Amy Allais for King James JHB’s latest Capfin commercial ‘The Matriarch’ has woven together nuanced performances with beautifully cinematic landscapes. The emotionally engaging story tugs at the heartstrings and the honest storytelling will resonate with many South Africans.
‘Finding the Forgotten Graduate’ is a massive ten-part digital storytelling campaign that takes us back in time to honour the pioneering intellectuals whose stories have almost entirely been omitted from our history books. Howard Audio was responsible for crafting the composition, sound-design and final-mix of the audio for this groundbreaking project and thanks to him and the whole team involved, the rest is history.
Launched over 15 years ago, Audio Militia has established itself as one of the leading specialists in post-production sound in South Africa. More recently though these veterans have seriously been shaking things up at company HQ. We spoke to Co-Founder and CEO Nick Argyros and newly promoted Executive Producer Catherine Grenfell about their new and incredibly cool centralised studios and a recently developed division that offers easy translation and dubbing services to expand projects into broader African markets.
Sharing an ethos of working with honesty and integrity to produce creative excellence, The Rudeboy Collective welcomes director Batandwa Alperstein to the roster. With their powers combined, Batandwa and Rudeboy plan to build on his heart-centered approach to making advertising.
Sound Designer Kyle Koekemoer is bringing his love of audio storytelling and technical expertise to the established team at Pressure Cooker. With a company approach of ‘made by many’, Kyle will now become the 17th team member to work under the roof of Pressure Cooker’s Cape Town studio. He will be bolstering the studio’s commercial offering by joining the Sound Design and Final Mix Department, where he will work alongside and collaborate with Pressure Cooker’s Colin Daniel.
Giant Films have announced the signing of award-winning documentary filmmaker Jessie Zinn for commercial representation. Jessie may be new to the commercial world but she is not new to filmmaking by any means – her latest documentary ‘Drummies’ is a short film that has just been acquired by the New Yorker (yes, the actual New Yorker!). One of South Africa’s accomplished commercial directors and fellow Giant, Karien Cherry, talks to Jessie about the film, the pursuit of truth and how (spoiler alert) their fear of failure drives them to do great work.
Being an advocate for mindfulness certainly comes in handy for Robot’s Paul Ramaema, especially considering how busy he’s been. Since joining the production company two years ago Paul has consistently been creating commercial work for top brands and agencies. We caught up with the new dad and self-proclaimed selfie king about how he’s found his rhythm as a filmmaker while still maintaining a balance.
Massïf’s director and co-owner Nare Mokgotho has quickly established himself as one of our country’s rising comedy directors with a reel injected with razor-sharp comic timing rooted in grounded performances. Now for most biographies that would be enough, but Nare is also an award-winning visual artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide for over 13 years. We caught up with him to find out where these two worlds of art and commercial directing collide.
Since launching four years ago, Strangelove Studios have quickly carved a space in South Africa’s post production world as the team with their fingers firmly on the pulse of what’s cool. Based in Cape Town and available for bookings in Joburg, the team have consistently been spreading their high-level of craft across the country. We take a closer look at one of their Editors, Shelby Ncube, and the part he’s played in the post house’s success.
DISCO, the talent management company based in Cape Town, now offers agencies and brands full production support and a roster of commercial directors. Anton du Preez is one of the first directors to sign with the company and brings a truly unique take and visual language to commercial directing. Let’s dance!
Working with Joe Public, the team at Bioscope were tasked to create the launch campaign of the new insurance company, The Unlimited. The result of the ambitious undertaking is 21 short films that are all united by one common trait, they are about people who have the undying will to defy expectation and challenge the norm. We go behind the minds of Bioscope to find out what it took to bring the campaign to life.
If you’ve worked with industry heavyweight director Kevin Fitzgerald before, then there is not much more to say. All you really need to know is that he’s recently joined the powerhouse team at Carbon Films, which is where you can contact him. Great, you’re all caught up and can stop reading now. For those of you who haven’t worked with Kevin yet, continue reading…
Director and photographer Ndumiso Sibanda has joined Ola! Films; a storyteller with a strong visual eye, a deep love of Africa and its people and a passion for filmmaking that stays with you long after you’ve met him.
Since joining Arcade almost 3 years ago, director Alexa Wilson has consistently been creating work across diverse genres, from comedy spots, car and finance ads to moodier alcohol commercials. The Alexa thread that is carried through all this work is her strong visual language, local texture and meticulous attention to detail.
Cape Town and Johannesburg-based production company, Robot, has announced that Ayanda Tshabalala will be joining the Jozi team to facilitate the growing demand for commercial work. Ayanda will be bringing her years of industry experience, across various fields in advertising and production, by stepping in as Executive Producer.
Established as a director known for crafting intimate thought-provoking and always culturally relevant work, Lebogang Rasethaba has recently directed two inspiring pieces of storytelling for Apple TV+. The design docu-series Home, features some of the most remarkable houses across the world and the visionaries behind the designs. We spoke to Director and Partner at Egg Films and Co-Founder of Arcade, Lebogang, about the experience of directing two of the season’s episodes; one set in South Africa and the other in Ghana.
‘I sometimes wish I had left the ad agency world sooner, but when I look back I realise I was always working toward becoming a director. Everything I have done and achieved has led up to this moment. Even though technically speaking I have only been directing for a few years, for me, it’s been over a decade in the making.’ Says Art Director turned Filmmaker Thina Zibi.
‘Free Surfers’ is a two-part documentary series honouring two South African surfers who overcame adversity and found their freedom in the ocean. This is a significant piece of South African storytelling, in fact, without it an important part of history might have been lost forever. We go behind the scenes with CCO of Net#work BBDO Roanna Williams and Bioscope Films’ director Kyla Philander.
Over the past 13 years Butterfly Films has established a reputation for being a team of filmmakers that always approaches the work with humanity first. Being around them you can’t help but be energised by how they live and breathe filmmaking. This is equally true for the latest two directors to join the Butterfly family; Directors Sandulela Asanda and Meghan Daniels.
It’s been just under a year since director Hallie Haller joined The Rudeboy Collective. Her strength as a storyteller and an energetic collaborator has seen her hit the ground running, not only directing big brand campaigns and TVC’s but also promoting her short film at festivals around the world. Hallie chats about her latest beauty ad that’s not a beauty ad, and how being a human in advertising has paid off.
