Jacques is a systemic thinker that uses more than 20 years’ experience in television and event production in combination with over 10 years’ experience of story engineering to mould storylines into a seamless and complex world of fiction whilst remaining fiercely disciplined with enormous respect for production deadlines and keeping the flow of the production systems going seamlessly. This makes him extremely versatile and disciplined. His motto is: The show must go on whilst retaining creative integrity.
With a solid knowledge of the production line he can translate story unit into budget appropriate scripts, without ever sacrificing quality, authenticity, or originality. Starting his career as scheduler at Backstage in 2004, he quickly became one of the most renowned schedulers in soap circles with a talent to create, direct and mould systems into a functional and easy to follow process. His career advanced further to coordinate, manage and AD long form series in both studio and location format such as Thisa 2 and 3, Streets of Mangaung, Liefste Kayla and Treknet.
In 2013 Jacques found his niche where he applied his skills to become a Story Editor that understands the system of storytelling and what it takes to produce a script from inception through to final cut. He was with Muvhango from March 2013 to December 2021 in several capacities, including Scheduler, Script Breakdowner, Story Editor and Script Writer. Since leaving Muvhango, Jacques has been working on Arendsvlei and Diepe Waters as Script Editor, also Storylining and Script Writing for Arendsvlei. In 2024 he is starting as Script Editor on an exciting new project, Skemergrond. He wrote two films Spoedgrens (2022) and Kamer 6 (2022) which was nominated for a Muse Award. His short film, Now or Never (2021) was nominated for a Caledonian Script Award.
Making the audience believe in the reality that has been created and fulfilling their expectations is the core of his ethical story telling guideline. Having a strong understanding of both story and the medium, makes Jacques invaluable in finding the way to tell a story that grips his audience. His creative input echoes from individual episodes through to the the series as a whole. He has a strong sense of structure, power of story and complexity of character to shape a holistic production worthy script. His skills are supported with a BA in Live Performance from AFDA (2001) majoring in Writing and Directing, an MFA with a scriptwriting major from AFDA (2023) Cum Laude, where he was Valedictorian and received the Dean’s List Award, working at media agencies doing through-the-line projects creating electronic and multimedia along his longstanding career in the television medium.
In his free time Jacques edits his own small projects at home and is a full member of the Writer’s Guild of South Africa. He has also worked in various lecturing and online workshop capacities, teaching new young talent. Jacques has a special interest and passion for stories that focus on empowerment of previously disadvantages groups, such as LGBTQAI+, Special Needs and Woman’s Liberation. Jacques Du Rand can be described as a creative individual that has worked across the board building a skillset that includes exceptional conceptual abilities, script writing and editing; thinking laterally and through the box; critical thinking and systemic maintenance.
