a production environment, the corporate structures of M-Net often found them‘ highly unusual’, which didn’ t make things any easier.. While they were never illegal or fraudulent, I’ d discover frequently that they fell outside the acceptable M-Net‘ corporate’ systems.. Often I didn’ t even know there were systems in place and only found out about them when I was asked to please explain what was going on. It was one helluva learning curve!“
Apparently M-Net has since adapted. The experience gained from‘ The Wild’ has facilitated many internal changes that ensure that their systems are now more production friendly. Richard credits the early production team behind The Wild as being responsible for motivating these changes.
The actor that caused all the trouble
The project was committed to a fast approaching April 4th“ on-air” deadline, and the core development team worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for three months( only taking off Christmas & New Year’ s day) to ready the location for the large cast and crew.
But by the time principal photography began in February 2011, the cast had not yet signed a single contract. The first draft of the contracts had been submitted to M-Net Legal well before shooting was due to begin, but M-Net’ s lack of experience in handling cast and crew contracts of this type on a production of this scale caused unexpected delays.
“ When shooting started, contracts were still not ready and we agreed with agents and actors that we would start shooting with a Letter of Intent in place, and that a final contract would be signed asap.” Most actors signed this letter when it was presented to them. Some had their agents sign on their behalf, but one in particular avoided signing at all.
When M-Net finally sent the contract back to the production office, the actors’ agents were not happy with it. Richard met with UASA, the union who represented the actors who belonged to the South
If we didn’ t pull the plug immediately- we were screwed
African Guild of Actors( SAGA). Together they agreed to numerous changes, but the stumbling block for some actors was one clause in particular that M-Net insisted on – no residuals.“ This wasn’ t anything new, as all the agents and actors were aware of M-Net’ s policy in this regard, and when casting took place, there was no doubt that this would be in all the contracts.”
Once shooting began, Richard was told to step away from the process and he left the contract issue to Bronwyn and the M-Net Legal department in town.“ At that stage I had enough to keep me busy on location.”
During the casting process there had been some difficulty in casting the lead role of Tiro. Bronwyn approached Tony Kgororo, who had been in a slate of international and local productions.“ He’ s a talented actor and everyone loved the idea of casting him. It was a coup to get him on board. I’ d never worked with him before, but I had heard that he had a reputation for being difficult, which was the last thing we needed on an already challenging production. Despite my concerns he was cast and we started shooting.”
After a week or so of shooting, it came to Richard’ s attention that Tony had still not signed his Letter of Intent.“ We had already shot a lot of scenes with him and although he kept on saying that he’ d sign the letter, he hadn’ t done so. Alarm bells started ringing.
“ It was Friday and I asked him to come see me in the production office at the end of the day before going home. So he popped in and, after a quick chat, I politely asked him to sign the Letter of Intent and gave him a pen. He took the pen and said‘ I can’ t sign this …’ crossing out the paragraph that referred to the No Residuals clause,‘… because of my standing with the unions and the ANC’, referring to the on-going union negotiations with M-Net to try to get them to agree to pay residuals to actors.”
“ I knew then that, if we didn’ t pull the plug immediately- we were screwed.”
Richard instantly consulted with Bronwyn, and they decided to cut Tony’ s scenes from the schedule for the next few days. By the next Thursday, with M-Net’ s
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