Botswana’s Number One Videographer
Botswana, a landlocked small populated country is often times hardly given a second look in its efforts, especially the and in the creatives industry. But nonetheless, there are times when the entertainers, actors or films makers make head-turners that go along to be hat tipped, and from those kinds is our own cinematographer/videographer, Jack Bohloko.
He is a videographer born and raised in Gaborone. He grow up with a lot of passion for the arts and loved local music. He actually makes musical rhymes during his lonely times. Couple that with the fact that his passion for film making went on to be discovered when he was still in senior school where he would take pictures of students, then you have the birth of one of the best music videographers the country has come have. During the times he discovered the love for shooting he had bought a camera which he used to take pictures and sell them for P6 to fellow students. He said that he usually took random activities at school like school fights, funny and naught moments happing around the school. That came to be the moment he used the camera and fell in love with it.
Jack says that his way of filming that went on to be notable for came through an inspiration from a feeling he had. He says that he always felt like there was a loophole with the local music video industry. So what he went on to do was try and play around with the video production so one thing he did was adding up more shorts to his videos which gave a video that vibe and musicality to it. He added more shots and avoided the lack of camera movement for the camera, he made sure there was more movement to avoid shots that where still which make a video look bad. His approach went on to work and he has in his portfolio, the country’s best music videos that put Botswana’s music videos in the maps and internationally competitive. But of course even though he came to be a game changer, his start-up was not as easy. He like anyone starting up something had quite the challenge with business, people were not willing to pay and the toughest challenging was trying to get to shoot for someone big in the industry so that he could be taken as serious in the industry. He shoot 15 music videos for free before he could start getting the pay checks. It goes to show and inspire others out there that at times you do not have to rush for the money. It’s making your mark that matters and once you have it all comes in flooding.
“it won’t be fair to only say Jack Bohloko is the only one who changed the game, I had my time when I was on fire and I love the fact that the upcoming videographers are taking it to another level,” said the videographer when asked if it would be fair to say he single headedly helped shape the way of music shooting into what it is now. He went on to note that he really respects the work being done by the likes of Director Mo, Cyc Jouzy, Local Coner, Black Pixel and Re Mmogo Visuals among others. He said that the film industry is growing in terms of the products and filming and that the only thing that was left behind is the support especially from those who are able and can assist financially. He said that there was however a challenge that also limited the growth to the full potential of filmmaking in Botswana and that was of course the population but also the laws of the country. In Botswana, for example one is not allowed to use a police van or attire on a video. He said he has written endless letters to the police with no reply.
When talking on his relocation to South Africa, Jack Bohloko said that his move was due to the fact that he felt too comfortable in Botswana and his creativity from his perspective was down. He went to South Africa to get to challenge himself. He said that now that he is in South Africa he feels like the Lord sent him there to get to learn from the industry that side so that when he came back home, he be well equipped to turn the industry around. He said although for sure the money flow in South Africa was better than in Botswana in many ways. However, for him it was like he was an upcoming videographer and so he is at the moment working on attracting more business. He went on to say that he was not there to even get to compete with the known local productions but he was going actually learn from those big companies as a videographer.
Relocating to another country has to be one the tough things one has to go through and it’s been the case for the star and at some point he actually considered coming back home as he found it hard and he barely had customers. But through pushing he now is in a position to say he won’t come home any time soon until he gets what he to do over there. He went on to say that the one in his working there that he can say he brought something different to the local norm, he has some kind of working relationship with his customers that none has. He is the kind of person who allows other people to share their ideas during work and he says it makes up great work.
The filmmaker is currently at works with Lesotho’s Ntate Stunna and they are working on a series of videos which they are to release in time. The stars have been for the champ who recently got a gifting from YouTube. This is something given to a YouTuber who has surpassed a 100k subscribers as an appreciation and it is called Silver Plaque. He said that being the first Motswana to receive the plaque just showed him that anything is possible and the sky is the limit.
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Duncan Sebeso