OCTOBER 2015

Boo! The month of ghouls and goblins has had us frightfully busy working with some of our favourite killer clients on some bloody awesome jobs.

End of October saw the launch of Blade Dubbing, the latest addition to the Bladeworks facility. The space boasts five recording booths and all running Pro Tools for any and all audio dubbing needs. Anika Dohne has taken the departmental reins and will be heading up Blade Dubbing as primary producer.

The star-studded Cell C Summer came to its vibrant and colourful completion at Blade this month thanks to the direction of Jono Hall from Darling films and the amazing 1886 team headed by Stu Stobbs. The grade done by Craig Simonetti and Jean du Plessis headed up a team of nuke artists and a Nitris completing the comping and online. Basically 12 days crammed into five - BELIEVE. BFX and Moving Vector completed all the CG and animation.

Y&Rs magical Pick & Pay Christmas commercial was also recently graded, onlined and animated here at Blade. This memorable Johnny Cohen spot sees a fuzzy little Teddy Bear take us around a family home as it's transformed into a fantastical festive wonderland. BFX received assistance from Polygosh and Moving Vector on the animation laden spot. Definitely up there with the best of the British retailer Christmas spots.

Ogilvy Johannesburg's DSTV Explora, featuring Gabriel Macht from the popular series Suits was directed by the evergreen Greg Gray from Velocity. Flame by Gavin Hong and a Baselight grade by Craig Simonetti.

Greg Rom stepped into Nitris and Baselight to complete a series of three hilarious Incredible Connection commercials poking fun at 'tech that turns on us'.

Castle Lager Boys reunion - Coming home. How nice it was to be able to see a two minute version of the original 30" TVC for this campaign bring the story to life in such an exquisite way. The two minuter really heightens the emotion of this touching story and was exquisitely shot. Thanks Sunu Gonera of Egg Films who directed this beauty with Ogilvy JHB. At Blade our team was Jaco Kraamwinkel for online and Craig Simonetti and Ciretta Frezza for colour.

In ending we welcome Sias Jordaan to Bladeworks. He's joined us as a 3D generalist adding to the already highly talented pool of operators here to make visions and dreams come to fruition.

SEPTEMBER 2015

Sheesh! Its' September already and this year is FLYING by, keeping us out of mischief! We have been very fortunate to be busy with all sorts of amazing productions. To see what we have been up to, keep reading.

Huggies ' Pantastic ' is a campaign that was put together by Ogilvy Jhb with Greg Rom of Gentleman films. Their concept allowed us the technical challenge of working to create the stop animation style to make the babies come to life. With a team of three compositors working with a combination of Flame and Nuke we worked to make babies in their 'natural enviroment' look like they are doing a dance routine! We enjoyed working on something so different!

With the Rugby World Cup finally here we had the pleasure of finishing Absa 'Rugby' with Adrian De Sa Garces and Gregg Bailey from Velocity Films as well as the creative team from The Jupiter Drawing Room. These beautiful spots showcased everyday heroes of our country. Jean du Plessis crafted the main spots and Martin Lloyd worked on the squeezebacks that will be used during the World Cup games.

With the springboks not being able to go to London for the shoot post production played a critical role in bringing elements from several shoots together.This whirlwind job came in with 12 days crammed into 4 days! We put our team to the test and the results speak for themselves. Thanks for entrusting us with this one Spitfire and Oglivy Jhb. Craig Simonetti was the colourist and Jean Du Plessis and Ben Horter lead the post with several online guys helping out. Isaac Liu working on the 3D elements.

Giant's talented Robin Goode directed some moving spots for FNB with Foxp2 JHB recently named Heart of Gold. The commercials, finished by Jean Du Plessis, tell a beautiful story about fatherly love. Jessica from our Tinker Tailor department crafted the title animation in After Effects for the banking apps and titles. Craig Simonetti was colourist.

JULY 2015

So ,we're officially in the second half of 2015. How time flies, especially when you have been whizzing through some interesting projects. Here's a taste of what the Bladeworks team has been up to.

Rob Malpage from Velocity along with the team at Ogilvy Cape Town completed the S.A version of this new tough and tempting car commercial for Audi. Jean Du Plessis, Craig Simonetti and Isaac Lui can take the credit for the gripping ad now on air.

Bar One 'Fireman', directed by Hylton Tannenbaum of Bioscope Films, stopped by for some online polishing by Jean Du plessis and a little bit of colour by Craig Simonetti.

We had the pleasure of working with Jeana Theron, director from Darling, on the visual masterpiece for Inecto. Jaco Kraamwinkel - online. Craig Simonetti - colourist and Isaac Lui as animator.

The lastest Disprin 'Stevovo' ad directed by Morgan Dingle of Your Girlfriend was also recently completed at Blade by Ben Horter in Flame, Nic Apostoli in Baselight and Shaun Froneman from BFX. Disprin also received special mention on IDIDTHATAD where they said that, even though it's "mad and entertaining, it still makes its point".

