Member of staff at Soho Images Cape Town

South Africa has two laboratories accredited to the KODAK IMAGECARE Program, The Film Lab and Soho Images Cape Town. These were the first two labs in Kodak's EAMER (European and Middle East) region to join the Program and that was now a full 10 years ago in February 1998. As these labs look forward to celebrating this important milestone this year, InCamera asked the managers for their thoughts.

Guido Rasura, Technical Manager of Soho Images Cape Town said, "When the IMAGECARE Program was first introduced, few filmmakers understood the importance of dealing with an IMAGECARE Program accredited laboratory rather than a non-accredited one. Ten years down the line, they are now well aware of the advantages. The knowledge that their film is being handled by dedicated highly-trained technicians gives them extra peace of mind and security."

"We feel there are two major benefits from the Program; for us it's the reassurance that we can give to clients that we deliver high quality processing and that our stringent methodology coupled with the use of kit chemicals ensures greater consistency. For our clients, it's the confidence that they are dealing with a highly professional laboratory that is regularly audited and monitored by Kodak."

Member of staff at The Film Lab, Johannesburg

His views were echoed by Tony Boyer, Manager at The Film Lab in Johannesburg. He said, "We have actively supported the IMAGECARE Program since its inception for a number of reasons. As we are 6,000 miles away from Europe down in the bottom of Africa, one always feels a little cut-off, we wanted to make sure that what we were doing down here in South Africa was on a par with or even better than what was happening in the rest of the world."

"The Program allowed us to have closer contact with Kodak and the fact that someone comes out to audit the laboratory and check all our procedures is not only comforting to us but also to our clients. We also critically examine everything that we have done during the year. We are continually looking at the way we operate, the way we maintain our machines and the quality of the end result."

"Training of our Staff has been extremely important for us and the Program has helped in this area. The fact that everything is documented makes it easier to put training programs in place."

"The Program has made it easier to convince overseas clients to use us and some of the productions that we have worked on recently and which won nominations for Oscars® were Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, Yesterday and of course Tsotsi which won the Oscar for 'Best Foreign Language Film'. The quality and standard that is required from motion picture laboratories these days is getting tighter and tighter all the time, you just have to be more consistent and reliable and the IMAGECARE Program helps us do just that."

Kodak's IMAGECARE Program Manager for EAMER, Antonio Rasura, concluded that "South Africa, as an emerging nation a decade ago, strived to compete internationally for business and reputation was always one of the more significant barriers to overcome. Association to the IMAGECARE Program was a means to achieve this particularly when it's backed up by a company with such a distinguished and respected name as Kodak. This credibility and transparency clearly appeals to international filmmakers."