TSO Productions opens for business in South Africa
Published: MEA
SOUTH AFRICA: Having gained plenty of experience and knowledge of the South African A/V market, technician and musician Kgomotso Malebye has established his own technical production company: TSO Productions.
During the company’s first few months of operation, Mr Malebye has been busy supplying the technical setup for broadcasts of the Gsport Awards, the SuperSport United Awards and Gender Mainstreaming Awards (GMA) as well as for the Brutal Fruit Netball Premiere League, Nedbank Cup and Telkom Knockout. Already in the diary as an upcoming job for TSO is the SAB League.
While Mr Malebye has relied upon renting equipment from companies such as MJ Event Gear or Blackmotion Production, he has been steadily building TSO Production’s own inventory. He recently purchased six Longman LED par cans and Prolyte trussing from DWR Distribution. As his company’s stock continues to grow, Mr Malebye is soon hoping to add an MA Lighting dot2 console and Robe Robin 600s to the company catalogue. ‘I always hire the Robin MMX from MJ Event Gear so in future I would like to buy fixtures that can take the MMX gobos,’ the TSO founder stated.
‘There is a demand to buy more gear because the word has gone out quickly and I’m doing a lot of work,’ Mr Malebye continued. ‘I feel blessed because as you know it’s a tough industry and the competition is high.’
One reason for the rapid spreading of word can be attributed to Mr Malebye’s commercial savvy, making particular use of the equipment that his company owns. ‘I only use Shure microphones and one thing I did was brand them,’ he explained. ‘So on television you could see our company name. It worked out very nicely because everyone called me after that live shoot.’
Prior to starting TSO Productions, Mr Malebye started his career at MJ Event Gear before working at Gearhouse South Africa and then for Lloyd Wild as technical production manager. Starting a new company has been a change of pace, with no large team as of yet, but his past experience has seemingly served him well.
‘I have a lady who helps me with my books, two casual workers and I hire freelancers when needed,’ Mr Malebye noted. ‘I usually program my own lights and if it’s a sound job, I will do the sound. It really helped me to have worked at various rental companies because I was exposed to different things and learnt very quickly.’