The knives are out in the South African film industry as various people involved in the local movie Heel against the Head came to loggerheads last week with the executive producer, Terry Dempsey, whom they claim has not paid them.
The two stars of the film, Paul Slabolepszy and Bill Flynn, were both paid their performance fees on the picture but neither of them has been paid for the rights to the script.
Rod Stewart, the director and director of photography, is owed about R110 000 excluding interest; and facility company Filmair, which supplied the camera and lenses, is owed about the same amount.
Johan Lategan, the editor, was paid for his services, but is still owed money for his equipment. Film Lab is still owed R26 000 for its development and processing services, about 25% of what they charged.
A large part of the spat that has become widely known to industry insiders over the past 10 days has been spurred on by the film’s line producer and production manager, KC Jones, a veteran of the movie industry who started out as a camera assistant in the United Kingdom in the 1960s on films like The Blue Max before moving to South Africa. He’s owed R160 000 by Dempsey and is livid about the situation.
“My reputation is on the line,” Jones says. “To me it’s premeditated fraud. A few days ago I went round to Terry’s house and he just said he was not prepared to talk to me unless it was done through lawyers. He said he had no money to pay as he hadn’t been paid by distributors Nu Metro.”
Dempsey reiterated that fact over the phone, saying that a lot of the principal cast and crew worked on deferred fees and would be paid once he had been paid by Nu Metro.
However, Robert Pagan, head of distribution at Nu Metro, said the company did a one-off upfront deal for the South African rights and that Dempsey had been paid before the film went into production.
Jones, who for many years was a great personal friend of Dempsey and even moved into his house to prepare the budget for the movie, says the atmosphere on the shoot was fantastic – “one of the best” he’d ever worked on. However, no written contracts were made, everything was agreed to verbally, and at the time in a very congenial way.
“It seems there was no chain of title,” Jones says. “Nothing was signed – it seems that Nu Metro might have illegally released the film and we’re trying to get the rights returned to the original shareholders who include Paul and Bill.”
Jones, together with Stewart, has approached lawyer Hamment Nagar of Bhikha Incorporated to start the process of litigation against Dempsey. In addition, Sean Glasson of Film Lab and Tony Eddy of Film Air are considering legal action if they aren’t paid soon.
Glasson says: “If Terry can’t come up with the money he must sell his house or his car.”
“I think we made an error of judgment in releasing the film in August,” Slabolepszy says. “We should have released it around Christmas. Although Bill and I have certain grievances about payment we’re not in KC’s boat.”
Flynn is also angry about not being paid but believes that Dempsey is trying his best. His major concern is that not enough has been done to market the film abroad, although one sale has been made to a New Zealand-based pay channel. M-Net also recently picked up the South African TV rights, but Pagan of Nu Metro doesn’t believe it will amount to covering the debts owed by Dempsey.
While the film had a very wide release of 70 prints, and grossed about R3,4-million on its theatrical release, the film-makers hoped it would reach the benchmark figure of R8-million – closer to a Leon Schuster movie.
The real bane for those seeking their money is they can’t sue Thorntree Productions, the company set up to make the film, because the company is bankrupt. Their only hope now is to go for Dempsey’s jugular.