People are generally surprised to hear that South Africa has a thriving and vibrant animation industry. Veteran vfx house, Wicked Pixels (which created S.E.T.H., left), and newcomer The Refinery (with a Mountain Dew ad, right) show the depth of talent available. All Wicked Pixels images © Wicked Pixels (Pty) and all The Refinery images © 2004 The Refinery Post Production Facilities.

Craig Wessels — creative director of Wicked Pixels (Pty) Ltd., South Africa’s leading independent vfx-animation-design studio — believes his home turf of Cape Town will become the next Sydney, Australia. With a $60 million-plus film studio being built to handle the growing demand for feature film work in his native land, he can’t resist reciting a popular line from Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”

Cape Town indeed has developed into a melting pot of creative people with fresh ideas and an eye toward preserving traditional, tribal ideals and crafts. “We’re all pretty laid-back and arty types who gather in the Cape,” adds Leigh van der Byl, a freelance vfx and texturing artist who recently finished writing a book about texturing for LightWave (LightWave 3D 8 Texturing) that was put out by U.S.-based Wordware Publishing.

“Whenever people find out I am from this country, they seem surprised that we even have vfx industry here,” he explains. “And yet we have such a vibrant film and vfx industry with a lot of fine talent.”

Jason Cullen, a partner in Johannesburg-based Luma Animation, believes the small circle of professionals doing international vfx work in South Africa will grow considerably. “Seven years ago,” he says, “almost no one here had done any serious international vfx work at all, but that has changed a lot and more people are getting cool film work.” VideoLab, for instance, has worked on 23 films since 1997, while Atomic Visual Effects and Wicked Pixels are gunning for more international work.

Commercial Overload
Only trouble is that most of the assignments tend to be on the commercial and branding side of the business. And though South Africa has built several world-class facilities that emphasize quality over quantity, it lacks an ability to handle volume at film resolution in terms of both equipment and manpower.

Still, the time may be right for further investment in equipment and artists. Wessels points out that the film industry is growing rapidly in Cape Town largely as a result of stunningly beautiful shooting locations, highly skilled crews and a favorable exchange rate. “It’s a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city that would give any first-world city a run for its money,” he says. “I believe that what we are seeing happening here is only the tip of the iceberg. With the right planning and preparation, I see no reason why the increasing number of international movies being shot here will not begin to post here as well.”

Bearing in mind an exchange rate that makes South Africa’s rand an attractive currency in the world market, van der Byl calls the nation a formidable contender on the world stage given that more schools are now offering vfx studies — a development that has gone a long way toward improving the quality and skills of artists starting out in the field during the past three years.