Saftas executive producer tells us what to expect from tonight’s show – including a few surprises

• Channel24 caught up with 2021 Saftas executive producer Anneke de Ridder ahead of the main ceremony which takes place on Saturday.
• The event will be simulcast on SABC’s S3 and DStv’s Mzansi Magic for the first time ever.
• Anneke tells us about some of the challenges faced putting the show together as well as a few surprises viewers should expect.

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The main award ceremony of the 15th South African Film and Television Awards (Saftas) on Saturday evening will be the first-ever simulcast on the SABC’s S3 channel and M-Net’s Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on DStv — during a pandemic year.

Anneke de Ridder, executive producer of the 15th Saftas, talks to Channel24 about the challenges the production team faced putting together the socially distanced, hybrid-show, this year’s theme of “still shining”, the task of fitting everything in, and the “surprise or two” waiting tonight.

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What were some of the big challenges in producing this year’s 15th Saftas?

One of the biggest challenges for any award show overall is that you’ve got so many stakeholders. Even though we’re honoured and very excited about the fact that it’s a simulcast on S3 and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161), it does complicate things a little bit just from an audience perspective.

An award show is an award show, but the moment you put it on TV, it’s also an entertainment show, and you’ve got to make sure that you give the audience what they want — it needs to be entertaining, but you also need to be true to the industry, and you need to give the industry something that they also enjoy. That’s probably one of the biggest challenges – that there are so many different parties involved that you need to keep happy.

In 2020 the Saftas was already a virtual event. This year it’s a hybrid one. Tell us more about that.

This year is a hybrid, as you say. We’ve watched all of the award shows since Covid and looked at what they did. Our biggest challenge, I think, is how to bring the people into the room without bringing the people into the room.

We had to think long and hard about it, and I think we came up with some pretty good alternatives. A lot of it is pre-recorded. Every single nominee had to pre-record an acceptance speech, for instance, in case they win — so that’s a lot of work. We also had a Whatsapp line for the public and invited them, and we’re also pre-recording them and putting them into the award show, just to give a bit of life and to make sure that it’s not just presenters announcing winners all the time.

Covid has forced us to think outside of the box, and that’s a very good thing, but yes, it’s different to how we used to work. We have to keep numbers on set small. The other thing with Covid is when we plan, we want to finalise what will be on the Saftas stage in May, and you don’t know what the status by that time will be. So you basically have to plan with a worst-case scenario in mind.

The last thing you want is where you’ve got some live elements, and all of a sudden, there’s a national lockdown again, and then the Saftas basically can’t happen. So you have to plan out a worst-case scenario.

The theme this year is “Still Shining”. How will this theme be worked into the Saftas broadcast in terms of the colours and atmosphere and what viewers will see on screen?

The executive producer’s job on the Saftas is a freelance job, and I also produce Idols on Mzansi Magic. And having done Idols for so many years — last year was the hardest one I’ve ever had to do, working in the industry with Covid.

I think every single person working anywhere, but specifically in South Africa’s film and TV industry and who made it through the past year and a half, deserves the title of “still shining” because the boundaries of everything kept changing, and it was difficult. It was also a first in terms of circumstances. In terms of bringing the “still shining” theme to the Saftas, we went in our creative approach with neon lights, and the idea is to put the industry and the names of South Africa’s film and TV practitioners up in lights — and just to celebrate. 

For the set, we will stick to gold and “still shining” when we announce the winners, and then when it comes to the various performances, we will introduce a lot of other colours to break it up a little bit so that the entire show is not just gold.

In building the puzzle for this year’s Saftas TV broadcast, what about the production maybe surprised you?

I didn’t think we’ll be able to pre-record all of the nominees, and we did. You’re talking about over 300 people. When I first thought about it, I just said, “We have to do it”, if this is the road we’re going down on. And we actually got to do it. 

I also think that the turnaround time this year was quite tight because we only closed entries in January, and you can plan an award show as much as you want, but you only get really into it once you’ve got all of the nominees and it finally becomes real as a production. So the turnaround time was very tight. 

Don’t Look Down, who is handling the 15th Saftas production for us this year, has been absolutely amazing, and I’m really, really proud of the awards show broadcast that is going on air on Saturday.

Why should viewers tune in on Saturday evening to watch the 15th Saftas?

I think people will really want to watch the performances that we’ve chosen and incorporated into this year’s award show.

The performances are live because we felt that there have been so many performances that have been pre-recorded. The energy of a live performance, done live on stage, is very exciting. Then there’s a little something-something with Mpho Popps as we go into the 15th Saftas as a show that I think is going to be very entertaining that people will love, so tune in.

Night two of the 15th Saftas will air on Saturday on S3 and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) at 19:00, preceded by a red carpet show from 18:30