Johannesburg, 27 September – When two global superpowers collide – the results are truly epic.
Funny or Die, founded by comedic powerhouses Will Ferrell and Adam McKay with over 1 billion views and 70 million followers globally and Samsung, the world leaders in innovation and technological advancement, merged powers for a groundbreaking knowledge sharing session earlier today.
Brought together by Capacity Relations, global leaders in the content creation game shared their tips and tricks of the trade with a South African audience.
The key speakers who shared unsurmountable knowledge about the creation of compelling content were the highly regarded:
- Craige Fleischer – Director: Integrated Mobility at Samsung
- Dashiell Driscoll – Senior Social Content Producer at Funny or Die
- Christian Heuer – Head Producer of Digital Video and Virtual Reality at Funny or Die
- Derick Watts and the Sunday Blues – Cape Town based comedy duo responsible for hilarious viral videos such as ‘Stop The Knot’
The roadshow and award ceremony was hosted by influential South Africans such as Toby Shapshak, Anne Hirsch and Darren Simpson.
Topping off an informative and exciting day, the 360° of Funny competition, powered by Samsung, came to a head as the winner of the short script competition was announced.
Stephan van der Merwe walked away victorious with a cash prize of R50,000.00 and a S7 Smart Phone, 360° camera and VR technology, courtesy of Samsung for his epic video “The Maybe Baby”.
The organisers would also like to congratulate the runners up; Grant Morrow and Jared Sassman.
The goal of the event was to leave South Africa’s talented young content creators inspired and empowered in the hopes that they would take the insights to help skyrocket their creative careers.
Visit – Funny or Die
Visit – Samsung
The Winner – Stephan Van Der Merwe
Stephan van der Merwe, born in Cape Town, is a long-time admirer of film and motion picture – practically growing up in front of a TV-screen, feasting on all kinds of programming available. After completing a 3-year course in Film & Video at CPUT Film School, Steph now works in the South African film industry as a freelance spark, grip and rigger. Creatively, Steph has continued writing scripts as his passion and hobby – writing theatre productions for Childline Western Cape. Steph dreams of one day being, miraculously, blessed with the ‘gift’ of flight; whether that be like a bird, or Superman, or on the back of a Luck Dragon. Steph’s not too picky about it. Until then, he’s very happy with walking.
Runner Up – Grant Morrow
With German heritage on his mother’s side and New Zealand heritage on his fathers, his interests lie in politics, philosophy, psychology and economics, which he feels storytelling and film is the perfect medium to express his ideas. His mother started one of the first production companies in South Africa which has motivated his passion to succeed in film. He is currently in his 2nd year at City Varsity studying Film, with the dream to direct.
Runner Up – Jared Sassman
Jared spent his time at film school wisely by editing during his holidays, editing his first televised commercial at age 19, followed by cutting a pilot starring major South African actors and thereafter editing a series of reality documentaries intended for sale to Belgium television. After graduating with a degree in motion picture production plus a number of film school awards, he took on freelancing where his editing skills were sharpened and tested on a wide range of projects such as promos, music videos and corporate videos.