An industry is only as strong as the collective powers of its future participants and
an effective training and education infrastructure is therefore vital to its growth.
Screen Africa canvassed a handful of South Africa’s many film and television
training institutions in an attempt to gauge the current status of this important,
sometimes overlooked sector.
Among the respondents to a broad-based questionnaire on training and education
were Natalie Delport, managing director of Sabido eAcademy; Kershnee Govender,
corporate affairs director at pay-TV broadcaster M-Net, whose training initiative,
Magic in Motion, launched this year; Garth Holmes, co-founder and chairman of the
South African School of Motion Picture and Live Performance (AFDA); Bryce
Hepburn, Head of Department: Film Production at SAE Institute South Africa; and Dr
Tanja Sakota-Kokot, HOD: Film and Television at the University of the
Witwatersrand School of Arts. Their responses represent an array of training types,
philosophies and methodologies. They were asked a number of questions on various
topics within the training and education sector. Due to space constraints, only a
small sample of their responses are included here. The full individual interviews are
available at www.screenafrica.com under the Training and Courses category.
The needs of the industry
First of all, what are the primary needs that the institutions see in the industry and
how do they set out to fill these?
M-Net’s Magic in Motion initiative is essentially an internship and on-the-job training
programme that places ten top achievers from various tertiary institutions into
positions in the industry for a 12-month period. Govender says: “Like most
industries in South Africa, there is always a need for new talent. At M-Net we
believe it is our obligation to create a bridging platform for new blood to transition
from academic institutions to the working world.’
Sakota-Kokot had this to say: “The most important gap is to create independent-
thinking and creative filmmakers who are able to challenge and redefine the new
and emerging film culture. We believe this meaningful engagement can only be
achieved by producing graduates who have strong grounding in both intellectual and
practical education.’
Curricula and teaching methodology
How do teaching material and methods change to suit the needs and developments
in the industry?
“Filmmaking and television are relatively new industries and the majority of
specialised arts institutions that teach filmmaking, television and media have
traditionally employed progressive approaches to teaching and training – compared
to the more traditional approaches of universities,’ Holmes says. “AFDA has
developed a blended learning and assessment approach that utilises a number of
progressive pedagogic methods including socialized learning, integrated vocational
learning, outcomes-based learning and market-related learning.’
“Wits has recently restructured its entire curricula for the Bachelor of Arts in Film
and Television and has focused on providing a professional four-year degree which
offers a comprehensive foundational programme in both practical and theoretical
applications of visual storytelling and image creation,’ says Sakota-Kokot.
For Delport, an important aspect of modern training in South Africa arises from the
understanding that transformation in the industry still has a long way to go, even 21
years after democracy. In order to aid this transformation, it is not enough to teach
technical skills. Many students also require a “reprogramming’ in the way they think
and communicate. “A large part of a student’s success is in their mindset. It’s
important, not only what you say but how you say it in order to get the best out of
yourself and others. So in addition to providing all the technical knowledge, we are
very careful about how we instruct students and the attitudes we encourage them to
take to their own worth and that of others. Sabido eAcademy is therefore looking to
introduce neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) into our material and methods,’
Delport explains.
The purpose of training
Theory, practice, history and innovation – all of these should play a part in a well-
rounded training programme. Also, while we must acknowledge that not everyone is
a director, production designer or DOP – the industry needs grips, gaffers, loggers
and digitisers too – a basic understanding of narrative and aesthetic theory can only
be beneficial, regardless of your place in the production team.
The big question is: what is the purpose of training? What are these institutions
ultimately aiming to do with their training programmes and what kinds of graduates
are they aiming to turn out? Does the completion of these programmes have a
measurable effect on graduates’ employment possibilities? Is the emphasis on
making them employable or on preparing them to be entrepreneurs who can help
grow the industry?
“Our programmes are beneficial to freelancers and entrepreneurs as they marry the
art and science of filmmaking with the business savvy required for a sustainable
career in this very competitive industry. Our institutional culture focuses as much
on being an astute and humble professional as it does on narrative and the technical
aspects of production,’ says Hepburn.
“AFDA has an incredible pull-through of students into the industry at all levels in the
sector and its associated sectors. Essentially, AFDA graduates are trained to be
entrepreneurs, to be responsible for their own careers, to optimise the large
national network of AFDA graduates countrywide, to create their own work,
companies and services.’
Sakota-Kokot says: “Wits produces graduates that have multiple career
opportunities open to them. Students are exposed to cinematography, editing,
visual effects, screenwriting, design and directing. Others may choose to continue
their academic studies and move into associated fields of research. This is the
marked and significant difference of a film programme couched in a university
degree, which makes it obligatory for students to take other liberal arts or social
science courses… It allows for students to come out of our programme well-versed
in the world of ideas; to understand the historical and political significance of its
cultural consciousness.’
Industry input and support
So what should the industry be doing to support training and education? These
graduates, after all, are the people who will wrangle your data, edit or shoot your
films, light your scene, pull focus on that next tracking shot or possibly even be
charged with bringing your long-cherished script to the screen.
“It would increase the efficacy of training if the culture of internships were to
become more widespread in the local industry,’ says Sakota-Kokot. “Industry could
also get more involved with students by creating products and service knowledge,
offering talks, presentations and sponsorships.’
“Training providers need constant feedback from the industry regarding the skills
that they require. In addition, the training institutions need to be aware of the
attitudes the employers are seeking in new graduates,’ Hepburn says.
Delport takes it one step further, throwing down the gauntlet to an industry that is
often peppered with complaints about the scarcity of skills. “I challenge those
companies and individuals that are unhappy with the level of skills and education in
the industry to ask themselves what they are doing to help remedy the situation.
We can provide tools and knowledge to students but that will only go so far without
the willingness of people established in the industry to transfer their experience and
skills.’
This is a massive subject and the numbers of people qualified to comment is equally
large. We have no way of including everyone’s point of view here, nor can we even
include the full comments of those people and institutions we have featured – which
is regrettable. However, Screen Africa invites discussion and is happy to facilitate
it. We therefore invite the industry to air their views on the subject on our Facebook
page (www.facebook.com/screenafrica) and Twitter account (@ScreenAfrica). Let
us know your thoughts with the hashtag #SCAFTraining.
– Warren Holden
