Director of Photography Services

Here is how this works in practice. We assign Directors of Photography to your South Africa production according to genre, format and the look your project demands, drawing on a community of cinematographers who have lit global features, long-running series and high-end commercials. Cape Town is the country's production capital, with a DP roster ranging from emerging operators to seasoned heads of department whose credits include studio work at Cape Town Film Studios and location shoots across the Western Cape. Our DPs work with from the brief stage onwards, joining tech scouts, building shot lists and selecting camera and lens packages through the country's mature rental houses.

Here is the short of it. This carry ARRI Alexa, RED and Sony Venice bodies alongside full grip and lighting inventories. Because South Africa has a large, competitively priced film-services industry, your DP can specify and crew an entire camera department locally without importing personnel. We also set up work permits when a production prefers to bring an established DP relationship into the country, pairing them with a local camera team who know the locations and conditions intimately.

Here is the breakdown. South Africa rewards cinematographers with extraordinary natural variety within short travel distances. The Western Cape offers a Mediterranean climate and dry, sunny summers from November to February, the prime production season, delivering the trusted strong light that has drawn shoots here for decades. A DP can move from Table Mountain. The Cape Peninsula to the semi-desert Karoo, the Cape Winelands, the Drakensberg or the bushveld of the Kruger, doubling South Africa for an huge range of world locations.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. The country's rebates, administered by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, historically offers foreign productions a rebate of around 25 percent of qualifying local spend, with an uplift for post-prod completed in South Africa. The favourable rand exchange rate stretches budgets further, English is the working language of the industry, and the SAST time zone at UTC+2 aligns comfortably with European production schedules. Films from 'Invictus' to 'The Woman King' have tested how well the country's light and locations serve ambitious cinematography.