by Thinus Ferreira
The main award show of the 15th South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) on Saturday evening will be the first-ever simulcast on the SABC's S3 channel and M-Net's Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on DStv - during a Covid-pandemic year.
Anneke de Ridder, executive producer, talks about the challenges the production team faced this year in bringing the socially distanced, hybrid-show to stage and to broadcast this year, this year's theme of "still shining", the task of fitting everything in, and the "surprise or two" waiting tonight.
What are some of the big challenges in producing this year's 15th SAFTAs?
Anneke de Ridder: One of the biggest challenges for any award show overall is that you've got so many stakeholders. Even though we're honoured and very excited about the fact that it's a simulcast on S3 and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) it does complicate things a little bit just from an audience perspective.
An award show is an award show but the moment you put it on TV it's also an entertainment show and you've got to make sure that you give the audience what they want - it needs to be entertaining but you also need to be true to the industry and you need to give the industry something that they also enjoy.
That's probably one of the biggest challenges that there are so many different parties involved that you need to keep happy.
And how is the Covid-pandemic adding another dimension? In 2020 the SAFTAs was already a virtual event streamed online. This year it's a hybrid one.
Anneke de Ridder: This year is a hybrid as you say. We've watched all of the award shows since Covid and looked at what they did. Our biggest challenge I think is how to bring the people into the room without bringing the people into the room.
We had to think long and hard about it and I think we came up with some pretty good alternatives - a lot of it is pre-recorded - every single nominee had to pre-record an acceptance speech for instance in case they win - so that's a lot of work.
We also had a Whatsapp line for the public and invited them, and we're also pre-recording them and putting them into the award show, just to give a bit of life and to make sure that it's not just presenters announcing winners all the time.
Covid has forced us to think outside of the box and that's a very good thing, but yes, it's different to how we used to work. We have to keep numbers on set small.
The other thing with Covid is when we plan we want to finalise what will be on the SAFTAs stage in May and you don't know what the status by that time will be. So you basically have to plan with a worst-case scenario in mind.
The last thing you want is where you've got some live elements and all of a sudden there's a national lockdown again and then the SAFTAs basically can't happen. So you have to plan out a worst-case scenario.
The theme this year is "Still Shining". How will this theme be worked into the 15th SAFTAs broadcast in terms of the colours and atmosphere and what viewers will see on screen?
Anneke de Ridder: The executive producer's job on the SAFTAs is a freelance job and I also produce Idols on Mzansi Magic. And having done Idols for so many years - last year was the hardest one I've ever had to do, working in the industry with Covid.
I think every single person working anywhere, but specifically in South Africa's film and TV industry and who made it through the past year and a half, deserves the title of "still shining" because the boundaries of everything kept changing and it was difficult. It was also a first in terms of circumstances.
In terms of bringing the "still shining" theme to the SAFTAs we went in our creative approach with neon lights and the idea is to put the industry and the names of South Africa's film and TV practitioners up in lights - and just to celebrate.
For the set, we will stick to gold and "still shining" when we announce the winners and then when it comes to the various performances we will introduce a lot of other colours to break it up a little bit so that the entire show is not just gold.
With more of the 15th SAFTAs broadcast pre-recorded is it easier to map and time-track it out because there's always a time overrun? Does pre-recording make it easier to package it for television?
Anneke de Ridder: It definitely does because time is always a challenge. You also allocate seats to people and then you point the camera and then somebody else is sitting there - so that's often a little bit of a dilemma.
You tell the camera if this person wins you pick him or her up there and then they're not sitting in the right spot. And then all the "dead space" so to speak when people walk to stage to accept an award, and those type of things.
This year's 15th SAFTAs main broadcast on Saturday evening is a 2-hour show and not a 3-hour show as in the past, but we've managed to fit 33 nominations into the 2-hour show which I think is actually very good. You time it out to the tee.
Hopefully we will come out exactly on 2 hours, that is what has been planned and we have been rehearsing it and it's going according to plan. There is always a surprise or two on the night, but hopefully it will be 2 hours but the pre-records definitely does make it a lot easier.
The SAFTAs is also a few months later this year than last year so the period spans longer than a year and with Covid more people passed away so you sit with more names in the In Memoriam segment and there are a few new categories that were added for the first time. How tricky or difficult is it to decide what goes into the telecast and how much time to give to segments?
Anneke de Ridder: Very! Ha ha ha. I think it's a debate that will live on for as long as the SAFTAs live on.
I think you go on what has been done previously but I will go out on a limb here and say that I think it's time that we relook the structure of the SAFTAs.
And when I say that I mean is it a 2-night event, or is it maybe a 3-night event in terms of the number of categories that we have to cover but that's always a very tricky discussion that takes hours and hours to decide who goes into which night.
I don't think you'll ever be able to please everybody but we do have the different industry bodies and we sit with them and they also have input, as well as all the different roleplayers from the SABC to MultiChoice and e.tv and that's how we ultimately decide what goes where - by committee.
In building the puzzle for this year's 15th SAFTAs TV broadcast what about the production maybe surprised you?
Anneke de Ridder: I didn't think we'll be able to pre-record all of the nominees and we did. You're talking about over 300 people. When I first thought about it I just said "We have to do it" if this is the road we're going down on. And we actually got to do it.
I also think that the turnaround time this year was quite tight because we only closed entries in January and you can plan an award show as much as you want but you only get really into it once you've got all of the nominees and it finally becomes real as a production. So the turnaround time was very tight.
Don't Look Down who is handling the 15th SAFTAs production for us this year has been absolutely amazing and I'm really, really proud of the awards show broadcast that is going on air on Saturday.
Why should viewers tune in on Saturday evening to watch the 15th SAFTAs?
Anneke de Ridder: I think people will really want to watch the performances that we've chosen and incorporated into this year's award show.
The performances are live because we felt that there have been so many performances that have been pre-recorded. The energy of a live performance, done live on stage is very exciting.
Then there's a little something-something with Mpho Popps as we go into the 15th SAFTAS as a show that I think is going to be very entertaining that people will love, so tune in.
The Night 2 main 15th SAFTAS award show is simulcast on Saturday on S3 and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) from 19:00, preceded by a red carpet show from 18:30
