In the Wings: SAB Responsible Trader Roadshow

Corporate Client: SAB (South African Breweries)

Event: Educational Roadshow (external audience)

Venues: Live shows in Durban, Joburg, Cape Town | Video shows all across South Africa

My Role: Creative Head, Live & Animation Script Writer, Live Theatre Director & Live to Video Director, Animation Director

This has been the biggest show I have worked on... I think possibly ever! It was such an exciting and wonderful job to be a part of. Firstly the message rocked... we were to educate tavern owners, SAB's clients, all around South Africa on how to trade alcohol responsibly... If every tavern owner were to trade responsibly... this is how we stand a chance to change a community and ultimately an entire society. In South Africa alcohol abuse is a serious issue (as it is every where in the world...) and the core messaging was around compliance, customers drinking too much, pregnant women and drinking, underage drinking and drinking and driving.

Industrial theatre was the at the heart of the delivery medium... from there we filmed the entire show, carefully translating the live piece to fully work in the medium of film. This was such a great and wonderful challenge... the reason being that all too often filmed theatre simply does not work beyond a mere record of the work. However here the vast majority of our audience were only going to see the filmed version of the show and therefore the impact and educational out-take of these video's had to match that of live performance. And I believe we succeeded.

We had a cast of five wonderful performers. Hamilton Dhalmini played the tavern owner and the rest formed a theatrical chorus of workers in the tavern doubling up to deliver section specific monologues and role play scenes of... for example... 'how to handle a pregnant woman who comes into your tavern asking for a beer' ... and so on. On stage the chorus device was fabulous - keeping the show buoyant, engaging and ultimately educational. Education through entertainment at it's best. For the video version we used the chorus in a musical-type way, and therefore not a million miles from it's live counterpart... how wonderful - it was such fun.

Here are some shots of the live show and stills from the shoot. I'll upload a taste of the video's in a separate post. Rock on theatre entertainment for education. For me personally this is superb art... amazing actors working so easily on stage and in front of the camera with the same material... outstanding cinematography from Tom Marais - what a legend... Stunning narrative editing from Kirsten de Magalhaes - who totally understood where we were headed with this and then took it further... Mic Mann as Executive Producer who worked more weekends and through the night more times than I could ever... Bruce Sherwell the animator on the final impact animation - a force of talent who too worked unthinkable hours to create such delicate work. And finally Nick Warren the Creative Director at MMM who conceived, developed and sold this amazingly executed concept... without the idea, you have nothing at all. Of course there are many many more people who make a show this big happen.

So... a meaningful show. A rocking team. Yay.