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The Film Industry and South African Urban Change

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Abstract

Internationally there has been considerable discussion on the role that creative industries play as a strategy by which post-Fordist cities can revive stagnant urban economies. Among those sectors of the economy that form part of the creative industries, the filming sector counts as one. On the whole, these debates have been conducted with reference to the post-industrial cities of the north. Little attention has been placed on the role of the filming sector in the developing south generally, its spatial distribution, and its relationship to other economic and social geographies in those urban places. The paper provides a spatial analysis of the filming industry in urban South Africa and relates it to general economic and social geographies in two South African cities that have identified the filming industry as a key development strategy. In addition, an agenda for future research, in particular pertaining to urban South Africa is outlined. It is concluded that there is a broader urban planning and geography project at hand. Questions need to be asked about how the filming industry interacts with other government programmes and the ongoing transformation of physical and symbolic spaces in urban South Africa.

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Notes

  1. From a methodological point view this analysis draws a data set complied from the SA Filmguide, the National Film and Video Foundation, Durban Film Office, as well as the Gauteng and Cape Film Commission. These companies’ listing was arranged according to provider/service type and location, and the location of the various businesses was mapped. It has to be stated that the database cannot be seen as complete, and in fact it is not possible to develop such a definitive database. In the terms of this database, if businesses were registered in the various directories, they were included. In addition, and very importantly, their self-identification, in terms of whether they are a production company or casting agency etc., was taken at face value. It was reasoned that a company best knew how to categorise and present themselves to potential clients. There is also data bias in the set as the large cities that have identified the film industry as a key component of their respective economic development strategies are inadvertently over represented through greater data availability. On the whole, small scale businesses in towns and smaller cities do not register in the database in any great numbers. Businesses such as accommodation providers were excluded from the listing, though some of them were listed in a number of the base documents. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the film industry, much like tourism, has countless linkages into local and national economies—it is a system or network of businesses that interact to produce a product and not a production line. Some companies only work within the hard core of filming while others do so seasonally or occasionally. A further challenge is that there are constant reconfigurations of businesses which merge or split into new firms. Thus, the same company might be rebranded and operate as a new concern but from a listings point of view indicate two businesses, or vice versa. This not only complicates the mapping to the industry, but makes spatio-temporal analyses of broader filming businesses in South Africa very problematic. The true employment impact of the filming industry is also difficult to gauge as there are many freelance workers in the field who work on film but are also (by way of example) graphic designers or artists at other times. Although there are challenges in constructing a database of the filming industry in South Africa, for the purposes of what this investigations aims to achieve, the current database is, whilst not perfect, adequate.

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  1. Department of Geography, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa

    Gustav Visser

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  1. Gustav Visser
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Correspondence to Gustav Visser.

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Visser, G. The Film Industry and South African Urban Change. Urban Forum 25, 13–34 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-013-9203-3

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