Murangi Productions started as a family-based technical production and rental company way back in the year 2000.
The company is now based in Edenvale, Johannesburg, South Africa and is run by Hendrick Nemalili and his wife Rose.
The company is named in memory of their late firstborn son, Murangi Nemalili who passed away in 2007 after a car accident.
His spirit lives on in the energy, drive and dedication of Hendrick and Rose who ensure that the business stays relevant, successful, and developing as an enterprise, offering the very best service and values to its clients in honour of Murangi.
Murangi Productions supplies full-production and crew to corporates, awards ceremonies, live shows, music festivals and a lot of church-based events including gospel shows and has recently expanded its inventory of Robe moving lights, with the purchase of 12 LEDBeam 150s and 12 350s with 12 PAINTES on order.
Like many businesses in South Africa, Murangi Productions scaled back during the pandemic but was robust enough to survive, and they are now steadily gaining momentum again, with the assistance of their 12 full-time staff.
At the end of 2022 Hendrick and Rose were confident enough about the industry bounce back to make this major outlay on new Robe fixtures.
The LEDBeam 150s arrived first shortly after the order was placed, soon followed by the LEDBeam 350s in February of this year.
“We wanted something that was super-punchy and that could be a wash and a beam,” Hendrick elucidated on the LEDBeams admitting that, as a noise boy himself, he called in Murangi’s chief lighting designer, Musa Mthetwa, to advise on the purchase.
They then reached out to Duncan Riley from DWR, Robe’s South African distributor, whom they have known for many years, who also recommended the LEDBeams as the “way to go” and Hendrick and his team were delighted.
The LEDBeam 150s he loves for their tiny size and the fact that they can be used “virtually anywhere” as beams, washes, and for general eye candy.
The slightly larger LEDBeam 350 – one of Robe’s most popular fixtures – he describes as “fantastic, super powerful, they work really well for so many different styles of show and have made a huge difference to how we can light events.”
The first show for the new LEDBeams was the 2023 North West Sports Awards held at Sun City Superbowl in March, for which they supplied the full production with Musa as the LD.
It’s perhaps not surprising that these were not the first Robe luminaires in the Murangi house.
They also have 12 LEDBeam 100s – the precursor to the 150 – which have been invaluable to the lighting department again for their small size and lightweight making them ideal for a diversity of events.
The eight Spikies in the inventory have been used to create many elements of lighting magic.
They also have eight miniPointes and a couple of PixelPATTs which are perfect for ‘scenic lighting’ and back-of-camera shots on shows which involve cameras – which is most of them now.
Hendrick and Rose visited the Robe factory in Valašské Meziříčí in the Czech Republic this year after the Prolight+Sound show in Frankfurt, Germany, and were really impressed with the set-up.
“It’s very different when you see a product being made for the first time! You can then really appreciate the value and quality of what you’re getting” he stated.
He added that he thinks Robe “really stands out” as a brand for so many different reasons, especially “the human factor involved in the production,” which is something he feels is important and fundamental in business and in life.
Hendrick also has plenty of great comments about DWR and the levels of locally based client and technical support.
“You feel like you are their only client … no matter the size of the order!” he concluded with a smile.
Hendrick has been in the events and music industry all his life and is completely passionate about it.
He started as a musician, playing guitar at a local church in Venda Limpopo every Sunday amongst other gigs.
He then studied music at the University of Venda in Limpopo where he graduated with a BA degree in Music, followed by his teaching diploma at the same university majoring in English.
He then enrolled for a diploma in sound engineering at Allenby College in Johannesburg, graduating in 1998.
The same day of his graduation he was offered a job by the head of Sound Engineering school because he was one of the top students. From that day he never looked back.
Murangi Productions was first registered in 2004 and started trading formally in the same year. But before then, Hendrick ran it as a smaller production company that mainly focussed on weddings and parties as early as 2000 when Murangi was born.
