One of the bidders for greater Cape Town’s new film studio plans to create six “backlots” — miniature city recreations — as part of the Hollywood-style complex.
Dreamworld Film City envisages a massive 100 hectare site on Vergenoegd farm — on the road to Stellenbosch near Spier wine estate — for its eight-studio complex. It is one of three shortlisted bidders for the new multi-million rand studio to attract the mainstream film industry to shoot in South Africa.
The consortium, which includes film director Anant Singh, says the job can’t be done “on the cheap” with two or three studios but will require eight film studios to be internationally competitive for large scale film operations.
It is envisaged that the studios will be designed by Los Angeles-based architect Scott Carter who has designed some recent Disney stages, according to Cape Town businessman Mike MacCarthy, whose Fable Mountain Productions is one of the partners in the DFC venture.
MacCarthy says that DFC envisages six backlots which would involve production designers like Ken Adam, who was behind The Madness of King George, who will recreate “scale versions” suitable for film of such cities as Rome, London, New York, Berlin, Paris and also old Cape Town.
For example a recreation of a street of Cape Town — like Adderley Street — in the 1820s would be suitable for an envisaged production such as James Barry, the story about a brilliant doctor in the Cape Colony who conducted the first caesarean operation in Africa. When she died they found she was a woman.
It was envisaged that the backlots would include a recreation of a mini Hyde Park(London) with an adjacent Central Park (New York) which could be used for film production purposes.
MacCarthy said the building of the site could be completed by late 2005 subject to assistance from government — and the fast-tracking of the provision of services, like water, roads and electricity.
It is envisaged that the project would cost in the region of R470-million with the bulk of the project finance being raised. Each of the partners in the DFC would be contributing R20-million — including Midi TV of Marcel Golding and Singh’s Videovision.
The other shortlisted bidders are Cape Town Motion Picture Studios — centred around Anton Nel, a South Africa entrepreneur based in Los Angeles — which plans to establish the studio complex on the Culemborg site near the Cape Town station and Ikapa Film City which involves former Miss South Africa Basetsana Khumalo and the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
The winning bidder is expected to be announced in September. – I-Net Bridge