Tinker tailor and BFX have been doing magic on the new Ellies 'Good things happen to good people' campaign which brings beautiful illustrations to life.

The next thrilling KFC character piece has the team hard at work, as well as Telkom's 'Futurehood' which was also completed during the month.

As the very busy slide downhill to the end of the year begins we look forward to having as much fun as in the months past.

JUNE 2015

Cold, nippy, winter days may be the current forecast for Johannesburg but here at Blade we've been keeping warm with some hot new work. The inspirational Nedbank 'Reins', directed by Greg Gray with creative by Joe Public, recently made its way to us for grade and online.

Cell C 'Dog', a cheeky take on consumer exploitation was also completed here. Whilst Wimpy 'Bottomless chips' saw our BFX team create a set of quirky end logo builds.

Also from BFX, Waltons 'Walt's World' as well as Builders Warehouse saw the creation of a host of lovable 2D and 3D characters.

Tinker Tailor, our retail division, has just finished up the Golfers Club winter sale campaign as well as the comical Disprin 'Fever', an appropriate spot for the season.

APRIL 2015

Bladeworks are the post production facility for AMPN’s 'I Love SA’ on ETV and Sing Off for SABC1. Both productions are offlined on our Avids linked to one of our three Isis and graded on Baselight.

MARCH 2015

Bladeworks and Pudding are proud to have been involved in the top three winners in the Creative Circle Ad of the month for January 2015.
The top three are Greg Gray’s Chicken Licken '15 Bucks Meal' and Dial Direct 'The Notebook' along with Keith Roses’ 'Coca Cola Share a Coke and a Smile Bobby 2'
Thanks for trusting us with your work. We look forward to more of the same in 2015.

Another award for Greg Gray's 'Chicken Licken Bang Bang', completed at Bladeworks.
This time the accolation comes from IDIDTHATAD under the category- SA film reel (Best of reel)

FEBRUARY 2015

Back Up Generator.
Don't let load shedding get in the way of producing great content. Blade has a generator which powers the entire building. So it's business as usual. Feel free to pop in for a cappuccino or freezochino, plug in your laptop and carry on working.

JANUARY 2015

2015 has started with a bang for Bladeworks with both commercials and long format.

We opened our doors in January, filling up several online and animation suites with the latest Castle Lager Superfans commercial with Director Sunu from Egg Films & Ogilvy Johannesburg. We also completed Greg Gray’s (Velocity Films) latest commercial ( still to broadcast) with NetworkBBDO.

Also, long format reality shows for various broadcasters are lining up to do their post production at Bladeworks.
Steve Harris (MD) has relocated to Cape Town to grow the new Waterfront studios venture and will look after Bladeworks interests on local TV shows in Cape Town.
TV show director stalwart Warren Bleksley moves into the GM position to lead Bladeworks and to steer the company into long format post production services. Warren has many years of television experience particularly reality shows and live television. He has directed the previous two seasons of Survivor South Africa and many other international formats. Warren also has many years of live television experience sitting in the hot seat as the technical director on Africa’s biggest shows.
Craig Morton will step up and take care of the TV commercials and production, the core business that built the success of Bladeworks.
Fraser Rowe moves onto other opportunities in the industry and his contribution to Bladeworks over the years has been massive and greatly appreciated by employees and management. We wish him well.

Bladeworks has facilitated the entire post production process on season six of Survivor Champions. Bladedit handled the media management on the island and prepared all media for the edit on the Isis.
The facility created a hub at Bladeworks where 60 terabytes of footage was available on an Isis where six Avid offline suites all linked in.
The entire series then went through the building to the Baselight where it was graded. Audio files were sent to Cut and Paste down the corridor where it was mixed in 5.1 surround sound.
A first for an MNET local production. The delivery was made on a portable drive in High res HD for broadcast.
The entire post production process took eight months. 18 x 64 minute shows were successfully broadcast on MNET for the first part of 2014.
Survivor was hugely successful in terms of workflow that has since attracted long form producers to our facility.

Brand experience agency Launch Factory briefed Bladeworks to manage the post production of the Advertising funded Production, Holiday Swap KZN for SABC1.
The media was managed on the ISIS that had three linked Avid edit suites to it.
One edit suite was assigned to multicam syncing and sub-titling to fulfil the vernacular obligations while the other two suites cut alternate episodes of the 24 minute reality game show. The play outs were then down converted and transferred to beta cam for SABC. This homegrown TV format has huge potential to grow with another season currently being considered. Catch Holiday Swap KZN of Mondays at 18:00 from the 9th of February on SABC1.

OCTOBER 2014

Bladeworks is very proud to be the top Post Production house according to the LOERIES® OFFICIAL RANKINGS™ 2014, with Pudding also achieving 4th place in the Television, Film and Video category.

We had a fantastic year having been involved with six commercials which were awarded with Loeries.

