His bow ties may be small but his dreams are big. Neither could have been born if it was not for the sight of his mother slaving over a hot stove.
On a balmy afternoon, we meet 21-year-old Emmanuel Mohlala, a bow tie designer, at his studio in downtown Johannesburg.
Mohlala is surrounded by a collection of his velvet and leather bow ties.
Entrepreneurship was always in his blood. He made his first buck selling fatcakes in high school to help his mother’s spaza shop. Selling fatcake after fatcake, he realized his love for the world of business.
Then he suffered the heartbreak of seeing his mother baking at 1AM.
“At the time, I felt so useless. But I always knew that I’d make her proud,” says Mohlala.
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In those lean times, his dreams kept him going.
He was born in the dry and dusty Ga- Mampuru village of South Africa’s Limpopo province and grew up in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg. He is the fifth of six children.
After matriculating in 2013, Mohlala took a year off for soul searching.
“I needed to learn the ropes of business,” he says.
In May 2015, he teamed up with his eldest brother to start the Clanman brand.
“I started the business with an old tie I got from home; I had to use it to make a bow tie which I sold to get enough money to buy one meter of fabric,” says Mohlala.
“For me, they are exclusive. It’s something that should be worn on special occasions.”
Mohlala needed money to start his business. Unfortunately, no one was willing to invest.
“I was turned down at various shops around Joburg CBD for months.”
“My turnaround happened when I got a Theatre boutique at Eastgate Mall, that’s when I started to see a way forward in my business,” says Mohlala.
Though the business hasn’t made a lot of cash, Mohlala thinks it will grow into a profitable one.
Currently busy with a collection of bow ties, under his business, he has dressed South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, and celebrity Maps Maponyane.
Mohlala’s advise to his peers?
“Do thorough research. Know the pros and cons of the business you’re going into, so that you can tackle challenges when they surface.”
“When I started, I thought everyone would be supportive of my business.  Soon I learned, to succeed you have to sacrifice a lot, and that friendship and business don’t go hand in hand,” he says.
He hopes to have at least a collection of watches and sunglasses under his belt by 2020.
And he would like to design a bow tie for Nigerian entrepreneur and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote. If he continues to dream big, he will.

