Director Malehlohonolo Ntsooa, better known around Spitfire as Hloni, has very quickly, with the power production support of Spitfire and Executive Producer Liesl Lategan, built an impressive showreel featuring sports, food, music, comedy, finance and visual effects-heavy spots. We found out how this young determined talent rose up in the ranks of a top production company.
Massïf Films’ Gordon Lindsay has a reel that screams BIG BUDGETS, and although he has worked on many high-end jobs locally and around the world for the likes of Guinness and Tinder, the truth is a lot of the work was made on a shoestring. It’s not the budgets that have contributed to Gordon’s impressive reel, it’s his ability to craft visually exciting work.
Gorgeous Bushman aka Bathandwa Ngwendu spent the past year enrolled in The Storyteller Foundation’s programme. As the first recipient of the Foundation, he’s gained invaluable directing experience working closely under the mentorship of Lourens van Rensburg at 7Films. He has now officially joined the 7Films roster, open for briefs with the full production support of the established team. We get into how he was selected and his move into full-time commercial directing.
The Refinery, South Africa’s award winning post house, is under new ownership. Previously owned by eMedia Holdings, The Refinery in Cape Town and The First Order in Joburg now fall under The First Order Group, a proud Level 2 BBBEE Contributor for Post Production Services. We caught up with the teams from both offices about the new cross-country alliance.
It’s been almost a year since Bongani Morgan joined the team at Made Films and he’s hit the ground running. While collecting awards for his documentary Map1mp1 and TV show, The Braai Show with Cassper Nyovest, Bongani spent most of 2022 travelling across the country directing for the likes of Vodacom and Red Bull and months directing his new series for Showmax, shot across the entire KZN region. Now finally back home in Joburg, and available for commercial briefs again with the powerhouse backing of his production team at Made, it was time for a catch-up.
Dare Content is a production studio working directly with agencies to produce film, stills and animation. Launched in 2020 by Creative Producer Chris Coetsee, Dare already has the proven success to back their transparent budget approach to production. With no in-house roster of talent, Chris curates a team that he believes is best suited to each brief and at the heart of his company is what Chris calls ‘radical transparency.’
South African director, YouTuber and Founder of the creative production company JOE, Dan Mace, has joined forces with billionaire YouTuber, Mr Beast aka Jimmy Donaldson. According to Forbes, Donaldson is the world’s most followed person on YouTube. Dan has been appointed as the Chief Creative Officer of the Beast Philanthropy Channel on YouTube, tasked with carrying out the creative direction of the channel’s future content.
Pressure Cooker has seen massive growth over the past few years, not just in the high quality of work they are producing but also the sheer amount of in-house talent. The latest addition to the team is entrepreneur, businessman, and former creative, Brian Little. Brian will be joining the leadership team, taking on the role of General Manager. A General Manager at a post-production house? We also had questions!
Executive Producer and Founder of Osu Creative Productions, Simoné Bobo, has made her directing debut. ‘Play with Power’ is a short film created in support of the female Springbok rugby team. The film has been awarded the BEST Audio Visual Content Short Film at this year’s Hollard Sports Industry Awards (that’s like the Loeries for the sports world ya’ll). Not many people get to launch their directing careers with awarded work, but this is Simoné Bobo, and honestly, we would expect nothing less.
Let’s face it, team Spitfire has never quite fit into the traditional production company box. Over the past 10 years they have always approached work with the same attitude of ‘Where there’s a screen, there’s an opportunity’. But hey, a production company that has an in-house Head of Content is a production company that just thinks differently.
Director Meghan Daniels from Butterfly Films has delivered a visually stylised and striking spot for Count Pushkin. Working with their cast, athlete Chelsea-Sloan Samuels and Model and Dancer Sonwabile Mhlonyane, Meghan brought a playful and bold purple-fuelled world to life that we would happily get lost in.
In the past two years we’ve seen so much expanding from Howard Audio it’s been hard to keep up! Besides Adam Howard being ranked the top music Composer and Supervisor in 2020 at the Loeries, he’s also made some major moves for South Africa’s sound industry. First it was a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 studio and now Adam has collaborated with heavy-hitter Robin Kohl of Jazzworx to build a new immersive sound recording studio unlike we have ever seen. So obviously we have questions, four to be exact.
Osu Creative Productions’ director Yoza Mnyanda is definitely in the driving seat for the latest car commercial for Mini Cooper. Bringing her vibrant style, aesthetic and Gen Z perspective, Yoza has directed an unpretentiously cool spot about sustainability. Considering she is only in her second year as a commercial director, we have to say, if this is the quality of work coming from newbie filmmakers in our industry, we’re in good hands.
Never afraid of finding new ways of telling big cinematic stories charged with emotions, Star Films’ Tristan Holmes has done it again. His latest work is a music video titled ‘Bad Man’ for the heavy metal band Disturbed which was entirely made using AI-generated imagery created and stitched together by Tristan. The result is a grisly and unnerving work of art.
Perhaps the most awarded South African commercials director this year, it’s becoming clear that whatever Darling director Jeana Theron touches turns (and probably converts) to Gold. In collaboration with agency Grid, Jeana's latest offering for FNB is a beautifully crafted BIG juicy bank ad that sees a rousing foot tapping, head bopping, tongue-twisting refresh for the brand. 51 scenes, 18 location moves, 50 main cast members, 1 Jeana Theron, no problem
We got to meet up with Art Director, Daniella Dagnin to get some insights into what the life of an Art Director looks like. Just to clarify, this isn’t the Art Director that teams up with a Writer in the agency, we’re talking about the pros that are there to elevate and serve the director’s visual vision. They are the visual voila to storytelling, that if done right, can take your commercial from a Wessel Anderson to a Wes Anderson. Here’s what Dani had to say.
About to celebrate their ninth birthday as one of South Africa’s well-established production companies, They has released their updated operating manual. Known for their trademark use of the old school 4:3 TVs in their company design, the epic step-by-step guide covers everything from the basics to their more advanced functions. Read before use and become familiar with all the features of directors Alan Irvin, Grant De Sousa, Melany Ismail, Wandile Xaba and David Prior today.
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.
