“KG’ Moima dreams of introducing the entertainment industry to rural communities
and feeding them with the wealth of possibilities within their communities…
Kagiso “KG’ Moima is the owner and founder of full-service lighting company
Blackmotion Production that specialises in providing entertainment lighting systems.
With a vision and future as bright as his enthusiastic personality, KG plans to bring
skills, entertainment and information to rural communities to expose them to the
wide array of career possibilities within the entertainment industry.
The beginning
While at school, KG was president of the Student Representative Council (SRC) and
he felt the school needed some spunk and arranged quarterly folk shows with
“singers’ miming on backing tracks, using old large grand speakers as the PA. But,
the career-type interest in the entertainment industry sparked at the age of 17
when KG and his cousin found themselves backstage of the entertainment at a
career expo they attended with their parents. “The stage was huge and built out of
scaffold pipes, and it had minimal lighting and huge Electrovoice speakers that were
about 1.2 metres wide, all stacked on top of each other. I wasn’t sure how, but I
knew that was the moment I realised I wanted a career in the entertainment
industry,’ he says.
He went on to graduate from the Tshwane University of Technology in 2001 with a
National Diploma in Performing Arts Technology, and majored in Lighting, Sound
and Stage Technology. Following that, KG spent six weeks at Prosound doing his
internship for the course and when he realised that lighting is the direction he
wanted to go in he went to MJ Event Gear and courageously did a presentation to
Mike Jones to secure his first “real’ contract of employment. “You have to know
what you are doing before you walk into Mike’s office and ask for a job. I was so
nervous!’
Jones gave KG the opportunity he needed and he spent two years working in sound
and audio visuals and learning about the lighting industry. In 2003 KG left MJ Event
Gear having solidified a working relationship and experience that would bear fruit
for later years.
Personal development
“One day I received a call from Izak Furstenberg of Urban Brew Studios and he
wanted me to join them doing television lighting. I had never done TV lighting
before and because I wanted to diversify my lighting skillset I gladly joined them. I
wanted to learn all forms of lighting design and TV lighting proved to be totally
different to concert and industrial lighting. The whole philosophy is different – you
need to light the set, create a mood, create a look and feel that the SABC wanted,
and light the actors. I learnt very quickly because I only had four weeks with Izak
before he left me to do the lighting on my own.’
“One of my first sets was the Castle Loud entertainment show, and I thought I did
an awful job in lighting it. All I had done with Izak was the Live Lotto Draw, which
was simpler than Castle Loud. The set just had darkness everywhere, but the
producers assured me I was improving with each show and that kept my confidence
levels up during that learning curve.’
Next was 3 Talk with Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu, a show for which KG had
sleepless nights trying to light in his head before even seeing the set, but it was the
compliments from this show that made KG realise that he did in fact have talent
and a career in the lighting world, and this is where he “cut his teeth’ in TV lighting.
After gaining an extensive amount of lighting experience lighting game shows and
talk shows, KG needed to expand his knowledge and skills in the TV lighting
industry and went to work for Frans Marx Films to light drama TV.
Becoming an entrepreneur
In 2005, KG started his company, Blackmotion Production, and at the time the
industry was dominated by a mono cultural group which seemed undemocratic and
biased in creativity. KG believed he had enough courage to participate in this
heavily competitive industry by offering sound business relationships with his clients
based purely on cost effective creative lighting services. So his business sprung to
life, operating mostly on weekends.
It took a while and it was when KG got a call from Moja Movie Factory that he was
able to take the plunge and turn his weekend business into a full-time venture. Moja
Movie Factory offered Blackmotion Production a lighting contract for a sitcom it was
about to start producing and there was a real possibility of securing a second
season as well. Among the building blocks of getting Blackmotion Production off the
ground was MJ Event Gear and Duncan Riley, owner of DWR Distribution, who set
up an enterprise development agreement to help him get the lights he needed to be
competitive in the market and have payback terms that suited KG. “Duncan was my
pillar in terms of building resources within my company. If we had not spoken, then
the enterprise development wouldn’t have happened. Duncan was that spring board
to get us into the market.’
As an emerging company in a market full of experienced competitors, Blackmotion
Production had to focus on its skills, knowledge, final presentation and its product
offering, to position itself in a way that made clients choose them for their
credentials and skills and not for their black ownership.
“We decided to dig deeper in the general market and find niche markets where
other companies were not looking. We have managed to mould and develop that
niche market as the country is changing and progressing and laws are being made
to help companies, particularly black-owned companies, be considered for jobs in
previously unobtainable markets, where we were previously unable to compete with
because of our lack of long term experience and reputation in the market. So
moulding our niche market had more to do with personality than anything – because
people do business with people they like. So we had to be likeable. We had to
change how we speak and dress and how we present ourselves and that became the
cornerstone of building a niche market for ourselves.’
The company also keeps ahead of its game by partnering and subcontracting larger,
more experienced companies such as Gearhouse and MJ Event Gear to take on the
jobs that are beyond Blackmotion Production’s current scope, and project manage
them to learn and gain skills. “The highlight of my career was when I got a call to
go to Accra in Ghana, to light a Chris Brown concert. This is when I realised we can
be a multi-national company and offer our services to the rest of Africa as
well.’
KG’s vision is to bring what the entertainment industry has to offer in terms of
career possibilities, to rural communities who rarely venture to cities and therefore
do not get the proper exposure to all the money-making, economy-producing
possibilities out there and help ignite thriving rural economies so that urbanisation
can be stopped in its tracks and maybe reversed.
The next big thing for KG
KG says the most important industry innovation in the last decade has been the LED
light. “LED is the way forward. They are energy-efficient, durable, offer design
flexibility which allows lighting innovators to continue producing new innovative
lights that offer different characteristics for entertainment lighting.’
LED features prominently in Blackmotion Production’s lighting offerings, and is sure
to feature in the business’s next five year plan which kicks off in 2016, when they
plan on building their first amusement park in Mpumalanga, in a township
community that is already performing well. “We want to bring the technology and
entertainment experiences to the communities while creating brands that speak to
people about lifestyles and self-empowerment, we want to spawn dreams and new
careers for youngsters to aim for. People in townships don’t usually know the vast
array of opportunities that they could do in their townships to ignite the economies.
The future is bright. We just need to have the stamina to keep it going,’ he laughs.
“I had to come to Johannesburg to get the skills and knowledge I sought, and now I
want to take them to the rural areas and distribute information and opportunities.’
To conclude, KG urges companies of all sorts and sizes in all industries to invest in
their people and send them overseas to learn from our international peers to keep
South Africa relevant and forward-thinking. If all companies did this then there
would be a constant cross-pollination of skills and development and all companies
and industries would benefit from it, even if people move from company to
company.