The Entrepreneur With Success Tied Up

While the ink is punctured into his skin, a middle-aged man, with his arm resting on the chair, smiles and chats nonchalantly to his wife. She is waiting patiently for her turn. Both have a carefree demeanour as they get scripts tattooed on their arms. Another lies with his hands behind his head as if he were lying on the beach.
These unusually relaxed people are inside Fallen Heroes, a tattoo studio on one of the busiest streets in Parkhurst, a suburb in Johannesburg. Inside, the constantly buzzing machines compete with the music and chatter in the background. The scent of freshly-brewed coffee wafts through the air as the artists concentrate on their masterpieces.
Beautiful artwork adorns the walls, everything is immaculately clean and there is a tidy little garden at the back. It is strangely soothing and couldn’t be further from the grimy parlours seen in movies.
“It’s fun for me, it’s not really a job. I come to work and I color in,” says Jinx, one of the artists at Fallen Heroes.
Ethel Laka recently opened her own tattoo shop near Auckland Park in Johannesburg. Ethel’s Tattoo Studio is surrounded by creative businesses, vibey restaurants and bakeries. She is the only artist in her studio.
“I’m very comfortable with solitude,” she says.
Laka is an artist that chooses to use skin as her canvas.
“I love the skin tones and the shades they give. You can get so many different hues on different colored skins,” she says.
She also enjoys the social aspect of her profession.
“The human interaction is wonderful. It’s priceless stuff. You meet people every day and it’s fulfilling when you blow their minds. I live for things like that.”
“People want to connect; they want to talk to you. And it’s the vibe in the shop, the music, the attitude, how you treat them. Every day is different.”
Although they love their work, the life of a tattoo artist is not all play.
“Tattooing is really hard and humbling. It can be very discouraging because there are so many variables and you can feel like you’re getting it wrong a lot of the time,” says La, another artist at Fallen Heroes.
“It’s quite stressful sometimes but I don’t get too nervous anymore,” says Candi, also of Fallen Heroes.
“Everyone thinks we have a rock star lifestyle and go and get drunk and party. It’s not like that. You come in to work and tattoo from 10 ‘til six, then you go home, do designs, go to sleep and come back. It consumes your life,” says Jinx, who says if she had her way she would have dropped out of school to be a tattoo artist.
“My mom had a brain and made me finish.”
These women defy convention, especially in South Africa, which Laka describes as conservative. All have tattoos on their body. Although it is rare, they occasionally get judged because of the artwork on their bodies.
“Sometimes I’ll be in a mall and parents will put their kids behind them like I’m going to steal their child! I get mixed reviews and it’s from one extreme to the next,” says Jinx.
Glen Hodgson, the bassist in multi-platinum selling South African band, The Parlotones, gets some of his tattoos done by Marisa Noordergraaf at Tattoolya and Meghan Potgieter at True Blue Tattoos. Even though he is a rock star, his tattoos generate strange reactions.
“I get a lot of double takes; in the shops, at the golf course. Kids just stare at me! Everyone asks me if they’re permanent. It’s like they have never seen a tattoo before. Once, a lady at the check-in counter at an airport in Botswana took one look at me and outright refused to serve me! I’ve had people in shops try to ‘save me’ too. One guy told me I need to tattoo Jesus in my heart. I said, ‘It’s okay, I’ve already got him on my arm’. It seems that a lot of people just assume you’re trouble because you have tattoos,” says Hodgson.
Despite these reactions, tattoos are becoming more popular.
“It’s very hip. I’m amazed by how popular it is now. I never thought my most profitable enterprise in business would be tattooing,” says La.
“Media has a big part to play in it. People see television programs, like Miami Ink and Tattoo Nightmares, and come in the next day and want the same thing done. They want to come in and hold your hand; they want to cry about it because the girl on TV was crying about it… It’s free advertising, I love it,” says Laka.
Social media also creates business for these artists. The most common tattoo designs can be found there.
“If you look on Pinterest, anything on there. We have a lot of infinity signs and the birds bursting out of the feather,” says La.
“Hopefully that trend will go away quite soon,” says Jinx.
Laka gets the same requests and says it can get tedious, but she accepts it because she sees herself doing a service.
“You get tired of it, but wow, when you get a chance to do that outrageous eye the size of a ruler, or a bloody skull! Those are the things that inspire us,” says Laka, ever a fan of the macabre.
“Some things you want to do for the artistic value. A skull and the blood and the maggots would make a great tattoo but you can’t sell it to everybody.”
There is still some taboo associated with permanently inking your skin.
“There is an awareness about placement because people are worried about their jobs. Or in the case of women, their husbands don’t want them to be too big,” says La.
“A lot of people think that tattoos ruin your body, especially on a woman. It’s getting better but there will always be closed-minded people in the world,” adds Candi.
Health issues can be a problem. Pain and swelling can occur as well as infections, such as hepatitis.
“I’ve seen them and they happen a lot more than people like to admit. The problem is people get tattoos from unhygienic studios,” says Laka.
“There are three or four sterilizing processes that happen before you can start with the tattoo. Also, the needles are one-use needles. Other than the machine and the grip, everything gets thrown away,” says Jinx.
The artists also have to be wary about clients that are pregnant or on blood-thinning medication.
Post her interview with us, La noticed a small bump on her client’s stomach and had to turn her away after finding out she was an expectant mother.
A lot of people don’t get tattoos because they think it won’t look good as they get older.
“When I’m 80 years old, I’m probably going to be worrying about a hip replacement rather than what I look like. I’m also not going to be running on the beach in a bikini,” says Jinx.
“By the time I’m wrinkly, it’ll be normal for people to have tattoos,” says Candi.
People sometimes try and find a personal meaning to get a tattoo but the artists say you need to be careful about this.
“Meaning fluctuates and you change while your skin stays your skin. Tattoos should be decorative,” says La.
“If you enjoy a picture or a piece of art, you don’t need to link it with anything. Most of my tattoos are just pictures that I found along the way,” says Jinx.
Tattoos can be more than decorative though. They are often used to transform the scars on women who have had mastectomies.
Laka says she has done many areolar reconstruction tattoos and is happy to help women restore their confidence. Being a woman tattoo artist helps with this work.
“If a client wants a tattoo on their breast or has had breast cancer, they tend to go to a woman because they feel more comfortable,” says Jinx.
Whatever the reason for getting them, tattoos are becoming more popular. Candi is reluctant to call it a trend though.
“Tattoos last forever, trends don’t.”

