobile, Internet, Print, Radio and Events all at the same time, you will realize just how hectic your strategy has to be.

Between finishing the movie and directing the campaign I'm a bit flustered.

Luckily we have great draw cards to capitalize on:

Babes, Cars, DJ Fresh, Kurt Darren, Mark Stent, Actors that can actually act and a weirdly named movie that instigates discussion.

"The race-ist?"
"Ja, it's a movie about racing"
"ahhh, I thought it was about racism again!'
"No man, it's about racing!"

See?

There is a method to our madness!



Sjoe, I'm nervous as hell, I hope everyone enjoys our movie.. blerrie hard work!

The trailers...

The 2 minute Cinematic Trailer:



Above is our Cinematic Trailer, it was almost 4 minutes long originally with a lot of other cool content but we decided to chop it by almost half to keep the pace fresh!

Cutting the trailer is almost harder work than cutting the movie. You have to let people know how your movie is going to feel and get them excited about watching it without giving too much of your plot away.

You literally go through your whole movie looking for bits that work as stand alone moments without the necessary context or character arcs...

Finding the funny bits is sooo hard. In the movie, you establish a mood and almost counterplay that mood with a funny moment. It's very difficult to do that in the trailer. Light is most noticable in Dark - Funny is most noticeable in a serious moment.. you get the drift. Anyhoo, thats why we chucked the baboon spanner moment at the end. It would not have been as funny at any other moment of the trailer.

Sexy Back:



I don't know if anyone will notice, but the whole 'sexy back' thing is a play on words. The real play is for the Mechanics crack just after the tag line. We thought a short trailer like this would make our target market more aware of the comedic aspects of our movie. It's a comedy, more so than a racing movie.

Introducing the Cast:



South Africa has very little star power, we thought it was important to try and sensationalize our local cast with a trailer that focused on their names. Not sure if it will work, but people seem to enjoy the trailer!

Turning Lemons into Lemonade.

And now I enter the world of production delays.

To say that I am exhausted is an understatement.
Luckily I am unstoppable! :)

This thing was supposed to be ready to rock and roll for release on the 9th December.

Sponsors and product placement companies defaulting on payment, investors simply not taking calls, bridging financiers lying through their teeth... We don't sue anyone, it's not how we roll! We just find money from scratch to finish our baby for a release in April.

After 4 months of ducking and diving, companies come clean on their slashed marketing budgets, loud mouth businessmen repent for over committing and we have to sell 35% of our movie...

Quite honestly, although it's been tough on the team and the poor sods who have had to ride the storms of financial hell, I am glad for every drop of anguish so far.

 "Andrew are you mad?"

When I started making the Race-ist, I knew nothing.

Literally nothing.

All I was focused on was making my movie and it's sequels and that was that for the next 5 years.

The past 6 months have shown me a Country of unpaid cast and crew (not just from our project), ignorant producers, slimy investors, pessimistic distributors, unmotivated government and an industry that just cannot sufficiently keep its employees alive!

I must be honest. Although D9 was a fantastic film that created a lot of Jobs for South African cast and crew and really put us on the map (like a home run after Tsotsi :), It cannot be counted as part of the 'South African' film industry. That would paint a completely wrong picture! D9 had dollars.. LOTS of dollars. The average South African film has Rands, VERY LITTLE rands!

To Neil and his team I tip my hat (and bow on the floor for lack of worthiness) but I am driven with a mission to change the South African film Industry!

Our crews and cast walk around with too many battle scars for what should be a creative space, our producers are demoralized, most of them so sceptical you can't have a conversation with them! We've all been lied to so severely by so many people and (believe me) when your word to others cannot be kept because others could not keep their word to you, I can only describe it as hell.

Me, I'm fine, I am good at closing deals and finding money. The rest of the Industry?

The Race-ist is no longer my sole project. I am now driven to get South Africa behind our film Industry like they are behind our Sports teams!

Do you realize that out of 50 million South Africans, less than 1.5 million go to the movies?
Every year the number of film goers increase, but think about this:

The average 'good' movie will pull in a mere R10 mil at local box office. The film maker will get R4 mil of that if they are very lucky! What kind of a movie can you make for R4mil?

Mr Bones 2 pulls R30 Mil at the box office and we are all "Woohooo, a smash hit!"
Have we lost our minds? Thats less than $4 mil! We should be pulling ten times those numbers!

Movies with proper budgets create jobs, and lots of jobs! We are talking over 1000 people that need to be accommodated, fed, clothed, entertained and supported logistically.

If a high budget movie is produced in your town, TENS of MILLIONS of Rands or Dollars get spent in your community!

The more high budget films we have, the better off our entire industry!

So yeah... we're almost done with The Race-ist, but I'm just getting warmed up!

Watch this space!

Our First Official Teaser Trailer.

40 hours without sleep to edit this one... hope ya likes it!