by Thinus Ferreira
The Afrikaans reality competition talent showcase series Maak My Famous announced its Top10 contestants on Wednesday night but also that the second season is taking an 8-week production break until 5 August because of the Covid-19 pandemic for the show to craft a new, fair way forward for the contestants that will include viewers getting the chance to vote.
When Maak My Famous returns there will be format changes, one of which will include that all viewers will now get the option to vote.
On Wednesday night viewers saw the completion of the second season's Maak My Famous Top 10 that saw entries grow from 6 000 to 8000 for the second season.
The Top 10 Maak My Famous contestants are Daylin Sass (Hanover Park, Cape Town), Emma Ellis (Port Elizabeth), Aden & Tamaryn Beukes (Walvis Bay, Namibia), Jayson Kleinschmidt (Paarl), Gideon Lottering (G.Notes) (George), Henrico Coetzer (Pretoria), Reggie B (Rawsonville), Nicoleen Saal (Oceanview, Cape Town), DfeatSA (Kuilsriver, Cape Town) and Die Wesso’s (George) who received the "Emo Ticket"-save.
Wednesday's episode 6 was the last pre-filmed episode, literally filmed just days before South Africa's national Covid-19 lockdown period started, in front of the live studio audience and their voting devices inside the Roxy Revue Bar in Grandwest Casino in Cape Town.
All of the contestants returned to their respective provinces and Aden & Tamaryn Beukes to Namibia with South Africans who are no longer allowed to travel across borders between provinces, and with cross-border travel between Southern African countries like South Africa and Namibia also still prohibited because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
In March, Maak My Famous produced by All Star Entertainment, initially announced a short production break to April but will now take a broadcast break of 8 weeks to plot a way forward that is fair to all of the contestants.
Maak My Famous is impacted mid-season in a similar way to the 16th season of Idols on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) - produced by SIC Entertainment that already filmed its new season's national audition episodes and which hasn't yet announced its way forward - as well as the just-completed 18th season of American Idol that was forced to use up to 45 remote sites across the United States for contestants who were treated equally with similar equipment and resource access.
Co-host Emo Adams said that while it's still discussing the way forward with kykNET, that broadcasts the show on the kykNET (DStv 144) and kykNET & Kie (DStv 145) channels, the hope is that the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in South Africa, and between South Africa and Namibia, would have eased by August.
The production hopes that by August long-distance travel would be possible again in order to bring all of the contestants back to the same stage in Cape Town with the show that would prefer not to follow the American Idol "remote performance"-option, which would be a last resort.
Format change with all viewers getting to vote
"For us it's not about how big or how flash we can go with Maak My Famous - yes, we will always strive towards that and we want a bigger stage - but at this point it's all about giving people with raw talent a chance to appear in a show and secondly to really be mentored behind-the-scenes," says Marguerite Albrecht, kykNET supervising producer.
She and Emo Adams spoke with and took questions from South African and Namibian media in a Zoom press conference on Wednesday night after the conclusion of the broadcast of the Top 10 episode on kykNET, the first Afrikaans virtual press briefing held for a locally-produced TV show in the world and South African television history.
"We've decided that, because of the position we're finding ourselves in at the moment and because we have to Namibian contestants in our Top 10 who can't travel across borders into South Africa, that we're taking the production break until 5 August."
"When we return on 5 August there will be a bit of a format change because of the country's lockdown situation. We will return the second half of an incredible season. We're changing it to where all viewers will get the option to vote."
"Since the studio audience can't get together to vote, everybody watching will now get the ability to vote," said Marguerite Albrecht.
"From Thursday we are starting a marketing campaign and will be using June and July to build up the Top 10 and to introduce them to the wider kykNET audience so that by the time we return in August, they're all already famous and people know who they are."
"We want to build their profiles so that viewers become really excited to tune in again on 5 August when the season resumes and to see how the Top 10 is whittled down over the weeks thereafter to find a winner."
Emo Adams said Covid-19 was a catalyst "for us to have to think outside of the box".
"The Covid-19 thing led to us saying 'Well, if the audience can't come to us at the theatre for a live performance to vote because it's a crowd and people have to keep a 2-metre distance, why don't we open it up for the whole of South Africa and Namibia to vote in real-time?' We're very excited about it and we found a way where we can actually make it happen."
"Instead of making the audience come to us, we're taking the vote to them and they will be able to vote."
Marguerite Albrecht says kykNET and All Star Entertainment is still working on locking down a final revised format for the remainder of the second season of Maak My Famous.
"We're just still working on tying up everything. Every time we think we have our final new format, the government changes something else."
"We're having to deal with so many changing variables. It's a very big deal for us to try and get our Namibian contestants to South Africa and we really hope that can find a way and a solution to make that happen a bit further down the line. At this stage it would have just been impossible."
"I don't think it's fair to take someone out of a competition because of something like the Covid-19 pandemic. They've made their way to this point fairly and we have to be fair as we go forward. People voted for them."
Emo Adams said "Everybody in the Top 10 is there deservingly so because they've fought for that place. Maak My Famous will do everything possible to ensure that we get them all back."
"We want to make sure and check that we're able to get into the building and venue, that we can function, that we can use our set. But those things are out of our hands at the moment. We can't predict those types of stuff."
"It might be that we have to perform against a green screen, I don't know, we don't know. But what we do know is our format will be fantastic. How we're going to package it is going to be amazing."
Marguerite Albrecht said that one of the things kykNET and Maak My Famous looked at, including American Idol's latest season in the United States, "is how to employ and use technology in case we can't get all the contestants in one place, to switch live to a contestant with a green screen in a set, and a camera team and sending a feed to us. We're still figuring it all out and every day brings new surprises."
Emo Adams said the government's rules and regulations around Covid-19 changes daily. "Then you have to go back to the drawing board and change things again. But we've already mapped out all of the possible production outcomes to figure out what route to take."
No violin-infused backstories
He says the 8 000 entries for Maak My Famous's second season shows that viewers are trusting the process.
"The show isn't about embarrassing people for 3 hours before we get to the Top 10. It's not about that. Some of us already live in embarrassment. Some of us already grow up in poverty. You don't want to go and take someone's values - the last value that they have - away from them when they come to you for help."
"We empower talent with a platform, we empower people with mentors, with airtime and then making sure that the viewer understands why. We make sure that we don't taint out viewers' view with who is standing on the stage," says Emo Adams.
"When you sit at home you see the backstory of the talent but the in-studio audience don't see that. They see the talent coming onto the stage and perform and that's what they vote on. They don't see backstories, there are no violins playing in the background to make you feel emotional because you can't base a real competition on that foundation."
Marguerite Albrecht says "One of the things I said to Emo was 'let's stay away from the big backstory. Let's just stay away. We're not going to try and influence people through that. To be dead honest, 90% of the talent in the show comes from disadvantaged backgrounds. They're going through a difficult time."
"Now, I don't want to make this a pity show. Maak My Famous is where we build people up and make them shine and we put all the spotlights in the world on them and to allow their talent to speak for them, not their circumstances."
