Keepie Uppie

Craig Native made a big impact at this year’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town. Aside from his daring, African-inspired range of sportswear, his decision to open the show with Cape Town’s own ‘Sharkboy’ (amputee Achmat Hassiem) definitely made his showing one of the event’s highlights.

The sense of fearlessness and authenticity inherent in Craig’s approach definitely spoke to us, and so we decided to shoot a video look-book for his new range. In order to do so we enlisted Chris Njokwana – one of the world’s top soccer jugglers – to adorn the range and perform his magic. And that word isn’t used lightly. Watching him keep a soccer ball afloat as though gravity didn’t exist, there is no doubt that some form of sorcery or supernatural intervention is responsible. Physics alone just can’t explain what this man is capable of doing.

To round off this collaboration, we needed a film-maker capable of imposing a specific vision. We’ve worked with Michael Ellis a few times before, and decided that his lo-fi, hands-on approach was perfectly suited to what we had in mind. Handing over the general idea to him, Michael not only directed this piece, he also filmed and edited it himself. This freedom allowed him to create a very specific look and feel on the project, without the usual dilution that happens on big productions with dozens of people. On the contrary, this shoot was more of an exercise in guerrilla film-making, with just four people, a van, a parking garage, and a soccer ball, shot on a cold and rainy winter night.

The result is a beautiful distillation of the talents of three individuals into one short piece of film: A Triple Distilled Production. We hope you enjoy it.

At the Jameson INDIE Channel, we’d love to forge more unique collaborations between creatives from different spheres. .