Animated feature heading for SA big screen
Tengers, allegedly South Africa's first-ever animated feature film, is being released theatrically countrywide 19 October 2007. The film has already been officially selected by numerous international film festivals, and even won the Best Animated Feature Award at the DIY festival in Los Angeles earlier this year.
It also received a five-star review from the Festival Daily correspondent at the prestigious Cambridge Film Festival.
Tengers, a satire on life in contemporary Gauteng aimed at a mature audience, has been the passion project of writer/director/animator Michael J Rix. Nine years in the making, it began as a sideline project between television directing jobs, and became a full-time endeavour in 2006 after the opening scene premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to an overwhelming response.
Work of one man
From script, through storyboard, character and set design and construction, lighting, camera, animation and final edit, everything that happens on screen is the work of one man.
Eventually, with limited completion funds in place from the National Film and Video Foundation, the project was taken for its final audio mix to Fine Tune Studios in Bryanston, Johannesburg, where one other man, Warren Burley, single-handedly put together everything that comes through the speakers!
Enlisting the voice talents of professionals Jo Day, Rob Vega, Phillip Mathebula and Anton Schmidt, among others, the audio was finalised over a three-month period in mid-2007.
Bearing all of this in mind, one might consider the entire process an enormous challenge, but the biggest part of this would probably be the funding. Rix largely self-funded the project while working on it as a hobby in his free-time, then decided to dedicate his time to it fully, with aid from private investors attracted mainly via the website www.tengers.com. These funds allowed Rix to cover his company Mirror Mountain Pictures' expenses while working on the film and not having the distraction of other business and freelance work.
Now, with the big screen release through Ster Kinekor less than two months away, in addition to the usual marketing channels, the film is being punted on Facebook, with all of the main characters having their own profiles and making friends in cyberspace.
