Cape scraps rule that gave camel stars the hump
FIVE stars from the Western Cape are ready to make a comeback to the silver screen after a two-year dry spell.
Phantom, Musa, Hassan, Ali and Sindbad, possibly South Africa’s only celebrity camels, will perform in a movie next month.
The resumption of their acting careers is thanks to a decision by Cape Town officials to lift a ban on animals being used in film shoots at the Atlantis dunes on the West Coast.
Their agent, licensed animal wrangler Nicole Jennings, said the dunes were the only location in or near Cape Town resembling the desert, and therefore the only place the beasts could work.
Rudi Riek, a film industry consultant, said the municipality had previously argued that the use of animals in shoots posed a threat to the environment. With each international shoot, he said, about R1-million came into the country.
“We estimate that 30 shoots which required an animal on the dunes were turned down over two years,” he said.
“This is from statistics obtained from animal handlers. An international commercial generally has a daily budget of R1-million, including staff hire, equipment, models, the animals and their handlers’ accommodation and so on.
“If the shoot cannot take place on the dunes it needs to go to another city and sometimes even another country, so the city as a whole loses out,” said Riek.
Eventually the provincial “red tape reduction unit” stepped in and the camels are now allowed back on the dunes under strict supervision.
But not before the long period without work had forced camel owners Dietmar Keil and Kerstin Heisterkamp to consider selling them.
The camels, aged between 10 and 12, used to land five to 10 jobs a year, including roles in Amelia with Hilary Swank.
Keil said they had also starred in many commercials, “for example Three Ships whisky, Coca-Cola, Visa and Nissan, to name a few”.
When they are not hobnobbing with or carrying celebrities, he said they ate, dustbathed, lazed around and loved interacting with visitors at their home, a farm in Paarl.
Jennings said that in the past
We estimate that 30 shoots which required an animal on the dunes were turned down over two years
camels which the defence force employed for border patrols in places like the Kalahari had been used in films.
But these animals had been old and after they died, the five youngsters took their place.
“When that border patrol [unit] closed down one guy took over their camels who were between 60 and 70 years old,” said Jennings.
“Eventually they started dying off.”
Her company, Animal Tails, trains and works with a variety of animals — including insects — on film sets, still photography shoots and fashion shows in South Africa, other African countries and Dubai.
Jennings said the Atlantis dunes were a great drawcard. It was easy to get the camels or other animals to the area, they were just a few kilometres from some of the top hotels in South Africa, and experienced film crews were always available in Cape Town.
When the dunes were off-limits, she had to find alternative locations and ended up in Macassar, near Gordon’s Bay.
But the dunes could not pass for a desert. “Camels are big animals, so when you have four of them in a string and you want to pan to the left there is ocean, or pan to the right there is this mountain.
“What do you do? Shoot them in the static? Macassar is also treacherous and it is difficult to get the camels down there. In the Atlantis dunes you can see them in the camel train, they can walk comfortably and to the viewers it looks 100% like a desert,” she said.
It has been about three months since the ban was lifted but word that the location can be used again has spread slowly.
As for Phantom, Musa, Hassan, Ali and Sindbad, they are back in training as ships of the desert.