Variety reports that SETA, the South African training authority has announced a multimillion dollar push into the animation industry, or more specifically, the Animation SA and Cape Film Commission. This Animation Industry Development Initiative have the ambitious plan to have 10,000 animation jobs in South Africa by 2020.

THE LION OF JUDAH is to be the first CG animated film out of South Africa, and is the joint venture of 2 budding animation companies, Character Matters and Sunrise Productions.  At first the companies started with 2 animators ( industry veterans, Eric Lessard from SHREK and Tom Roth of VALIANT) and outdated animation software, but now they have 33 people and looking to bring in 4 times that number.

However, in this day and age, the animation and vfx industries go hand in hand, so South Africa has also been stealthily building a vfx reel to woo Hollywood with.  This reel includes work such as KNIGHT RIDER, BITCH SLAP, FREE WILLY 4, and SCORPION KING 2 as well as others.

As in animation, the only real constraint on post is capacity. “It will take a large feature film that’s willing to invest in infrastructure to jumpstart a vfx industry” like the ones that exist in New Zealand, Canada and Australia, says local producer Michael Murphey of Kalahari Pictures. “Blackginger is great but will need to expand significantly in order to handle what’s required on a larger feature film.”

In essence, South African companies need to win a couple of big projects to cement their plans in making South Africa an attractive local due to quality of work and cost-effectiveness.  Despite the booming growth, some people are sceptic that South Africa will be Hollywood’s digital haven.

Chris Roland of ZenHQ Films explains: “On a treaty co-production that shoots entirely in South Africa, it’s not possible to keep the post here due to minimum spend requirements in each country. On nontreaty co-prods or service jobs, we certainly suggest completing all or a portion of post here. However, if they’re not interested in viewing the work remotely, this requires the director to stay in South Africa during post or fly back and forth, which is not an ideal scenario.”

However, hope remains high, and only time can tell if South Africa will live up to its hopes.