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2010-03-02

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On the 19th of February local feature film White Lion leapt on to South Africa’s silver screen, collecting SAFTA nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Music Score and Best Sound Design along the way. Imke van Heerden asks a couple of quick questions to the co-writer of the script, LitNet contributor Janet van Eeden. 

Janet, White Lion is one of the most expensive movies ever made in South Africa. How did you get involved in this ambitious project?

A call for scripts came through SASWA (South African Script Writers Association, now called the Writers’ Guild of South Africa) from the producers of White Lion. They were looking for a writer to develop a rough story outline about a white lion into a full feature film script. By now I’d learnt how to write scripts to tough British standards after a brutal five-year stint with UK producers and directors. I’d also acquired one of Britain’s top agents. I had certainly paid my dues.

Without hesitation I submitted a treatment based on a very loose outline supplied by the producers and went up against the pool of South Africa’s best scriptwriters. They first selected ten writers and then it went down to the wire. There were just three of us left. I was up against an established production company and a top writer, who also happens to be a friend of mine, Roy Blumenthal.

When the production team did a teleconference, they asked me why they should give me the job. I answered, “Because I love lions.” I thought I’d really blown it with my naïve answer. But I really do love lions – I have ever since I was a child – and I think that may have touched Kevin Richardson’s heart. Fortunately the treatment I’d written also really got to the heart of the lion’s story. I realised as soon as I started working on this project that we needed a classic Hero’s Journey with the lion being the hero. So, in spite of, or because of, my naïve answer, I got the job. I’ve felt blessed ever since to be part of such an ambitious and beautiful production. When you see it on the screen you’ll realise that we have created a world-class film for South Africa to be proud of.

With whom did you co-write the script?

I wrote the initial script which green-lit this project – that is, it gave the executive producer the courage to put his money behind the multimillion rand, four-year-long machine which this film would become. At the beginning of this huge project the executive producer, Roney Fuhr, hadn’t wanted anything “airy-fairy” in the film at all. The only problem with that was that the film started becoming just another lion documentary. So two years into the filming process I finally got them to agree to my developing the role of a mentor for the lion, to make his journey more of a traditional Hero’s Journey than just a lion documentary. However, when Rodney finally wanted the mentor’s role to be more explicit than I’d written it at that stage, they brought in Ivan Millborrow to flesh out the new character’s story. This was done in good faith and with great respect to me by Kevin Richardson – the lion whisperer, as he’s called – an exceptional human being whom I respect enormously, and Michael Swan, who started out as the director of photography and finally became the well-deserved SAFTA Award-winning director. I’m very happy with the final product now.

White Lion is a fictional film for the whole family. In what ways does it differ from documentaries like Return of the White Lion (2008)?

I haven’t seen Return of the White Lion, but this is a fictional scripted narrative about real animals, along the lines of one of the very few other films to attempt this very difficult task: The Bear (L’ours), Jean-Jaques Annaud’s seminal film about bears made in 1988. I had to create a compelling, dramatic story about a lion on a journey which would take it out of the realms of a pure documentary. This is where White Lion has succeeded admirably.  


I’m picturing you in a safari hat, peeking out from behind a bush with binoculars. Were you required to do a lot of research on the animal and its habitat before writing the script? 

Initially I was flown to the Lion Park and spent weeks driving around the reserve, meeting the lions from the safe distance of a 4x4 in the case of Letsatsi, the big male, and learning about lion behaviour from Kevin Richardson. My respect for Kevin knew no bounds when he walked into the veld with the exquisite adult male lion who kept putting his giant fangs around Kevin’s naked calves. Kevin would swat him gently and say “Not now Letsatsi.”

Of course I held the cubs as soon as I could. They are as beautiful as you’d imagine. Milk-white fur with blue eyes and still a bit silly. The teenagers, though, are a bit unpredictable, so I stood by quietly while Kevin dealt with them. As one of the production team said, the teenager lions with their beginner manes just needed a skateboard and a baseball cap to complete their cocky looks.

When it came to writing the script, Rodney wanted a story which I felt reflected his own life of making it on his own terms in a harsh world. So I created a classic underdog Hero’s Journey for Letsatsi. First principles of script writing still apply, whether you’re writing about humans or animals.

Also, Rodney would not allow any anthropomorphisms at all. This was no Lion King II, fortunately. So while we were on location Kevin gave me many lessons on actual lion behaviour and I had to disabuse myself quickly of any notion that lions are sweet and cuddly. They can be extremely brutal and males’ behaviour towards their own cubs almost broke my heart as I watched many documentaries while researching lion behaviour.

Janet’s favourite picture of Kevin and Letsatsi in the veld.

After completing the script, to what extent does the script writer stay involved in the process? Were you on set during filming?

As far as having a say in the project when a script is written is concerned, the scriptwriter usually loses all control over the script once it’s handed over to the director. There is a classic joke about the blonde who went to Hollywood and wanted to break into the world of filmmaking. So she slept with a scriptwriter. That’s the joke! The powerlessness of a scriptwriter is very worrying, especially when an unscrupulous person comes along and tries to change things and sometimes even puts his or her name on your script! I won’t say much more than this, but there was a point early on in the filmmaking process where I hired a lawyer to ensure that I retained my credit. One of the people who was subsequently fired and who is no longer associated actively with the film tried to take over my work. Enough said.

However, I was brought back into the edit suite two years after filming had started to try to repair the damage done. This is where I went back to the first principles of my original script and insisted on a mentor for the lion’s Hero’s Journey. I was given the task or reworking the script in the edit suite again and it was shortly after that they brought Ivan Millborrow in to take the story through the doors I’d opened during that process.

