With the series coming to an end tonight, it was only fitting to get inside information from the producers of Intersexions.
It's a bit long but worth the read:
What inspired the idea of creating a drama such as Intersexions?
The idea of the drama series was to highlight issues relating to sexual networking which stemmed from research in South Africa that one of the key drivers of the epidemic in South Africa relates to the issue of multiple sexual partners: low and inconsistent condom usage and the linkage between high levels of alcohol consumption and unsafe sex.
A study conducted in 2009 for example found that 30% of South African men under the age of 30 years of age reported having multiple partners.
When a person has multiple partners they immediately become part of a sexual network that increases their risk of HIV so it was important to communicate the risks of this to South Africans.
The creative execution of this idea was proposed by Uzanenkosi from ANTZ multimedia who wanted to do a show that was based on the six degrees of separation - which was the original name for the show - but we decided on Intersexions as what we are exploring is how the sexual lives of people intersect over time because in sex there are no strangers.
With programs such as Soul Cty, Soul Buddies and Yesterday already educating us about HIV and Ads, why did you feel the need to create Intersexions?
We all have overlapping programmatic imperatives and we all complement each other through exploring the dynamics of HIV through different lenses.
Also, lets not forget that HIV is not something that can be done every six months it should be communicated about every day and also that we have different audiences with different tastes, likes and interests.
Intersexions is also not the first HIV programme that Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa has worked on.
We also supported TshaTsha, 4Play - Sex Tips for Girls, Scrutinize - which is targeted at youth audiences - and Brothers for Life, which addresses men.
So each facet of the campaign is designed to speak to different audiences in their own languages and in their own creative way.
We believed from the outset too, that Intersexions would be doing something different to other HIV and AIDS communication initiatives - although all are obviously important and valuable.
The creative approach we took was to speak to a broad and diverse South African audience because the HI-virus affects all sectors of society.
The premise of the series is that our lives are interconnected and that as soon as we have sex, we are immediately locked into a network that connects us all - often in unseen ways.
We believe that HIV is a virus that takes root and spreads when there are fissures and cracks in those sexual relationships. The premise of the series allowed us to tell different stories each week with interconnecting characters.
The approach to the stories was not to judge behaviour but to reflect what happens - to hold a mirror up to our lives. We showed consequences of actions - like the consequences of one night stands, sex under the influence of alcohol or unsafe sex. But we left judgement and critical engagement up to our audiences.
We think that this is partly why the series has been so successful - we believe audiences are intelligent enough to "get" the moral of a well-told story without needing to bombard them with overt HIV and AIDS messaging each week.
Do you think we've had enough HIV and Aids programs and that people finally get the message?
You know, I hear this a lot from the media but if people are fatigued with HIV messaging then why did Intersexions on Facebook get close to 16 800 members over the past 26 weeks?
Also, HIV is not going away and we must learn from Uganda and the gay epidemics in the North - the moment we stop messaging on HIV prevention the epidemic curve continues to increase.
In South Africa we still don’t have the luxury of stopping HIV prevention messaging. The levels of HIV in our population is high, we constantly have young people who become sexually active.
Messaging serves to reinforce the positive behaviours amongst those that are practicing those behaviours and also serves to ensure that people that may have stopped re-engage with those behaviours so we really cannot stop programming.
You've touched on every aspect of people's lives in your seres. How much effort did it take to put drama together?
Planning for the series started about two years ago with the concept. Prior to that we had conducted one national HIV communication survey to see where the gaps were in relation to the epidemic and then to plan an intervention that would address these gaps.
The national survey was followed by focus groups that gave us insight into how South Africans think about HIV prevention and the languages that they use when talking about these issues.
Each episode was pre-tested with the focus groups and based on that some tweaks were made to the scripts prior to finalization so in each step of the way we have consulted the audience and have drawn from everyday experiences of HIV to tell this story.
The production made a titanic effort to shoot in as many diverse spaces as possible in a short space of time - we shot on close to 200 locations. We had a huge ensemble cast (33 leads and about 150 extras and supports).
We tried to create characters, scenarios and locations that were outside of the locus of just Johannesburg city. And even when in Johannesburg we tried to find stories that were not normally told. We tried to draw on the diversity of the population's demography without bias or prejudice.
We have to mention too that Intersexions worked with incredible talent behind the scenes and that we were committed to developing talent beyond "the known" personalities.
Two of the directors on Intersexions were trainees and performed exceptionally well. We worked with crew, cast, story researchers, editors and production talent that were very committed to the series and were very excited to be part of something so daring and fresh.
They gave so much of themselves and it all contributes to the success of what viewers see ultimately on screen. It would be great if young people could watch a series and be inspired by excellence - inspired not just to become actors or stars but also creators of content.
Every episode featured popular industry faces. Why did you take that approach?
It's true that there were some popular industry faces on Intersexions but we made a conscious decision to not only cast known personalities.
Intersexions launched the acting careers of a number of first-time actors who have never before been seen on screen. In cases where we cast known personalities we were careful not to typecast them either.
We took this approach because it is our belief that South Africa has an enormous wealth of untapped talent if we decide to look hard enough.
We also consciously decided to introduce new and fresh faces to the screen - people with backgrounds and accents we wouldn't normally see on television - but who exist in our society.
continued in Part 2 ...