The woman behind Ultimate Braai Master, Big Brother, and the Real Housewives of Cape Town

TV producer Siyanda Manzini has helped shape South Africa’s television landscape, with credits spanning some of the country’s most recognisable reality shows.

These include Ultimate Braai Master, Big Brother, The Real Housewives of Cape Town, and Married at First Sight Mzansi.

In an interview with Newsday, she reflected on her journey from growing up in Gqeberha to producing national hits — and spoke about her latest project, a series capturing the behind-the-scenes lives of the Orlando Pirates football team.

Manzini, who grew up in Gqeberha, said she was four when she realised she wanted to live in “TV land.”

“I had an obsession with what happens behind the scenes, and in my head, and what I used to talk about was TV land,” she said.

“And then you grow up and you understand what media is, and you understand how media is created. So it was always clear to me what I wanted to do.”

Manzini said that her first taste of the TV land she had imagined as a child came when she signed up for a director’s masterclass at the Sithengi Film Festival in 2006.

She said that to be considered for the masterclass, which featured some of the best directors at the time, she had to write a film script, which was ultimately accepted.

“As a 19- or 20-year-old, it was the first time I felt and touched what I call TV land because it featured filmmakers from across the continent,” she said.

This is also where she and a few friends started putting together the idea for a documentary they would go on to pitch to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

“A couple of friends and I talked about this documentary we wanted to make. So we started writing the script, and how we would put the production together in the bathroom at Sithengi,” Manzini added.

“We started pitching the concept a year later and then got the chance to pitch it to the SABC because they had a content hub focused on storytellers outside of Joburg.”

Manzini says that the story, Amabele Am, chronicles the life of a young Xhosa woman who grapples with femininity,  sexuality, and power.

She says this was at a time when they, as storytellers, were confused about the idea of how powerful Xhosa women tend to be, while living in a patriarchal society, which is what the SABC1 documentary explored.

The next steps

Following the production, she created several other films, but had yet to discover where she would fit into the industry. 

However, Manzini said she found her calling during a Rapid Blue internship in the Eastern Cape, where she interned in the producers’ department.

“I interned with the production manager, and that clarified where in the industry I wanted to be,” she said.

“Because at a point, I was like, ‘Maybe I want to direct mainly, maybe I want to write, maybe I want to do this.’ But then I understood where I wanted to be.”

Manzini says that while she has done some scripted content throughout her career, she has always gravitated towards telling someone else’s story.

“Either in terms of giving someone a spotlight or finding out more about them, and that’s what documentary and reality can do,” she said.

“Reality is important because my story and your story are a mirror to somebody else. And so when they see themselves in your struggles and successes, it helps them navigate or understand their own journey.”

“That’s why I’ve always been intrigued and keep getting drawn into unscripted storytelling. It was also my entry into the industry,” she added.

The production of Giants

Manzini’s latest production is Giants, a show that tracks the lives of Orlando Pirates players on and off the pitch.

The production took over ten months to film, with several crews following the team across the country and the continent, all of which has been put into five episodes.

As a producer in this type of production, it is Manzini’s role to brief the directors on the vision for the story and how it needs to be told.

“The producer basically runs the show,” Wani Rantloane, one of the Giants directors, said.

“The producer is the person who liaises with clients regarding whatever the client needs. They will also decide who is shooting what, when, and how. They handle the budget.”

Manzini explained that one of the biggest challenges she faced in the production was managing to tell the entire story, given all the characters throughout the season.

“Shooting a club with as many characters as we had and trying to capture that story in five episodes is literally impossible,” she said.

“That’s one difficulty that we had to navigate around. How do we capture the season’s essence without the viewer feeling like we’ve dropped something?”

At the same time, the crew had to integrate into the team’s lives, which series director Luthando Tshaya said was another challenge.

“The biggest thing for me was access, because you come into a very cultured team that protects its traditions and is very secretive about tactics and what they do on the training field,” Tshaya said.

“However, once we started spending more time with the players and began to show them that we care about what they do and were 100% obsessed about game plans and getting to know their family, it became easy.”