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The Rock Stars Of Body Art

It’s February 2014. The New Year is already distant. The overcrowded yoga studio is thinning out as the New Year’s resolutions fade. I like more space but I don’t like what it means in terms of women letting go of their resolve to take better care of themselves this year.
Sometimes I draw a Wheel of Life with clients and ask them to place descriptors on the spokes for the different roles in their lives. They generally easily combine their professional and personal selves: executive, mother, spouse, member of professional body, MBA student, extended family member, board director, church committee and so on. I ask them to rate, from one to 10, how important each role is – marking the spoke with a colored pen. Using a second color, they rate the effort they dedicate to each role. With the third colored pen they rate their level of satisfaction. Together we consider the alignment and discord, and the changes that are needed.
There’s often one role missing. My clients stare at their wheel, puzzled. “What about the role of self-care?”  I ask rhetorically. Without self-care every other role may be jeopardized. It is extraordinary how many people relegate and neglect self-care. Steven Covey’s concept of being “properly selfish” needs more advocacy. I admire the women I’ve had the privilege to work with for over a decade but I often fear for them. They are outstanding achievers but at what cost to their long-term selves?
Whilst this column was named Headspace, I aspire to work with clients on the connectivity between our headspace, emotions, body fitness and energy. I’m increasingly respectful of the power of breath. It seems like the simplest thing – breathing. We’ve done it since the day we were born. Yet breathing consciously can contribute to our ability to create different choices and outcomes for ourselves.
As CEO of the Land Bank my medical check-up revealed high blood pressure and the blood analysis indicated high levels of cortisol – another indicator of stress. I spent 10 years on chronic medication. Then I read that one of the beneficial effects of meditation is improved blood pressure. My meditation breathing has been one of my best investments and I’ve had four drug-free years.
“So how have things gone since our last session?” The client gives me an update and the very recall of the events spark a panic attack. I’m able to draw on my training on breathing for relaxation to assist my client to recalibrate and regain their equilibrium. Another client is battling with insomnia – again certain breathing exercises can induce sleep and act as an effective alternative to slipping pills and their possible side effects.
My favorite easy breathing tool is one that I often teach clients, both individuals and teams, to use when they need to interrupt a burst of anger that might otherwise lead to behavior they will later regret. It’s aptly named S.T.O.P.
Imagine the traffic light. STOP. On red, take a breath – breathe in for the count of four. On amber, observe and hold your breath for the count of four. Then proceed to green, breathe out for the count of four and repeat. Focusing on the breathing breaks the anger burst in the way that a fuse breaks the electrical circuit when there’s danger of overload.
Another conscious breathing practice includes movement. Perhaps you’ve seen people doing Tai Chi, which resembles slow-motion ballet. Chi or Qi (Mandarin for breath) embodies the concept of vitality and life-force. While western medicine works with two body networks:  blood veins and the nervous system, the Chinese work with a third network, that of meridians. When meridian flows are blocked people experience fatigue in spite of clocking up hours of sleep or cardio training. It’s worth considering learning the body-breathing exercises that stimulate Qi.
I hope I’ve made you curious on two counts. Firstly, to consider what your wheel of life look likes. And secondly, the role that breathing plays in an expanded concept of fitness. Remember that leadership roles are stressful and self-care is paramount.

S.T.O.P.

