Responsible for the spectacular design of the
film in authenticity and scope is Production
Designer, Johnny Breedt, who Singh recruited on the project some 15 years
ago as 'action vehicle coordinator'. Over the years while the project was in
various stages of development, Breedt's involvement increased to location
scouting and research. This extensive period of 'prep' time enabled him to
assemble a staggering body of material. The results of his research via books,
films, documentaries and museums were housed in the Art Department where more
than 300 books and 5000 photographs served as a dynamic reference tool for actors,
the director, the costume people, and the researchers throughout the movie.
The
design of the movie was a key component of Chadwick's stance to tell the story
in the form of a 'modern' movie. "I told them yes, get it 100% authentic, but
get the action sequences, if there's a car chase in the film, we will shoot it
suspenseful and fast. We don't want a load of old cars puttering around. You
want to have a visceral quality to the film."
Breedt
recalls that he was somewhat bemused when the director gave
reference to a couple of movies that 'are probably very far from what people
would expect, such as City of God and
Elite Squad.'
Despite
having made a number of biographical pictures such as Dickens for the BBC and The
Other Boleyn Girl, Chadwick states that he is not a fan of period movies, "Who wants to watch a
historical drama? I wanted our crew to experience the energy and excitement seen in many South American movies." The
director adds that behind the scenes he was also watching movies like The Godfather, and David Lean's movies. "We are shooting on 35mm film and have this extensive landscape, but I did not want
to shoot it with the traditional wide shot, close up, and mid shot. I wanted the
camera right in there with the actors, capturing the emotion of the scene - as
you would in a contemporary movie."
Breedt
recalls: "Justin wanted to keep it as real as possible
and design a world into which the actors could literally step and perform their
scene in the genuine environment of their characters, and we would just shoot
it."
"You don't want to see the direction, or the
art directing, or costumes," says Chadwick. "We just wanted to drop the camera
into an absolute real situation."
To obtain this veracity, Breedt shares that "There
was no specific plan as to how the shots would be set up, Justin just filmed
the world and the sets simply served to energise it." Breedt believes that this
approach had an impactful effect. "Idris spent a night in Mandela's actual
cell on Robben Island by himself and when he walked onto the set that we
designed he told me he was 'totally in that world'."
As the film spans so many decades, Breedt's
major task was delivering a vast, yet detailed canvas, highlighting the different
impression and mood of each decade. These ranged from Mandela's rural village
to the vibrant city of Johannesburg in the early 1940's where white citizens
owned vehicles, and 'blacks' travelled in buses and trams.
"In those years of segregation, blacks were
mainly migrant workers and domestic servants, and not that 'visible' in the
city."
Breedt and the Location Managers, Robert
Bentley and Edu Klarenbeeck, scouted some four hundred locations and filming
took place in approximately two hundred of them. By the time Chadwick joined the
production, many of the buildings that featured in the original script had been
torn down.
Breedt discusses their efforts to create the world in and around
Mandela's life, starting in his childhood village that was a pristine preserve
of nature and beauty, steeped in tribal culture. As there is no
documented visual history of the villages of that period, Breedt's challenge also
presented him with the opportunity to be inventive.
Since the 1920s, Mandela's village has changed so drastically - now featuring
a museum and a hotel for tourists - that the team had to identify a new location
that was as visually breathtaking as the Transkei. The magnificent Drakensberg
in the KwaZulu-Natal Province provided this environment. In South Africa significant
tracts of rural and countryside land is tribal-owned and to procure agreement to
film in these locations required direct interaction with the head of the local
tribe. Breedt explains: “It is a conventional system in which elders are
invited to participate. Before we worked in their locations we had to take
offerings; traditionally they would slaughter a goat, and we had a barbecue for
the locals and invested in the community by recruiting local labour.”
Most scenes scripted for Cape Town were shot in
authentic sites in that city. However, today Robben Island is a major tourist
destination and this limited access, together with logistical difficulties, meant
that shooting only exterior scenes - such as the spectacular view of Table
Mountain - were feasible. The world-class Cape Town Film Studios served as the
backbone for the production with a number of set-builds on the backlot. The courtyard of B
Section of the Robben Island prison, including interiors of the cells and
visiting rooms, as well as rows of streets and homes which established the
township of Orlando in the 1940s, were replicated with precision and
authenticity.
The immense project required professional
construction companies and industrial equipment to excavate an area of some 15
000 square meters on the backlot in order to clear a space to build the sets.
