The year that was… 2009

The biggest thing that happened to me personally this past year was the birth of my baby daughter, Alexa. Wow! What an awesome experience. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. So, yes, I have been filming and photographing her ad nausea. And she is proving to be quite a hit – winning a local photo competition with one of her photos (albeit of her hand!)

Goosebump Productions under went a little upgrade on the web site. We have also expanded our service offerings somewhat to include photography services – so we are now a one stop photo and video service.

Exciting projects included numerous projects with the WWF, including supplying footage to a Carte Blanche story around the mislabelling of fish, which was awarded the best insert of the year! I worked with the legendary Deon Bing, we did numerous shoots for Kyknet’s Reise en Soetkyse, filming the legendary Zebelon Dread from “Hey Voetsek” fame, and filming the AfrikaBurn art festival. Not to mention all the amazing newly weds we have had the privilege of working with while shooting some amazing weddings, and some “trash the dress” shoots – all in all we had lots of fun.

I am currently hard at work putting the finishing touches to the “Empowerment through education” project, which is looking good, and which can hopefully help change the lives of some underprivileged children… watch this space…

Goosebump Productions also shot Goldfish live at Spier – this was our coolest shoot of the year, and some of the footage was used on their awesome “Cruising Through” music video. These guys rock, and are making a good name for themselves and SA internationally.

We acquired a Canaon EOS 7D camera, which is not only a great stills camera, but it also takes the most amazing HD video footage, so I am finding it hard to get any work done with my new toys - one being Alexa!

This all being said 2009 was a really tough year, as apparently 80% of production companies in South Africa went bang this year due to the economic crash and the fall from grace of SABC, and their failure to pay their production companies. So we are happy to have survived the “naughties”. 2010, however promises to be our most exciting year so far, with some interesting projects in the pipeline – and then of course the 2010 world cup… and judging from the craziness around the draw – the actual event is going to be completely mad!

Here’s wishing you all a festive 2010!
Mark