Written by new-contact on May 29, 2013. Posted in On Location

Pirate TV drama Black Sails boosts location filming in South Africa

New pirate TV drama Black Sails helped boost South Africa’s production industry. The eight-part series used all four sound stages at Cape Town Film Studios and built sets including an artificial beach and a period village for the Caribbean-set story.

“There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle as to how you shoot an 18th Century beach town and ships and an ocean, and do it on a TV schedule and on a TV budget,” Series Creator Jon Steinberg told Bloomberg: “This ended up being the best of all worlds. The way the production has gone has been kind of everything you hope for.”

“Black Sails is a major step-up for us,” Cape Town Film Studios CEO Nico Dekker added to the outlet: “It’s the first major television series ever to shoot here.”

The sound stages range in size from just under 13,000 square feet up to 22,600 square feet and back lot facilities now include a permanent medieval village set. Comic book adaptation Dredd and spy thriller Safe House (above) are among the high-profile features to have filmed at the studios. Black Sails has been serviced by Film Afrika and will screen in early 2014.

(Safe House still: Universal Pictures)