The relationship between an artist and their craft is a sacred and sensitive one. We have to be in just the right emotional state to be able to carry out the magical task at hand. Note, I didn’t say which emotional state this is. Some of the greatest art comes from a place of deep frustration as well as grief and despair. Some masterpieces are created from a place of pure joy. Art is in itself a colourful journey of emotion.
I am an actor. Regardless of what other opportunities come my way in this journey of mine, my soul is always going to be the happiest when I have a character to play.
I can’t really express the feeling I get when I complete a scene and the director walks towards me with a smile and sometimes a hug. That’s what I strive to achieve. When I’ve pleased the eye of the one in whose hands the picture belongs, I know the audience will get the magic I cooked.
I can never be okay without this craft. It is something I have to share, be it through teaching or performing. I have to write screenplays and make films. I have to make stage plays and create new music.
I have pages full of poetry detained in my soul waiting to be put on paper. All this is the key to my daily sanity. That’s the sacredness of my art. My gift. My craft.
But this artistry thing is depends on many others who don’t necessarily know how much it takes for us to deliver this much required magic. There’s an entire credit roll of names that follow every drama or film the viewer receives.
People without whom the work that we do could never come to be. An actor needs their agent. Without this person negotiations can get awkward and unpleasant. In my case, I know that my agent does more than just pick castings for me.
Actors need support with handling all the behind-the-scenes business that require off-the-set attention. They need to know that someone is taking care of the rands and cents part of the deal while they focus on the script and its demands.
They also need the directors. After all, we say in this game that the picture belongs to them. I could never have delivered award-winning performances without the directors I worked with.
The screen magic that we produce is a definite team effort. I can also not imagine any day going well if I did not have the wardrobe and make-up teams.
These key teams can’t function without all the industry tools that they need to perform their duties optimally.
My recent return to television drama has had me thinking beyond my regular whining. There is a serious need for broadcast bosses to sit at the same table with production and talent so we can openly discuss our challenges in a free and protected space.
I’m Thangavhuelelo Balanganani Mashau’s grandchild so my mind gets spoken even in unprotected spaces, so here goes.
I want to know who it was that decided that in their clever cost-cutting moves it would be prudent to cut out the actor’s most basic on-set needs in order to achieve world-class performance levels for local television productions.
I say this because I have seen a clear trend in the production space that has left us with no proper changeroom facilities, no trailers, no common-room spaces, no real sense of being on a professional film set before we step in front of the camera. These are not luxuries.
Clearly, some smart person thought it would be best to downgrade budgets to a point where producers must penny-pinch until the only budget item left for actors is salaries and nothing more.
Today, I hope to get the attention of the finance people at the channels whose job involves deciding what budgets must be allocated to each production.
Why do they think that it’s okay to give half the budgets that producers received in 1998 for productions in 2018? I can count productions as far back as 2011 where things did not match the professional standards that actors are expected to deliver on .
I was once in a production where the budget people decided that toilet facilities where not essential. Cast, crew and villagers all queued up for the only long drop on the location.
On another set, I can’t forget how we ate breakfast in the open veld at 5am with no shelter or heaters. Such horror stories are now the norm.
We keep quiet for fear of being labelled divas. We are not helping. I’ve listened to directors complain about being expected to deliver impossible page counts per day to suit tight budgets. I listen to agents who are getting told to take down the actors’ daily rates. Many got better rates 15 years ago.
Ask make-up artists about how they are expected to cut their rates but still produce great work. With what cheap products must they achieve this? Must they resort to shoe polish and glycerine?
There are young wardrobe assistants in the business who have never seen the inside of a fully fitted wardrobe truck. We work on sets where sound people do not have such basic things as microphone body packs. Apparently that’s an old-school thing.
Don’t even get me started on the translation of scripts which has now been made to be a regular unpaid service expected from all actors.
Which consultants told you that getting rid of language advisers and translators would be ideal for storytellers in a country with 11 official languages?
Our broadcasters need to take a few steps back to re-evaluate their own contribution to the killing of our craft and quality of work on their screens. I’ve seen how black producers, many of whom are still trying to establish themselves, have to rob Matome to pay Dikeledi just to get through a 13-episode season.
You are not giving them the kind of budgets that you gave all those big-deal producers who dominated the game, producing the dramas we watched in the 1980s and 1990s.
Your budget cuts get passed on to everyone else in the show.
Directors have less time. Actors earn less. The crew is overworked and unhappy. Facilities are shoddy. Avoidable on-set accidents happen. I wonder if the people who decide on television production budgets today even understand the ins and outs of production at all.
We are regressing instead of getting better. I wish to see SABC drama return to its glory days. We come from there and we know it can be done. Just take a look at the national jewels they gifted MultiChoice and you will see what I’m talking about.
Let’s get back to basics and do production right. Fix the budgets and save us from the perpetual poverty chain.
* Masebe is an award-winning actor, creator and producer of television and film content.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.