A new South African comedy from Ollywood Productions and OC Productions combines the body swap and buddy cop genres.
In Copposites a black crook (Sivuyile “Siv’ Ngesi) trying to leave his criminal past behind him and a white, chain smoking, semi-alcoholic cop (Rob van Vuuren) switch bodies during a freak medical accident, and are forced to work together to get their own bodies back.
Director Oliver Rodger explains that Copposites is mainly inspired by the films he enjoyed watching while growing up in the 1980s – buddy cop movies like Lethal Weapon.
“I thought a cop and a crook working together would be a cool variation on the theme, and throwing a body swap into the mix would make it even more interesting,’ explains Rodger.
The film was written by Rodger and producer Carla van Wyk and approaches the issue of race in a “light hearted and refreshing way’.
“One of the things I’ve always noticed is stereotyping and prejudice,’ comments Rodger. “A black friend and I always compared how we were treated differently in restaurants. This was the seed for the race swap idea.
“Rob and Siv really embraced the challenge of acting as two different characters – before and after the body swap. They even insisted on doing the accents themselves and spent a lot of time together, work-shopping to get each other’s accents right. They have such a great chemistry that I can’t take credit for how funny they made the film,’ he notes.
More ambitious
The film joins a list of new South African titles hoping to utilise the star power of local comedians to attract their fan bases to the cinema, along with Material, Taka Takata and Blitz Patrollie. Besides Ngesi and Van Vuuren, who are good friends from the comedy circuit, Copposites also stars comedy actors Lukhanyo Bele and Anthony Oseyemi, with cameos by comics Loyiso Gola and Nik Rabinowitz.
Grant Swanby, Casey B Dolan, Precious Kofi and Alfred “Shorty’ Ntombela, better known for his roles in Leon Schuster films, also appear in Copposites.
Rodger’s first film was 2009’s I Now Pronounce You Black and White. “I wanted Copposites to be more ambitious – it’s on a bigger scale with better cameras, a bigger crew and more recognisable cast as well as a few well-known figures in cameo roles. That will hopefully make marketing a bit easier and entice audiences to spend money to see it.’
Copposites was shot in May 2011 in about four weeks on locations around Cape Town including Athlone, Silvertown, the Ottery Youth Centre – which doubled as a police station – and the Imperial Garden Chinese Restaurant in Fishhoek.
Among the challenges they faced, Rodger notes that it was difficult to schedule all the busy actors and comedians into one shoot, and he also struggled to keep a straight face with all the funny people on set.
“We also had an incident where, during a car chase stunt scene, a rogue bakkie crashed into our stunt vehicle. That was probably our biggest nightmare. The scene eventually had to be done without the stunt vehicle. We were also hoping for better weather, but on the whole, we didn’t have too many issues,’ he says.
The film was made on a budget of R3.7m (including deferrals) with funding from the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) rebate.
Director of photography Elwin Buchel shot the film on 2K on a RED camera and all lighting equipment was supplied by Media Film Service.
“We wanted to make it look really good, with as high production value as possible and that Hollywood gloss and feel,’ notes Rodger. “However, I can’t promise a massive Die Hard-esque experience. The action will be more along the lines of comedy violence – fights, breaking things and stuntmen, although we used some special effects in the actual body swapping scene.’
Post-production was done by Paul Speirs of the New Creation Collective.
Theme song
Jan-Hendrik Howley, who also scored I Now Pronounce you Black and White, composed an original score for the film, which boasts a theme song called Kopposites produced by Capetonian Adriaan Hellenberg aka The Crackpot Realist and featuring Nasi & Trenton and Free Radical. It was recorded at the Sotho Mafia Collective in Johannesburg.
“We hope to playlist the theme song on radio as part of our marketing campaign. In addition we shot a music video with Rob and Siv, which was a nice bit of fun,’ says Rodger.
I Now Pronounce You Black and White earned about R1m at the local box office, and Rodger notes that he will be disappointed if Copposites earns less.
“To get our next film funded we need it to at least break even,’ continues Rodger. “We’re still negotiating the number of screens, but I’ve been disappointed that some exhibitors are not supportive enough of local films. If you’re a non-Schuster film you get the bare minimum screens. I just hope for a long enough run and enough screens so that people who want to see the film have the opportunity to see it.’
He points out that Copposites is a very different film and genre than I Now Pronounce You Black and White. “I think this one will mainly attract a more youthful, teenage audience. But we made the film as commercial as possible and selected a cast we felt would be attractive to South African audiences, including Alfred Ntombela in the role of a bad guy, which you don’t usually see.’
Copposites premiered at the Durban International Film Festival on 21 July and will release on 12 October at cinemas countrywide.
By Linda Loubser
Screen Africa magazine – August 2012
