SABC to continue production on Isidingo

Written by TVSA Team from the blog SABC on 14 Jun 2012
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[Submitted via press release]

Yesterday the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) studios, where our SABC 3 soapie Isidingo is being produced caught fire. At this stage the cause of the fire has not been established, but investigations are underway. Fortunately there was no one injured from the incident.

The production of Isidingo will not be affected, as interim measures have been put in place to ensure recording continues. It must be noted that all our three soapies SABC 1’s Generations, SABC 2’s Muvhango and Isidingo record a few months in advance and utilise five studio floors.

The SABC’s Acting Chief Operations Officer, Mr. Hlaudi Motsoeneng explains: “We have five studios that are used to produce drama and only one of them has burned down. This means production will continue and the public need not panic thinking the production of their favourite soapies might be affected. We are doing our outmost as management to ensure that things return to normal and the recording sets are rebuilt speedily.”

It is expected that it will take the production companies and the SABC a few months to return operations to normal.

The estimated value of the damages is around millions of rands, our investigating team will be able to determine the exact value once they finalise their investigations. Only then will we be able to offer more details around the recovery period.

The SABC is confident that it has the capacity and capabilities of continuing full production despite the fire damage.

Footage of the incident, as reported on the news this morning:

4 Comments

Tashi
14 Jun 2012 12:04

From the sounds of it Isidingo people are suddenly going to be living in 7de Laan and Generations. Would be the ideal opportunity to write Isidingo characters into the other two soapies - using the fire as the spark.

Will be interesting to see what the show's gonna look like as a result - would be much easier to simply go "The Wild" and move to outside locations instead.

charmed_dude
14 Jun 2012 12:34

I am all for SABC soaps evolving past Studio only productions. It would be nice for the SABC to use this opportunity and venture out into location filming such as what The Wild has done - and that has worked great. What I don't understand is if there are 5 Studios for drama, surely if Isidingo occupies one of the not burnt down studios - it is occupying another shows studio space? I like the idea of using a cross over for the shows and having Isidingo perhaps use sets from the other SABC soaps in the meanwhile. I actually don't understand why a SABC soap cross over hasn't been done - considering none of the SABC soaps compete in the same timeslots and would be a great incentive to get viewers to sample other shows. I suppose the fact that each show is produced by a difference Production Company could be the issue. Even when sets for Isidingo have been rebuilt, I'm assuming everything is going to look completely different. I hope the shows uses this tragedy in a creative way and turns it into something positive - new sets, location filming, some cross overs. We can only hope.

wesbuw
14 Jun 2012 14:12

#phew the show must go on

biggiesmalls
14 Jun 2012 16:07

Guys shooting exterior is mighty expensive not as easy as you say, this is not Hollywood. Studio shooting is much cheaper. The Wild has the highest budget in the country, so don't even compare...

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