Behind the scenes: Isibaya, Zabalaza, Rockville
Mpho Tlale | Friday December 12, 2014 09:34
Recently I experienced this as a part of a media group hosted by MultiChoice in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group comprised media people from Southern African countries that included Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
The trip offered a showcase for ‘journos’ into some of the top local productions on the Mzansi Magic Channels as well as others from M-Net.
In short the trip was a content creation pilgrimage that saw us visit production sets to get a view of what goes on behind the scenes and also to simply get a hang of how everything works.
We also had the opportunity to meet and interact with actors, producers, directors and other people involved in production. Although I am a media graduate with an idea of what happens behind the scenes, the experience still proved to be fresh, eye opening and a breath of well-deserved air. We had the opportunity to visit the set of Isibaya and Zabalaza which are some of Mzansi Magic’s top soapies.
What caught my attention on both sets is the amount of compromise that is put in making use of the limited space available. The spaces on set serve different purposes and can be turned around and transformed depending on what episode or scene is being shot.
Another set we visited is Rockville where we found the cast busy shooting an episode for the drama’s highly anticipated third season. What stood out with Rockville is that we experienced the actual shooting of outdoor scenes done in the streets of Soweto.
The beauty of this all is that Soweto residents seem to have been given a brief that they abide by. Although one or two people would pass by, they did so silently and never in anyway disrupted the set. There appeared to be an unwritten contract existing between the crew and residents. Each had respect for the other.