The guys over at Coffee Beans Routes started a one to two minute story strand for Cape Town Tv called ‘My Cape Town’. Living and working in Cape Town, and a supporter of Cape Town Tv, I thought this was a brilliant idea. I decided to produce a ‘My Cape Town’ insert for the strand and contacted the Cable Station that looms mysteriously over the city to find a willing candidate to tell us what Cape Town means to him / her.
I imagine that someone who works on the imposing, resilient and (thank goodness) immovable Table Mountain will have a unique perspective on the city that flanks it. A perspective that I would like to hear and I imagine others would be interested in, too.
Ticket to the top
On Wednesday, 23rd September, as the image on the left will varify, I met with the suggested Capetonian and did a recce of the Cable Station.
Everyone is keen for the shoot to happen and the little film to be released on Cape Town Tv, youtube and of course on our own web site.
The main complication with this shoot is the weather. Working in Cape Town in winter, you grow accustomed to the wind and the rain and somehow you learn to work with the elements. When you’re shooting 1 000m above sea level, however, and your means of transport is a cable car, the weather is all important. Clear skies with light moody clouds are what we’re after, not dark skies and thunder clouds. A gentle breeze will keep us cool, while gale force winds (like the one howling as I type) will blow the sound away and make for a messy shoot all around. Imagine the crew pictures!
The other minor complication, further complicated by our reliance on the weather, is crew availability. Our team is small, with just me (the director), a DOP and a sound person. All of us working on this project are doing it for fun and for the love of making movies. Our compensation will be the completed product for the world to see on the internet. Of course, this means that when a paying job arrives, crew members have to respect the demands of the real world, put this project on hold and feed their bank balances.
So, when the first warm, sunny, windless day arrives, keep your fingers crossed that there is crew available to take that trip to the top. Or just keep your fingers crossed that there will be a sunny day.
Mbuyiselo Zotwa is the post production intern working on Masupatsela II. He is hard at work translating twelve of the twenty-two stories that were filmed in Xhosa. This experience has also been his first chance to work in television. To read Mbuyiselo’s thoughts on his job, please read the Masupatsela II blog.
In 2007 Masupatsela Series I featured a story on the Group of Hope at the maximum security Brandvlei Prison in Worcester. The men – all prisoners – in the story wanted to reach out to fellow prisoners, HIV positive people and the children living in the communities around the prison. They hoped to provide the children with the attention and support that many of them do not get.
Thabo with Children from Sinethemba
Inmate with Children from Sinethemba
The story was a winner! Everyone loved the idea of hardened criminals with hearts of gold showing the world that there was more to them and that rehabilitation could happen where we least expect it to. We told the story of the Group of Hope through Thabo Zondo, who was in prison with a life sentence for murder. We shot at an Open Day at Brandvlei when the families of the Group of Hope prisoners visited to see the various crafts they had produced and also to hear about the outstanding community work they were doing.
Johan with a Child from Sinethemba
Thabo and his Girlfriend
In 2009 Mr Pansegrouw, the social worker who started the Group of Hope with the prisoners, tells us that a number of the prisoners from the group have been moved from Brandvlei to medium security prisons. Amongst these prisoners is Thabo, who has been moved to Goodwood Prison where he will be closer to his family. As if that were not enough, Mr Pansegrouw reports that Thabo may be released in 2010.
We are hopeful that the Group of Hope may be able to offer its members another chance in society.
Free Range Films made the front page of the newspaper last week.
We’re refering to the front page of the ‘Friday’ arts supplement in the ‘Mail & Guardian’ of 27 Feburary 2009. The bottom photograph on the front page was taken by David Goldblatt on a shoot with Free Range Films for ‘Masupatsela’ Series I.
At the time Goldblatt was working on a series of photographs about HIV and AIDS in the South African landscape. We wanted to do a story on him for the programme to show an unusual and interesting way of dealing with HIV and AIDS. Goldblatt was game and set the director – Tina-Louise Smith – the task of finding various occurrences of the AIDS ribbon around Cape Town.
One Saturday morning Smith set out with the post production assistant, Zukiswa Simulekane, to take photos of the AIDS ribbon in the landscape around Lansdowne, Athlone, Crossroads, Khayelitsha and Hout Bay.
Next, Smith uploaded the images on the backend of our web site for Goldblatt to inspect with his keen eye. He made his selection and the Free Range Films team set off for Khayelitsha with Goldblatt and his camper early one morning. The photo on the ‘Friday’ front page was one of those that came out of the experience.
January 2009 sees the launch of the Free Range Films new web site, designed specifically for Free Range Films by Justin Slack.
After many months and nights of coding, writing content and finding our way around the WordPress interface, we think we are finally ready to go live. There are still bits to tweak, but you – the user – should be able to find your way around easily.
