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pany: a children’s puppet series about the adven- tures of a mongoose called Filligoggin and his friends from the village of Baobob Creek.
“One of the reasons for going down to South Africa is that we’re able to get exceptionally good production value in what is effectively a first world country with excellent communications and tech- nical skills, equipment and materials.
“It means that we’re able to spend a lot more money on above the line elements,” says Elizabeth. “The video lab group down in South Africa has spent a lot of money investing in state-of-the-art animation and graphics machines... they are excep- tionally talented and well-managed people.”
The latest production, Merlin 2000 - The Return, seems to have called on all of this behind the scenes expertise, requiring not only extensive special effects work to create the impression of magic, but the building of several huge sets, including an entire English village and a lifesize copy of Stonehenge. Ironically, though, it may be one of the last times that Peakviewing delve into the world of fantasy and horror.
“At one time fantasy and special effects were the domain of the independent producer. That was where he was making his money. He was making science fiction or fantasy movies and selling them to video or to television,” says Elizabeth.
“All of the independents were doing it. And one of the reasons the independents are now find-
ing it so hard to survive is that what used to be their genre, the one that they controlled and dom- inated, has been taken over by the majors.
“And of course independents can’t compete in that genre when they have to compete with The Fifth Element and Contact and all of the others with huge, huge budgets. The smaller independent who used to make his living based on this kind of film is being eased out.”
“As we move forward - especially as we do more features - we’ll have a lot more drama and performance based projects, and less reliance on fantasy elements or special effects,” she says.
The next move for Peakviewing, following on from the formation in 1996 of its own distribution arm, is the formation of a feature film division. “Come next MIFED we will be launching a feature division, separate from our television division,” says Elizabeth.
“We start shooting our first feature in June. We’ll probably have details of that just after Cannes... the film is called Africa and it’s about a model who is lost in the bush and her fight for sur- vival in the wild, how it affects her and how it equips her to deal with life back in good old civili- sation,” she laughs.
“I’m right in the middle of casting it so there’s not much point in going into a lot of detail about it now. Our focus is now very much upon developing relationships with other producers and other tal- ent: writers, directors, etc.
“In the short to medium term, we’re aiming more at production and development,” explains Elizabeth. “We’ve gone beyond the point where we can just feed our own machine.” ■ CERI THOMAS
Peakviewing’s films are all originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative and have been photographed by among others, Peter Thornton,
Photos from top left: Samantha Janus with the late Kadamba Simmons in Deadly Instincts; director Paul Matthews with Brittney Bomann on the set of The Little Unicorn; Merlin 2000 - The Return Peter Tregloan in Grim; George Hamilton and Julie Hartley in The Little Unicorn; The Last Leprechaun; Malcolm McDowell in The Fairy King Of Ar