Thank you for stopping by Byron and Toms Thundafund. We are two filmmakers/actors who have been longing to do this project for a very long time. In short, we want to travel across the garden route with nothing but a 4×4 and camera equipment to document our beautiful coastline, as well as the awesome people who reside on it. The end goal is to pitch the idea to the BBC to see if we can make some headway in our Film making careers whilst marketing our amazing country to the world.
Langers and Mash take on the Garden Route
It all started on Byron’s balcony.
A tea stained exam pad, a pen that had been chewed through to the ink and our positively perplexed ideas.
We knew we wanted to start our own YouTube channel. We knew we wanted to act in our own videos. We knew we wanted to write our own skits. We knew we wanted to film and edit it all ourselves. We just didn’t know what the heck to make the video’s about (probably the ink poisoning).
So we sat and winced as hard as we could until the idea would hopefully splatter from our brains on to the exam pad. Thankfully the idea came to us in a sane amount of time; thankfully-er our brains stayed in tact, phew!
We decided to make a 6 part series named, Table Manners. We shot episode 1 and realised this was going to be a lot harder than we had thought. Again we sat and winced (we really do wince a lot) over YouTube tutorials, Lynda.com courses, books, trial and error, and advice from friends to shoot the other 5 episodes. Then we slept, for 10 days.
Something very strange happened after that. We got a call from a DSTV broadcasting channel to ask if they could air our Table Manners series on the big screen- crazy right? To which we replied, heck yes!
This was 3 months ago, we have since seen our Youtube channel grow to 10 500 subscribers with over 380 000 views. We have been uploading a new video every week and have loved every single moment. We have an awesome audience- we feel like we’re on this weird journey with the guys who watch our stuff. We are super grateful to everyone who takes the time to watch and tag along with what we’re doing… See, we can be sentimental!
Then the strangest of strange things happened. That same DSTV channel offered us a permanent slot. We have been given an 8 episode season to do whatever we want.
That’s insane Byron and Tom!
Ah, thanks man.
After more sitting and wincing (the exam pad was now covered in so many tea and wince stains it was practically drenched) the idea came to us. The idea for the TV series. The start of our film careers, the thing we’ve been wanting to do since before we were even born.
We are going to be travelling around the Garden Route exploring and adventuring as much as we can. Kwenda Travel and The Garden Route Tourism Board have been amazing in assisting with all the greatest activities to do along the coastlines.
We don’t want to give away the plot of the series, but we can guarantee, a glimpse into all the best that this ‘World Heritage Site’ has to offer.’ From wildlife to beaches, sunrises, sunsets, people, culture, cuisine, places to stay and trails. The off- road and the on- road and everything in between.
Byron has bought a car (Suzuki SJ 4×4 – aka. Best damn off- road car ever made by a Japanese dude) and Tom has taken care of some of the film equipment. We did have to sell some organs for that camera; we still have our hearts though- stoked! However, there are still a few things we’d like to make this series as great as it can be for everyone to enjoy.
B Camera (a 2nd camera)
Drone (The thing that looks like a bee from Chernobyl)
GoPro’s (What people wear on their heads)
SD Cards (Where you store all your phone junk)
Batteries (Without them we are nothing)
ND filters (Helps with the bright sun to make us visible- score!)
Steady-cam kits (So it doesn’t look like the camera is epileptic)
Food (optional)
You receive rewards depending on what category you fall under. Those rewards can be seen on the right hand panel of this page. If you’re from overseas keep in mind that it is 19 Rand for 1 Pound, or 15 Rand for 1 Dollar.
If we raise R28 000 we are A- for Away. Anything less and we get none of it. That’s how these funding pages work.
R28 000 will get us the bare essentials to make this series. R50 000 is our dream goal. With this thick wod of Nelsons we can flare out as much as possible. This is going on TV, so we want it to look as beautiful as possible.
We are aware there is an outside perspective of what people think South Africa is. We want to make a richly authentic South African series, made by South Africans for the world.
We have no hidden agendas. We want raw reality, unbiased editing. What you will be seeing is what we will have experienced first hand.
If you don’t have any money in your Gringotts account to help us out that is all good. Your support has always been motivating, what a legend!
That’s all we have to say for now. Thank you for taking the time to read this. We can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
Much love,
Tom Willows is a UCT film school graduate. He has since had his films shown at film festivals across the country including the Durban International Film Festival and Schnitt.
Byron is an actor best known for his role in the Spud trilogy. He has since been in other local films and international TV series as well as many International TV commercials.