by Thinus Ferreira
As a new first-time-done production after a new producer took over the TV broadcast of the 18th South African Film and Television Awards, the 3-hour showcase on Saturday night was smoother sailing than in previous years, although mistakes - like another wrong envelope opened - persisted.
The live 18th SAFTAs main awards show, done from Hall 3 at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Johannesburg on Saturday night was far from the error-riddled, cringeworthy and painful watching experience it has perpetually been in previous years.
Produced by Relebogile Mabotja and Bruce Townsend's Black Swan Media, the 18th SAFTAs telecast shown on SABC2 and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) became probably the first-ever SAFTAs award show to achieve a passing grade, with a lot fewer of the obvious mistakes that marred previous years.
Viewers however still had to watch through 23 minutes for the first award to be handed out in what is an awards show. At 20:23 viewers finally got their first winner.
Throughout the night several very amateurish-looking presenters announced nominees and winners in categories, with several blatantly struggling to pronounce show titles and the names of winners.
Clearly, nobody was prepped by floor managers or through voicenotes in the week on how to pronounce the few nominees correctly which they would have to articulate on stage. Leave it to a reality TV star to literally say: "Oh, I'm not going to pronounce this correctly".
Sound problems, sound level issues and background music playing during speeches persisted all night.
Where winners in categories were no-shows it became obvious that the majority were from outside of Johannesburg and not flown by the NFVF to the SAFTAs.
Once again this year viewers had to hear a "No sorry. Correction. They gave me the wrong one ..." on Saturday night after a wrong envelope was opened prematurely and viewers discovered Natasha Sutherland was going to win as Best supporting actress in a TV drama before it was that category.
The In Memoriam segment was the most complete one at the SAFTAs ever (great).
It had a funeral sponsor (good), although wrong camerawork and angles coupled with wrong control room decisions for certain shots made several names completely invisible and unseen (bad).
The singer also stood in front of and was camera-framed in front of dearly departed names in several shots, also making some names illegible (bad) to viewers at home.
Great was the addition for the first time in SAFTAs history of a sign language interpreter block in the bottom right corner, as well as the very first deaf presenter to introduce a category, who spoke with the help of an interpreter.
Also great were the SAFTAs stage design and stage lighting (especially the LED strip lights as trim on the steps).
The addition of a righthand side block on stage depicting television watching and the making through different eras all the way to today's ring-light home studios set-up was a very nice touch.
Also well done were pre-filmed mini-reunions like the cast of Surburban Bliss reflecting on the show during its time, issues like racism and the evolution of South Africa's TV biz.
Another very good improvement: The SAFTAs producers who stopped showing and lovingly panning across empty seats.
Very few empty seats were visible, along with very few people seen walking and milling about. It made the awards show appear much more elegant and orderly.
The rolling film interstitial that framed slightly hazy clips of nominees looked and worked very good as an audio-visual element.
The NFVF's SAFTAs showed boobs (Shaka iLembe) for the first time ever, although just a second.
The SAFTAs also for the very first time ever included the uncensored "F-word" - twice - in a pre-packaged clip and without any language warning on SABC2 or Mzansi Magic. Keep in mind this is supposedly family-viewing as variety programming.
The speech of Kagiso Modupe, who won as Best supporting actor in a TV comedy for Netflix's Yoh! Christmas, was extremely cringe-worthy to watch as he claimed that he was the only person to ever have paid actors royalties.
His highly ironic utterances came as the very upset cast and crew of his Pound 4 Pound series for Paramount Africa's BET channel have still not been paid.
Best acceptance speech of the 18th SAFTAs probably goes to Zikhona Sodlaka who won as Best actress in a telenovela for Mzansi Magic's cancelled Gqeberha - The Empire.
She said: "Who knew that a time like this would come when the world would be ready for performers from Africa? When the world would be ready for our stories? And told exactly as who we are. If you are watching from home, you are enough."
