Bladeworks, post production

2009 was certainly an interesting year! On 31 December 2008 we were still buying candles and researching property in Perth and with a combination of recession in the USA, global equity market negativity, high interest rates, the National Credit Act and power-outages, it all combined to create the perfect storm for the beginning of this year….

In general South African were already acclimatized to ‘the recession’ and this was not the first time there has been  doom and gloom with the South African economy and specifically the Film and TV industry; from which many of us have survived and lived to tell the tail…

Every few years the same situation arises. We experience massive economic and industry growth, everyone is optimistic and buys Nescafé Cappuccino, holiday homes at the coast, and the very latest 4 x 4. But then positivity gets ahead of itself and the economy overheats, panic sets in because the economy seems to be collapsing, but in actual fact it’s simply making an adjustment back to a reasonable level.

If we take the time to look back and see the historical patterns that are there to guide us, we can see that this exact situation occurred in 1989, when SA defaulted on its international loans and the stock market and Rand crashed, it happened again in 1994 when the ANC took power and everyone thought war would break out, and again in 1998 when interest rates hit 25% and you couldn’t give away your house, and then it also happened in 2001 when a very unstable guy arranged for two Boeings to fly into the tallest buildings in New York!

It is good to remember that on each of those occasions the mindset was that it was the end of the world and that there was no light in sight, but on each occasion the world didn’t come to an end; it recovered and in fact the international Film & TV industry made enormous strides in development, technology and production standards.

2009 was no different. Blade Works has weathered the worst of the storm and continues to strive for production and client service excellence. It’s was a challenging year but we believe that for every challenge there are numerous benefits; it’s merely your perception that dictates your view on the future.
We look forward to 2010 with hope that this year will bring the inevitable turn-around that we’ve all been waiting for – we welcome a whole new set of challenges and opportunities and thank each and every client and supplier for their contribution to Blade Works during the tough time.

We look forward to making outstanding and limitless productions with you in 2010…