The build of the impressive Robben Island set includes authentic roof and
drainage and is classified a permanent structure. A professional road construction
company constructed tar surfaced streets for the Orlando township - where
Breedt’s 200-strong construction crew of skilled, and semi-skilled labourers
from the local communities built twenty period homes for exterior shots.
Breedt points out that the Robben Island set
was designed for the 1960s, “in the years following, as the world press put
pressure on the authorities they became more lenient and facilities on the Island
were improved; such as a dedicated room for cinema, study facilities, toilets
were fitted with doors and the cells were furnished with beds.”
The magnificent Palace of Justice in
Pretoria is the establishment where
the most prominent case in South African history, the Rivonia Trial was held,
and where Mandela delivered his famous speech. Today it acts as the headquarters for the Gauteng division
of the High Court and is off
limits to the public. The rigorous rules of access called for another majestic set
build at the studios - the interior of the Palace of Justice complete with the
first floor gallery and the holding cells below the courtroom. While
Mandela’s famous speech was recorded and documented, no film footage of the
case exists. “Apart from the people who were there, no one knows what the courtrooms
looked like at the trial.” says Breedt. “In addition, one doesn't get a sense
of why it is named the Palace of Justice - until you go into the building. In
Italian Renaissance-style it is a regal establishment, and all the interior
features make a statement; the soaring lobby, towering gold columns,
spectacular balustrade, elaborate chandeliers and light filtrating through the
glass dome - it’s pretty intimidating. Furthermore, the acoustics in the Palace
wouldn’t have worked for the film.”
Co-Producer,
Vlokkie Gordon, discusses the value
of shooting at the Studios. “Not only did the cost-saving enable us to build
phenomenal sets, but it gave us flexibility to transition to the real townships
which have changed dramatically since the 1940s and 1950s.”
Most
critically, it enabled the production to have control over riot scenes that
featured army tanks and petrol bombs in the township streets. “Obviously these
actions are central to the story, but re-enacting such violence and taking
military hardware into public spaces is not an option, these events are still traumatic
for township communities.” stresses Gordon.
It is
considered that with its modern houses and satellite dishes, there is no ‘real’
Soweto anymore and the famous Vilakazi Street where Mandela and Winnie resided
has a totally different look. However,
Kliptown - situated in an older area of Soweto - served as the base to shoot numerous scenes set in Soweto, and the team was
able to build 30 sets there. “The “City
of God” feel will be evident in those Soweto scenes.” says Breedt.
Sophiatown produced some of South Africa’s most
famous writers, poets, musicians and artists, but it was the great Jazz legend,
Miriam Makeba, who put the Black ‘suburb’ on the world map. In the 1950s when
White South Africans wore Safari suits and inhabited cloistered and privileged lives,
Sophiatown, like a mini Soho, was the nerve centre of the country’s entertainment
scene.
Unlike
other townships in South Africa, Sophiatown was a freehold township, having
been established prior to the law preventing black
people from owning land being passed. It was the last remaining area occupied
by a multi-racial community. Something of an anomaly for its time, this cosmopolitan,
hip and happening area became a popular cultural hub where Whites, Coloureds,
Indians and Blacks converged to experience a vibrant world of dance and
swinging music in nightclubs. The strong influence of American movies was seen
in the high fashion of the women, as well as the snappy outfits worn by the
gangsters - infamously known as ‘Tsotsis’.
Given its
close proximity to central Johannesburg, the apartheid government razed the
shantytown to the ground dispossessing this unique community of their homes.
This brutal act
of destruction represented the apartheid government’s contempt for people of
colour, and thus serves as a vital element of the film, and Chadwick wanted to approach the scene of the
demolition in a substantial and gritty manner. Breedt, who located a ruin at an old mine site, says: “We added
to the remnants of the mine turning it into (part-ruined) Sophiatown, but we built
it for real, with bricks and cement, so when the bulldozers physically slam
into it the collapse will look authentic.”
Chadwick’s tough and
true-to-life rendering of Mandela’s powerful journey is expressed through the
cinematographer Lol Crawley’s work. “Justin’s
great achievement in this film has been to create something very vivid, lively, and
entertaining which will keep you on the edge of your seat.” says Thompson. “He
has infused it with a fantastic amount of energy; Lol’s cameras are very
restless, vigorous, and probing, capturing the tension in this story. Even the
scenes that might have been potentially dull were brought to life by the
quality of the acting, the genius of the camerawork and the rigour of the
director.”
