Hard to get, film friendliness and local production

This article offers a comparative analysis of film services in Johannesburg and Durban using the example of a feature gangster comedy, Hard to Get (Ntuli, 2014). The study of cities as media hubs is a recent development. Audio-visual media, being highly capitalized and labour-intensive products, are centralized in large cities, urbanity having been the central hub of first, industrialization and second digitization. Initial work on South African media cities focuses on the perspective of economic sustainability through skills development, job creation and distribution and exhibition as prerequisites for assistance incentives. This film services approach is less concerned with media as texts, but examines the intermediate inputs, organizational arrangements and expertise associated with processes involved in the development of media projects. Media services are examined with respect to their respective foci on sustainability, creativity and the skills development potential of each value chain’s input in the production of product. Crucially, however, the South African studies have linked the production-consumption value chain to exhibition and audience development in currently unserved black urban areas that continue to lack entertainment services.