Marketing and Budgeting of Films in South Africa

South Africa's film industry is growing impressively with the advancement of funding organisations such as the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). These support structures provided by our government serve as a start-up capital source/strategy for many filmmakers to finance their films from development (the phase of planning the film's story structure such as research and character/script workshops), production (the phase of shooting the film and editing it) to marketing and distribution. Here is a brief discussion on the state of budgeting and marketing films in South Africa.

Budgeting

According to the award-winning filmmaker, Oliver Hermanus (director of Skoonheid), R500 000 is the average cost of producing a feature film in South Africa. The National Film and Video Foundation provides R200 000 for development alone and further more provides R1.3 million for production. The NFVF also provides funding for marketing films. The Department of Trade Industry's film incentive offers filmmakers funding with the amount from R1.3 million to R6 million: this includes development and production excluding marketing. The budget for made-for-television films (these are films that play on television without cinema release for example Tebogo Malope's For Love and Broken Bones which premiered on Mzansi Magic) also have an average of R1 million to R3 million funding.

The funding application process for films can be frustrating to the filmmakers because "there is too much red tape" according to film producer Jared Borkum. This means that the bureaucracy could halt the aspiring or seasoned filmmaker from applying because there are too many requirements for submitting your application. For example, the DTI requires compliance paperwork that would take over 2 years to acquire and this as a result, demotivates the filmmaker from applying. Secondly, the response date for the application would take over 2-3 months which is long and is another set-back experienced by the filmmaker.

The funding that is available limits filmmakers who aspire to produce high-cost genres like science-fiction and fantasy which would cost over R50 million or more to produce, excluding marketing. Drama, romance and crime are by far the most feasible to produce with the funding that is available as compared to fantasy and science fiction. Perhaps this could be the main reason for not having a compelling science-fiction film: funding is simply not available, hence there is no variety of genres produced.

Since the film sector is one of the key economic drivers in Gauteng and South Africa as a whole, there should be regulation on film budgets to ensure that different films of a variety are produced. This would also lessen the negative impact of being dependent on international film productions for the advancement of our film industry. Professor Nirvana Bechan, a public relations lecturer at Cape Peninsula University of Technology insists that the only way to grow developing industries (such as our film industry) is to be unapologetic, strategic and militant because developed industries (such as Hollywood) also stood their ground and refrained from being dependent at some point to be where they are.

Marketing

Most South African films are marketed traditionally through communication channels such as radio, television programmes, premieres, billboards, reviews and word of mouth. The films are also marketed in social media (new media) through sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter etc. For example, the recent film Mrs. Right Guy (directed by Adze Ugah) is marketed well in traditional and new media. The actors in the film (Dineo Moeketsi, Thando Thabethe and Thapelo Mokoena) were invited to Metro FM, the radio station with the largest audience share: this will have a positive impact on the movie ticket sales when the film has its opening weekend on the 03 June 2016. Mrs. Right Guy premiere was superbly organised in collaboration with Ster-Kinekor at The Zone (in Rosebank, Johannesburg) and the actors were taking pictures with the fans, another strategy to influence more people to watch the film leading to word of mouth and coverage of the film premiere on television in programmes like V-Entertainment and Real Goboza etc. The film has over 18 000 supporters on its Facebook page, 392 followers on Twitter and a trailer of over 11 000 views on YouTube, allowing more audience members to engage with the film and promote it in their circles.

The measure of a successful marketing campaign for a film would be ticket-sales skyrocketing and an option of producing a sequel. Many South African films are marketed well but they fail to perform at the box office because:

1. The marketing budget is too insufficient to perform other crucial cash-bound marketing campaigns like exclusive province-to-province/city-to-city premieres as well as merchandise(books, mugs, t-shirts and games) based on the film.
2. The craft of the art of marketing films is undermined as there is no organisation established that is dedicated solely to market films besides local festivals and governmental divisions which are also under-resourced. That particular organisation would focus on audience development strategies, research, regulation and the crucial practice of conceptualising, planning, implementing, evaluating and measuring film marketing strategies (campaigns) for South African audiences.
3. There is a lack of communication and support in cross industries. For example, there are direct and indirect relationships the film industry has with other industries and in order for the film to be marketed successfully, cross industry relations are imperative. Once relationships are initiated in cross sectors, more films would perform excellently commercially.

Conclusion

Many filmmakers in South Africa rely on government funding to finance their projects either for development, production and marketing. Some filmmakers rely on production companies to fund their films although the support can be minimal. The marketing of films in South Africa is partially poor because most films do not perform great at the box office. Regardless of the stiff competition from Hollywood blockbusters, South African lacks a film marketing organisation that ensures local movies to succeed commercially through thorough research, regulation, cross-industry relations as well as the essential marketing strategy practice for South African audiences.The private business sector can play a role in supporting filmmakers in South Africa to catapult commercial success. Our film industry's autonomy (independence) lies in the hands of public relations professionals in collaboration with governmental divisions because they have all the support to re-design the budgeting and marketing of films.