Looting inspires fun Tik Tok videos and massive following for young filmmaker

Families are known to carry fun traditions for young and old.

For Ofenste Mwase, it was bungling up with his family for movie nights at the age of four, a tradition that sparked his love for films.

But that’s not the name you might know him by today, carrying the handle Uncle Scrooch, Mwase is a viral sensation who has been lauded for his TikTok videos.

With his savvy video editing skills, Mwase edits himself into a number of movie scenes adding a South African flavour to them.

Along with his wife, Mwase’s interest in comedy began in 2017.  They  wanted to make skits to market his production company so it could “stay on people’s tongues".

The trick was effective and it was not too long thereafter that Mwase amassed a following of around 50,000 and over 2 million likes.

This was all thanks to a series of memes he had seen during the looting in 2021 that said: “The looters looted John Wick's house, and they killed his dog.”

Realising he could bring the meme to life through video, Mwase started working.

“I shot it on my phone, posted it the next day and it went viral. I saw what potential it had and the very next day I shot the next one on my big camera. The second one was even bigger than the first.”

While his work as a director and cinematographer has seen him make his Netflix debut behind the camera for Collision and a special episode of Rhythm City, his viral work saw him bag a Six Gun commercial, which is a remake of an actual skit he made about the all-purpose spice blend.

According top Mwase, the transition that was not too difficult: “Films are pretty much all similar, the only difference is scale, but the main important thing stays the same, which is story. 

“The biggest difference is the toys you get to use and the number of people you shoot with, i.e. your team. I approach every project with respect and pay close attention to my director’s instructions and direction. When I’m directing myself, I focus on making sure every story beat is well translated through the lens.”

While the stars in front of the camera often get all the attention, Mwase puts himself in a position where the least thanked members of the film industry can finally get their laurels.

“It’s not so easy to get popular when you work behind the scenes. The best thing is to do what I did, be good at both, so it made it easier for me and my company to gather a following. However, there are some people behind the scenes prefer to be unknown to the public but very much known with the film space.

"Our company has helped many artists in the industry to become stars through our collaborations, and that continues to this day,” says Mwase. 

While Mwase continues to create his hilarious videos, he is currently working on a passion project, They Were Not You 2, a romantic comedy set to launch later in the year.

newsdesk@sowetan.co.za