continue without Bronwyn, I would have done so. I was equally willing for her to continue without me. We both only wanted what was best for the show.”
Interestingly enough, M-Net’ s solution to this situation was to add Consultant Producer Bobby Heaney to the producing team, but for both incumbent producers this was not an acceptable solution. They agreed to hand over completely to Bobby and amicably parted ways with M-Net.
“ It was meant to be a three month hand-over process, but Bobby showed no interest in finding out from me what we’ d set up. He had his own ideas about how to run a soapie and both Bronwyn & I became‘ persona non grata’ on the production”. Bobby quickly changed to a more standard studio based schedule and a lighting style that was quicker, but less filmic than the one already established.
During development, the core production team had spent months finding suitable solutions to the logistics of shooting a daily production on a location one hour outside of Johannesburg on a budget that was initially designed for shooting in a studio. Shooting over 20 minutes of melodrama a day for an extended period of time on location was untested territory.“ We developed unique systems and a schedule especially created to economically sustain the rigours of shooting on location for the long term. I knew that we had a chance of both local and international success if we boxed the series cleverly. We designed, built and set up every detail with the eye on high quality and low expenditure. I wanted every cent we spent to show on the screen. Like its predecessor Egoli, we expected The Wild to run for twenty years.
“ I’ d set my sights on a high technical standard for the production. I didn’ t want The Wild to look like any other soap.” But this came with its own challenges, and Richard’ s hand-picked technical team had to decide both what cameras were best to shoot on and what post production systems to use. Then there were the issues of logistics and time management on a location shoot one hour outside of Johannesburg.( Richard’ s unusual decision to shoot the series on the Canon 5D was justified when“ The Wild” won the Best Technical SAFTA award, one of four wins from nine nominations in that first season.)
So why did The Wild only last two years? In M-Net’ s official statement, The Wild was cut because it was“ too costly to produce and didn’ t get enough viewers.”
According to a reliable source, the proposed budget for the third season was disproportionately high compared to cost expended during development and the first season.
Richard explains,“ I never expected The Wild to have great viewership ratings for the first two years. It’ s normal for a soap’ s viewership to spike when it’ s first launched, then decline after the hype, and
The budget for the third season was high compared to cost during development and the first season. then build again as it finds its loyal audience. If you look closely, the ratings were beginning to climb by the end of the second season. It could’ ve been a contender … they jumped the gun and made the decision to end it too soon. Despite the many teething problems, working on‘ The Wild’ was a really great experience; it’ s hard not to be sad that it didn’ t work out.”
Three days from Bloem to Grahamstown
After three sluggish restless months of trying to wean himself from The Wild which had become a part of his life, and trying to get back into the habit of sleeping late, Richard got into his car to go to the Grahamstown Arts Festival. But, after passing through Bloemfontein, he instinctively decided to take the road less travelled and turned onto the first dirt road“ to nowhere” that he found. For three days he hopped from one small town to the next, in search of peace of mind. He slowly shrugged off the pressure of the previous two years as he reconnected with the real world.
“ A while after I got back from that trip, I was splitting my time between a few projects that I’ ve had in development for some time, but I then realised that I needed a new venture to work on and a break from
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