Have a look at the commercials below with the relevant credits listed if you click on each commercial on our website

1.Skrillex Ragga Bomb
2.Business Day Understand your country or lose it
3.Flight Centre Student Flights
4.Coca Cola Bobby
5.Amstel Lager The Chef
6.Chicken Licken Big John

Well done Team Bladeworks!

SKRILLEX - RUGGA BOMB
Director - Terence Neale
Editing Company - Left Post Production
Editor - Evy Katz
Film Production Company - Egg Films
Music & Sound Composition - Ragga Bomb by Skrillex
Producer - Rozanne Rocha-Gray
Post Production Facility - Pudding, Bladeworks
Grade - Craig Simonetti
Online - Jean Du Plessis

BRANDHOUSE BEVERAGES - AMSTEL (THE CHEF)
Agency - Owenkessel Leo Burnett
Agency Producer - Helen D'hotman
Director - Greg Gray
Editing Company - Deliverance
Editor - Ricky Boyd
Film Production Company - Velocity Films
Music & Sound Composition - Dave Harris
Recording Studio - Freq'ncy
Post Production Facility - Bladeworks
Grade - Craig Simonetti
Online - Gavin Hong

BUSINESS DAY - UNDERSTANDING YOUR COUNTRY OR LOSE IT
Agency - Owenkessel Leo Burnett
Agency Producer - Noeline Van Den Berg
Director - Greg Gray, Gregg Bailey
Editing Company - Deliverance
Editor - Anthony Lee Martin
Film Production Company - Velocity Films
Music & Sound Composition - Dave Harris
Recording Studio - Freq'ncy
Post Production Facility - Bladeworks
Grade - Nic Apostoli
Online - Jean du Plessis

CHICKEN LICKEN - BIG JOHN
Agency - Net#work BBDO
Agency Producer - Caroline Switala
Director - Trevor Clarence
Editor - Saki Bergh, Left post
Film Production Company - Your Girlfriend
Music & Sound Composition - Say Thank You, Produce Sound
Post Production Facility - Bladeworks
Grade - Craig Simonetti
Online - Jean Du Plessis

COCA-COLA - BOBBY
Agency - FCB Johannesburg
Agency Producer - Vanessa Borthwick
Director - Greg Gray
Editing Company - Deliverance
Editor - Ricky Boyd
Film Production Company - Velocity Films
Animation Company - Wicked Pixels
Music & Sound Composition - Dave Harris, Freq'ncy
Post Production Facility - Bladeworks
Grade - Craig Simonetti
Online - Gavin Hong

FLIGHT CENTRE – TRAVEL BEFORE IT'S NOT FUN ANYMORE
Agency - TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg
Agency Producer - Sandra Gomes
Director - Dean Blumberg
Editor - Claire Stewart
Film Production Company - Bouffant
Animation Company - BFX
Animator - Riccardo Vitale
Recording Studio - Produce Sound
Post Production Facility - Bladeworks
Grade - Craig Simonetti
Online - Martin Llyod

AUGUST 2014

Gavin Hong’s recent collaboration with Greg Gray on Coca Cola Bobby has now gone world wide, screening in about 55 countries. Enjoy a few laughs watching Chicken Licken Rock your soul directed by Peter Pohorsky and finished by Jaco Kraamwinkel.

Jean Du Plessis did some amazing work on the latest Skrillex Ragga Bomb music video which to date has more than twenty five million hits on Youtube!

Jean also worked on Chicken Licken Trucker with
Trevor Clarence of Your Girlfriend recently. Martin Lloyd and our BFX animation department teamed up on some excellent spots for KFC Justice League Spain

Besides commercials, Michael Henrey did some amazing work on Future sounds of Mzanzi, a very contemporary documentary screened at the latest Durban Film Festival.

Check out all these clips by clicking on the Blade showreel page.

INECTO - LIVE COLOURFULLY

Audi - Q3

NEDBANK - REINS 3 MIN

DISCOVERY INSURE - VALET DRIVER

SANTAM - ONE-OF-A-KIND

HOLIDAY SWAP - KZN SCREENER

CHICKEN LICKEN - BANG BANG

DSTV - GROW OLD WITH ME

DSTV - STAY

DSTV - THE ME YOU DESERVE

CASTLE LAGER - SUPERFANS 2015

DIAL DIRECT

VODACOM - SAMSUNG S5 MINI

VODACOM - MORE SUMMER

BFX Motion Graphics Showreel 2014

BLADEWORKS SHOWREEL 2014

CELL C BELIEVE & MAKE IT #EPIC

ASA BAMI 2012

204 - GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER OFFICIAL CINEMA TRAILER

DILAMAN - GOING HARD

SKRILLEX - RAGGABOMB

HENNESY - DIRECTORS CUT

JEAN DU PLESSIS - SHOWREEL

MICHAEL HENREY - SHOWREEL

GAVIN HONG - SHOWREEL

CHICKEN LICKEN - ORPHANAGE

CASTLE LITE - TIMBERLAND