Welcome to #IPThursday. The following thread concerns what I believe to be one of the greatest stories of mismanagement of royalties and exploitation to ever come out of South Africa.
This is Part 1, Shaka Zulu- The Movie. I’ll do one on “The Music” tomorrow.
This is Part 1, Shaka Zulu- The Movie. I’ll do one on “The Music” tomorrow.
Our story begins sometime in 1984. This man, Joshua Sinclair wanted to make a movie about the life and times of the Zulu King Shaka Zulu, based on a novel he had written a year or so earlier.
He approached the SABC. The idea was that they would make the production as a miniseries set in the Zululand region, KZN. The budget was estimated to be $12 million USD. This would be the biggest project ever undertaken by the SABC. There were some problems however....
At the time there was a cultural boycott of South African productions by the US and other countries due to apartheid. If the Apartheid state funded SABC were seen to be the producers, then they could not possibly make much money from it. No one would buy it from them.
The SABC didn’t want to be seen to be involved as they could never recover the costs of production if they were the face of the series. They were happy to pull the strings from behind the scenes. So they went to the one place that would be interested in such a project, Hollywood.
SABC decided to approach a production company in the USA. Sinclair said in an interview that this was a tiny company known as FAR International. They asked them to be the face of the production and distribute the series. They changed their name to Harmony Gold (a mine in SA)
William C. Faure was appointed director and Dave Pollecut was to produce the music (more on him tomorrow). Sinclair consulted the Zulu royal family for the history and got permission to proceed . Filming was set to begin in 1985, which brings me to the main star of our show....
The Americans wanted to cast a US actor to play Shaka and make it a Hollywood film. They wanted Denzel to play Shaka. Kinda like how Idris Elba and co. butchered Mandela’s film, but asikho lapho 🙃 Sinclair wasn’t having it and stood firm that Henry Cele be cast for the role.
Most of us know Henry Cele. Cele was born in 1949 in KwaMashu, a township in Durban. He gained some popularity in football as a goalkeeper and then later as a coach for some professional clubs in SA. Earning the nickname “Black Cat” for his prowess in goal.
In 1985, he met Sinclair and was cast as the lead actor in the Shaka Zulu miniseries with zero acting experience. Sinclair felt he had the perfect physique and voice to play Shaka, he had “that thing”.
Dudu Mkhize, a model by profession and former Miss SA runner up, was cast as Nandi, and the biggest ensemble cast in SA’s history was put together.
Henry Cele killed the role of Shaka. , He became uShaka in the series. Since then, he has become the face of Shaka. People were reluctant to cast him in other roles. When you google Shaka his picture comes up. It is one the greatest acting performances ever seen on TV.
The miniseries was released as a Harmony Gold production on TV1 on SABC and then overseas. Although many people loved it, a few felt like it was an appropriation of Zulu history by the apartheid regime to make money. The story itself is exaggerated and large parts are fictional.
Financially however, It was a huge hit worldwide. To put it into perspective, by 1992 it had been seen by over 350 million people, comfortably overtaking The Gods Must Be Crazy ($60million) as the biggest production out of SA. To date Shaka Zulu may have made over $5 billion.
Harmony Gold has never really come out transparently about how much the series made in total. Sinclair said that HG made the money and were meant to pay it back to the SABC through a Swiss account. Surprise surprise. Remember, the SABC couldn’t be seen to be involved.
Apparently, only about 40% of the money ever returned to SA. God and our ancestors know where the rest of the money went and how it was distributed.
Lets come back to our main man. Henry Cele received a once off payment for his role in the film, I’m not sure how much it was but someone once told me it was just over 25k for his role in the film.🤷🏾♂️
Anyway, the role made him an international star and after this he was cast in a few other lead roles. He starred as Sol Gumede in Inkom’edla yodwa in 1989, moved out of KwaMashu and bought a house in one of the more affluent surbubs in Durban, this was the start of the high life.
People would pay him to appear in shows and dress up as Shaka. He was even cast as a lead in the TV adaptation of the famous play “Ipi Ntombi” as well as Shaka 2, another smaller production of Shaka.
However, towards the end of the 90s and the start of the 2000s, roles became hard to come by for a lot of actors from earlier generations and Cele was not exempt.
Most of them had obtained acting roles based on pure talent alone and productions now wanted qualifications. They also wanted them to audition for roles with inexperienced rookies who had degrees. Which isn’t exactly ideal.
What this meant was that a lot of them took on minor roles that didn’t pay much and some even quit acting altogether. A lot of these actors ended up living in poverty. The biggest cause of this however was the issue of residuals and royalties for previous work.
Let me explain this in Sitayi’s voice so it sticks: A royalty is money paid to the author/owner of a protected work for each public play or airing of the IP work. A residual is usually paid to a performer and diminishes with each airing of the show on TV.
For eg. Will Smith probably still gets paid flat rate in residuals for episodes of the Fresh Prince aired on TV now, depending on the platform. The idea is that with each play, the actor gets compensation. This is why in music, you have many collecting agencies to get your 💰
What makes this worse is that if you sign a bad deal, you can waive your rights to claim future royalties from broadcasters or producers. I say this all the time, but get a lawyer when you sign a deal, ask to pay their legal fees later if you can.
Shaka Zulu was shot in SA, with an SA cast and it was commissioned by the SABC. However, because they had made it seem like a US production, most of the monies made from it were made overseas and stayed in Swiss/American accounts.
While Shaka Zulu was making millions globally, Henry Cele and other members of the cast were struggling fonancially. They were not being paid for the performance. And if he did get any future payments, it was a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of money it was making.
As the 2000s rolled on, the series became available on DVD, digital platforms and made more money. However, Henry Cele’s financial situation worsened. He was forced to move out of his house in the surbubs and go back to the township.
Sadly, in 2007, he was admitted into hospital in very poor shape and coughing excessively. He died soon thereafter. Apparently, he had become violent and had to be chained to his bed. He died at the age of just 58, a bitter and angry man.
Apparently, the SABC and production company had made lot of promises about the payment of money to Cele and others, but nothing significant really ever materialised.
The issue of residuals and royalties is not isolated. Take Sam “Bra Darkie” Williams for example. Sam played the role of Jama in the series and starred in the hit sitcom Velaphi, which continues to air. Bra Darkie died poor living in the Hillbrow/Berea area, in 2007.
Even Velaphi himself (Ray Ntlokwana) died poor. His family had to set up a bank account for his funeral. With the amount of times Velaphi has been played on TV, you’d think he made a lot of money in royalties. But it doesnt work like that at the National Broadcaster.
The Copyright Amendment Bill is still stuck in parliament and it does deal with the issue of Royalties quite a bit, maybe things will change for the better once it becomes law. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow: The Music. ❤️💛💚
If you want to read more on this there’s some sources I looked at online. Sinclair’s interview on the whole thing: camerainthesun.com/?p=25727
And @PhilMphela has a blog post which summarizes all this:philmphelablog.com/2014/08/shaka-…
And @PhilMphela has a blog post which summarizes all this:philmphelablog.com/2014/08/shaka-…
Part 2 👇🏾
https://t.co/Ucsu7h6yI2
https://t.co/Ucsu7h6yI2
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