Visiting key film executives from Hollywood received an overview of the South African film industry at a briefing in Johannesburg hosted by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and Gauteng Film Commission in partnership with Brand South Africa.
The executives are Vance van Patten, Executive Director of the Producers’ Guild of America; Mary Ann Hughes, Vice President of Film and Television Production Planning at Disney; Sara Spring, Senior Vice President of Feature Production at Paramount; and Kate Beyda, Senior Vice President of Physical Production at Warner Bros.
Held at the NFVF offices in Houghton, the briefing session was the first of several planned engagements in South Africa between the film executives and local industry players.
Van Patten said that South Africa’s film landscape presents a range of creative and cost effective-opportunities and that they want to make movies here that will benefit both the local and American industries.
He also reiterated that there are opportunities for credited South African producers to work with the Association by stating that it is a professional trade organisation aimed at protecting, promoting and educating producers globally.
Van Patten elaborated: “As the Producers’ Guild Association we are looking at establishing a base in South Africa, and part of this trip is to build a relationship with an active service provider that has film credits as a working producer.’
The aim of the discussions is to provide an overview of locational advantages and opportunities for filming in South Africa. Topics that will be addressed include government incentives, the tax regime, prime locations, availability of state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, the depth of the human resource capacity and bandwidth capacity for directors who rely on high-speed internet to send daily “rushes’ to their overseas bases.
The location scouting visit is scheduled until 1 March in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Media representatives are invited to join the executives at the Cape Town briefing on Thursday 27 February from 13h30 to 16h00 at Daddy O at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock.
Visit: http://www.southafrica.info/ for further details.
