Every creative in Jozi knows the feeling, has heard the stories, has felt the gates honing in, preventing us from scaling our dreams as a collective, because we'd rather keep each other out of the doors that could blow this whole industry open, not for one, but for all.
I'm Keeks. And the Jozi creative community has a problem.
Picture this. You're at a screening in Braam or a launch in Maboneng, and someone is doing exactly what you want to pursue. They’re shooting the campaigns, booking the studios, getting the calls. You want to ask them how. How did you get in? What do you charge? Who gave you your first yes?
Most of the time, you don’t ask. And when you do, you usually get a smile and a vague answer. “You just have to put yourself out there.” “It’s all about who you know.” The door stays closed, politely.
That’s gatekeeping. It's rarely cruel, but almost always silent. And there you stand, outside the door when someone obviously holds the keys.
WHY WE HOLD ON SO TIGHT
Gatekeeping is not about bad people who don't want you to win. It's about a scarcity mindset that has us all so fearful of losing an opportunity to the one we basically handed it to. In their minds, there are only a few budgets, a few brands, and a few rooms worth actually being in. Sharing what you know feels like giving away your seat. So we keep our rates quiet, we guard our contacts, we let the next person learn the hard way, because that's how we learned too.
It makes sense, but it costs the grander collective as a whole. Every creative who has to figure out everything alone wastes years alone, in the dust, that they could spend making things. Every rate kept secret makes it easier for clients to underpay all of us. Every talent person who gives up because they couldn't find the door is a film, a song, or a brand this city never gets to see.
Ubuntu says your humanity is tied up in mine. The creative version is simple: your success is tied up in mine. When one of us is underpaid, the rate drops for everyone. When one of us breaks through and pulls others along, the whole scene rises and the whole team gets to eat, at the same table, side by side, looking each other in the eye as peers.
Joburg doesn't lack talent, it lacks connection. We are a city of brilliant people working in separate rooms.
FORSAKE THE FORMULA
There's a script we've all been handed that we are forced to follow, yet born to break: Keep your cards close. Compete. Protect your corner. Never let them see how it’s done.
You know the story, and it's been ingrained in us from a very young age. Colour within the lines, obey the rules, write what's on the board word for word and don't deviate in the slightest...dress the same, act the same, move the same, be the same.
VRBATYM is an active refusal of that call. If we want to change the system, we must disrupt the system. If we want to change the industry, we must disrupt the industry. There's no more lines to colour within, and we need to stop acting like just because I made it, you can't too.
This is what people get wrong about ungatekeeping. We're not opening the doors so everyone canal. on the same road. We share how we did it so you don't have to do it our way. Take the receipts, the routes, the hard lessons, and then go make something nobody has made before.
No keywords allowed, no templates for your voice. No word for word, no bar for bar, but writing that story, that song, how it was written in your soul. Acting that role, the way your body tells you to.
Here’s what that means in practice:
The Receipts. Real budgets. Real rates. Real contracts. What a shoot actually costs, what a studio session should go for, and what to put in writing so you get paid. The numbers people usually only whisper.
Open Doors. Conversations with Joburg creatives about exactly how they got in: the first gig, the first piece of gear, the person who took a chance on them, and the mistakes they’d skip if they could do it again.
In the Room. Reports from the events, screenings and sessions happening across the city, so people who weren’t on the list still get what was shared.
Made Together. Collaborations, open calls, and tools built by creatives for creatives. When we make products with other artists, they share in what those products earn. Nobody eats alone.
About the shop
Let’s be honest about something, because that’s the whole point.
VRBATYM sells things: templates, packs, kits, the tools we actually use, but here's the line we're drawing. Everything you absolutely need to learn will be free. The articles, the breakdowns, the how-tos, the receipts. nothing important will sit behind a paywall.
The shop is for when you'd rather not start from a blank page. You can read exactly how to build a production budget here for free, or you can buy the one we already build and save yourself an afternoon. Your choice, and nobody gets locked out either way.
That's how this stays independent and how it pays the creatives who build with us. A community that feeds its own lasts longer than one that depends on outsiders.
I AM BECAUSE WE ARE.
I'm a filmmaker, a musician, an author, a content creator, and someone who runs a production company in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. I've stood outside plenty of closed doors. I've also, if I'm honest, kept a few closed myself. VRBATYM is me choosing to stop.
Everything I know, I learned from someone. A lecturer, a crew member, a producer who let me sit in, a friend who sent a link at 2AM. None of us got here alone, no matter how the story gets told afterwards,
So this is not mine. It's ours.
Read, share, ask the questions you've been too shy to ask. Tell us what you know that you wish someone had told you. Pitch us your story. Build something with us.
No more gates, no more separate rooms.
— Keeks
IG/TT: @AmokelaniMakhubela
YT: TheAmokelaniMakhubela
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