With regard to being on set, I’m not sure whether Ivan went on to the set, as he came into the process towards the end. But I went up to the filming area (north of Lanseria) a number of times to be on the set in the first two years. One weekend I took my daughter Caitlin with me. It was wonderful to watch them filming although Caitlin had to be in a truck to prevent the lions seeing her. At her size and age then, she was regarded as prey. It took ages to film the short scene of the lions walking down to the chicken coop to raid the farmer’s hens. I have so much respect for the lion wranglers, Rodney Nombekana and Helga, who worked ceaselessly with the lions to get them to co-operate. The animals were treated with respect and love throughout the filming process and there was an Animal Anti-Cruelty official on set at all times. I love watching those scenes now on the big screen, knowing that Caitlin and I watched the original filming process.

Today, fewer than 300 white lions are roaming the world. Where did you find the star of the film?

Letsatsi was one of the lions hand-reared by Kevin at Rodney Fuhr’s lion park in the Johannesburg-Pretoria area. As it turned out, he is the most exquisite lion on the poster, but he refused to co-operate on the set. If you want to read more about his rebellion and how Kevin had to recruit another lion to take his place, you must read Kevin Richardson’s autobiography, Part of the Pride.


It was Rodney Fuhr’s long-held dream to make a film about a white lion. Tell us a bit more about the animal’s significance.

The executive producer of this film, Rodney Fuhr, owns the Lion Park near Lanseria, among a number of other reserves. He’d made his money in business, but had a dream of telling the story of a white lion’s struggle to survive in the wild. White lions seldom survive in nature because their light fur makes them a target for predators. They are not albinos, but a rare genetic throwback which occurs at random in tawny prides. This phenomenon is akin to ginger- or red-headedness in humans. After many years Rodney had managed to breed a number of white lions. Rodney’s right-hand man, Kevin Richardson, the producer on this film, had hand-reared many of the cubs. They’d finally reared a fully-grown white lion which had done the rare thing of reaching healthy maturity, and Rodney wanted to make Letsatsi, which means "star lion", the star of his show. After much persuasion I got the producers to allow me to use the legend from the Shangaan tribe that the lions had fallen from the stars and were the angelic messengers of the gods. This has now become a main feature in the film. 

Any behind-the-scenes stories for our readers?

It is no secret that I just adore Kevin. And don’t get me wrong, there are no ulterior motives in this statement! I know his wife Mandy and his new baby Tayla well too, and they are the happiest family. But my respect for him and his way with animals knows no bounds. When I first met him at our first production meeting I thought he was a little bit arrogant, to be honest. He was telling me all about lion behaviour and I thought he was a bit full of himself. After we’d had our initial meeting, we drove out into the huge enclosure where Letsatsi was roaming free. This most enormous and beautiful white lion came bounding towards Kevin like a kitten. I asked Kevin if we could all get out of the truck. He shouted "No!" rather forcefully. So we sat in the truck and watched as this four-hundred-pound lion bounced up to Kevin and threw his paws around Kevin’s neck. Letsatsi then rolled on the ground and Kevin petted him and loved him as if he were a tabby cat. When Letsatsi put his huge fangs around Kevin’s leg, as I said earlier, I was worried. But Kevin swatted Letsatsi away with a casual, "No my boy", and Letsatsi rolled over. My respect for Kevin was cemented. Anyone who could relate to animals the way he did deserved every ounce of my respect and he could be as cocky as he liked!

A few days later the production team met at a coffee shop in upmarket Parkhurst. Kevin arrived with a brown cardboard box and placed it on the table next to his production notes. Then he announced that he would have to stop every fifteen minutes to feed the baby bird that had fallen out of a tree that morning. I didn’t just respect him any more, I loved him! 

We’ve developed a hugely strong sense of mutual respect since then. My friend Joanna Sterkowicz, who is the deputy editor of Screen Africa, interviewed him this week about White Lion’s winning three SAFTAs. She told him she’d just spoken to me as I was getting ready for the local premiere in Pietermaritzburg. Kevin told her what a special person I was and that I’m one of the nicest people he’s ever worked with. This after he’s been stabbed in the back so many times by people during this film that he’s vowed that he could do without most people, as long as he has his animals.  

If you had to describe the movie in four words, which would they be?

Heart-warming, nature-revering, South-African-celebrating, visual-feast. (!) 

Or concentrating only on the story: "An outcast finds a home." The logline says it best: "Home is a Journey."

What do you love most about the film?

I love John Kani as the narrator and storyteller, but more than anything I love the lions. I’ve seen the footage so many times that you’d think I’d be bored rigid watching the film again. But each time I see it I fall in love with the lions all over again. They really are the most beautiful creatures. I also love seeing scenes that I watched being filmed, of course. Watching this film also makes me realise how  blasé South Africans are about their continent. We have the most exquisite countryside in the world. Michael Swan’s exceptional photography has captured this so well that you’d have to be completely insensitive not to respond to the beauty of our country.

Do you have any tips for aspiring scriptwriters and/or filmmakers on how to survive in the jungle that is the film industry?

If you believe in yourself and your talent, persevere. You have to have god-given talent and a spine of steel, as Anton Krueger once described me having, to survive in this very tough industry. If  possible, you must believe that your path is predestined. I have all of these credentials and yet it’s been an unbelievably hard journey. But if you really believe this is what you’re meant to do, don’t give up. The only people who succeed are those who don’t give up. It’s taken me fourteen years, but thank goodness, I’ve crossed the threshold at last.

 Janet at the premiere in Pietermaritzburg last Wednesday with the manager of Hilton College Theatre.