In a golf-cart-type vehicle, Nico Dekker zooms between stages, cheerfully greeting staff as he drives past. “Hello!” he greets to the left. “Howzit?” he shouts to the right in South African slang for “How are you?”. The cart zigzags over a short patch of sandy gravel road, climbs a small hill and comes abruptly to a halt next to an ancient water well.
Dekker, CEO of Cape Town Film Studios, sportily jumps out of the vehicle and starts walking in long, determined strides through what is southern Africa’s first permanent backlot (an area outside a film studio used for outdoor filming).
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It’s like time travel. A couple of minutes ago, Dekker, casual in jeans and a dark-blue shirt, stood in the middle of one of the studios’ enormous four stages, pointing out its ultra-modern, high-tech features. Now he strolls through 13th-century Carcassonne, a medieval village of thatched stone houses, arches and narrow lanes in the south of France. The $2 million outdoor set was built for a TV production by English film director Ridley Scott, based on Kate Mosse’s bestselling thriller, Labyrinth. Now it is used as a backdrop for any movie set in ancient times.
“Impressed?” Dekker asks while running his hands through his strawberry-blond hair. It’s the effect he secretly hopes for. “I rather undersell the studios and surprise people, than make a big announcement and struggle to live up to it,” he says, his grey-blue eyes twinkling. Since the Cape Town Film Studios became operational in November 2010, Dekker has sought little media attention, letting the films produced here speak for themselves.
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Since opening, the studios have attracted Hollywood productions like Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio, 3D action film Dredd, superhero movie Chronicle, and Safe House, starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Presently, South African director Anant Singh, whose company Videovision Entertainment is a major stakeholder in the studios, is turning Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, into a movie here.
The feedback from Hollywood has been positive. Jim Dodson, executive producer of the 20th Century Fox film Chronicle, said Dekker and his team did “an amazing job in laying out and designing the [Cape Town] studios”. Because production costs are much lower in South Africa than in the US, the movie cost $12 million to produce but made more than 10 times that amount at the box office. The Cape Town studios had produced a film that “looks like $100 million for less than half that figure”, said Dredd producer Andrew Macdonald. “Now that’s value for money,” Dekker beams. “We give life to film projects that were seen as unaffordable in the US or Europe.”
South Africa—particularly the region around Cape Town with its beaches, mountains and winelands—has been a prime location for the advertising and film industry since the dismantling of apartheid in 1994, which led to the lifting of sanctions.
“It offers beautiful locations and an incredible variety of landscapes, all within a three-hour radius,” says Dekker. Cape Town’s palm-lined Camps Bay beach often serves as a tropical backdrop. Only two hours outside the city, the barren scenery of the Cederberg or the arid Karoo make for desolate desert settings, while the green hills around Grabouw, an hour’s drive from Cape Town, give an impression of the Swiss Alps.
But until the studios opened, material shot in and around Cape Town was taken overseas for studio work, post-production and visual effects—and that’s where the real value-add is taking place.
This has now changed. Cape Town has become a destination for both location shoots and high-end studio production. Producers go home with a finished product. That’s a tremendous economic opportunity for the country, according to a 2010 Deloitte Touche study, which found that every dollar spent on studio-based film production leads to $2.50 in GDP. At full capacity, the Cape Town Film Studios can add about $180 million to South Africa’s GDP, says Dekker.
With a $750 million annual turnover, the film and television industry contributes a big chunk to South Africa’s economy, creating employment for 30,000 people, and jobs in related industries such as transport, hospitality and catering. Although the Cape Town Film Studios only employ 16 permanent staff, large productions provide an average of 400 jobs over a six-month period, Dekker says. That includes not only highly skilled technical personnel but also work for carpenters, builders and garment workers who build props and make costumes—this means jobs in a country where almost a quarter of the population is unemployed.
The decision to go ahead with the film studios was nonetheless a gutsy and expensive structural investment. It cost $41 million to build the 17,000m2 complex of four stages with support rooms, production offices, green screens, workshops and a cinema on 200 hectares of land a 40-minute drive from central Cape Town and 10 minutes from the airport.
The South African government made it clear that it was not prepared to take on the financial risk. Instead it called for public tender in 2003, which was met with skepticism. “The initial feedback was negative,” admits Dekker. “Most industry experts were extremely skeptical about an African studio handling high-tech shoots.”
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It took five long years to find the money. In 2008, the bulk of the budget was put up by a consortium of Sabido Investments, which owns South Africa’s free-to-air television station e.tv, and Singh’s Videovision Entertainment, which has received international praise for movies like Sarafina! with Whoopi Goldberg and Red Dust with Hilary Swank. “It was not a safe investment. It had its risks. But I felt they were reasonable given the exponential growth of the local film industry in the past decade,” says Singh.
Wesgro, the investment and trade promotion agency in the Western Cape, contributed 10% to the budget, while a group of local business investors hold a 5% share. South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry and the City of Cape Town spent $6 million on road infrastructure to access the studios.
Months of research followed. Dekker visited major studios to learn from their experience. “I asked everyone from Fox to Disney, Universal and Warner to share what they would do differently if they were building today,” he says. The result: The Hollywood Reporter ranked the Cape Town studios among the world’s top 10 last year.
Although Dekker admits that studios are generally the industry’s “loss leaders” because their high overheads cut sharply into profits, he believes it will take a mere five to 10 years to see a return on investment in Cape Town. “Even if not all of the stages are always occupied, there hasn’t been a day the studios have stood without production,” Dekker says. They have already started to write black numbers before tax and interest.
“The studios start looking like a really good investment,” agrees Singh.” More and more international productions are coming in. The successes of films like Safe House and Chronicle prove us right. Now even the skeptics say building the studios was a smart thing to do.”
Dekker has ensured that there will be various additional sources of income: the land, on which the studios stand, has been zoned into residential, retail, commercial and light industrial areas, including rights for a hotel. Twenty film-related companies will move onto the site within the next couple of years.
The South African government has, meanwhile, recognized the studio’s economic potential. To make the country more competitive internationally, it is considering scrapping the cap on tax rebates. Currently, foreign producers who spend more than $1.5 million on a South African production and film half of it locally over at least four weeks qualify for a 15% rebate. This is small compared to other countries like Belgium, Brazil, Spain or Hungary, which offer incentives of 40% or more. In contrast to South Africa, their governments also provide free resources such as access to police, army, navy and government institutions and co-financed marketing.
That means South Africa faces some stiff global competition, especially from other cheap locations like Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Chile, which offer low rates, highly skilled technicians and are geographically much closer to the US or Western Europe. It needs to “offer the best overall package”, as Dekker calls it. “Some of the world’s most sought-after locations at affordable rates, together with a film studio on par with Hollywood in an English-speaking environment,” says Dekker. “There is huge potential to unlock.”

Tag: Studio

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Entrepreneur With Success Tied Up

The Rock Stars Of Body Art

S.T.O.P.

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