“A lot of television these days is reality based,’ says Goran Music, company
director of Visual Impact South Africa. “Even news channels are starting to
resemble reality television in the way they are formatted. Reality formats
dominate TV viewing these days and for us this is not a bad thing because that
is where most of our business is coming from. We have been working on these
kinds of shows for years. We were actually involved with a precursor to reality
television, having worked on MTN Gladiators for several seasons. That was
before reality television even existed. And we have been involved with a lot of
major reality formats since then.’
These productions require gear. They are multicam shoots that need substantial
technical support and, in many cases, it is just not feasible to purchase such
equipment. It is best for the production company to approach a facility that can
provide the kind of quantity of gear needed as well as technical support. This is
what Visual Impact provides. Not only does it rent out the gear but will often
have technicians on set as well as offering data management services, which are
vital on shoots that yield hours of footage from multiple cameras. This kind of
large-scale production facilitation is the backbone of Visual Impact’s business,
although it works with productions large and small, from corporate videos to
major local and international film shoots.
Being affiliated with the international Visual Impact brand, Music and his team
have the advantage of being able to call upon their European partners when a
client requests a specific piece of equipment that they may not have on hand.
They can thus expand their capacity quickly without any capital investment.
Although Visual Impact stocks a wide range of brands, if it could be said to have
a speciality, it would probably be Sony. Visual Impact is an authorised Sony
dealer and thus holds a good range of its products and is particularly well
equipped to offer technical support on them. “We have a workshop, we have
access to spare parts and we can service those products with confidence,’ says
Music. “That’s not to say that we don’t supply other gear. We will work to fill a
customer’s requests and to provide a solution that best suits their needs. We
listen to the client and apply our experience to advise them. Then together we
decide on the best tools for the job.’
