About me
Paul has been working in the film industry since 1986 and writing professionally since 1989.
Currently Paul is head-writing iSibaya – working with the producers to finish up the fifth season of the series and develop story line for the sixth season starting in March 2018. Isibaya is a 5 day a week, 20h30 Prime-Time Daily Drama/Tele-Novella about the taxi business in Jo’burg and KwaZulu Natal. It is produced for the Mzanzi Magic channel on the DSTV Bouquet (satellite TV).
Between 2013 and 2015 Paul wrote over half of iSibaya. The second, third and fourth seasons of iSibaya were commissioned after the massive success of the first season – with an audience share more than three times what the channel hoped for. Post season one the show expanded out from 4 to 5 days a week for full orders of 260 episodes per year. Isibaya is a Zulu language show and is still the most watched show on the channel, with ratings of 21+ and a regular audience of over 1 million people. Isibaya has the largest non-sport audience the channel has ever attracted and one of the largest single audiences in South African subscription TV. The channel is a pay channel equivalent to SKY in the UK.
In 2014 iSibaya won multiple awards at the inaugural Royalty Soapie Awards - including best writing team and multiple SAFTA (South African Film & TV Awards – equivalent to the BAFTA) including Best Writing Team. The show also won multiple SAFTA awards in 2015 – including Best Writing Team for the second consecutive year. It again won multiple SAFTA awards in 2016, including another nomination for writing and was mostly recently nominated again for writing for 2017.
In 2015 Paul wrote 93 Days – a Feature film about the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Lagos, Nigeria. The quality and importance of the story and script secured Danny Glover as the lead, and the film was shot in late 2015. 93 Days premiered very successfully as an official selection at TIFF before wide release in Nigeria in September 2016 and a successful US screening at the Chicago Film Festival. As of the end of 2016 the producers are still negotiating for an international release and preparing for a pay-per-view release in Nigeria.
Mid 2012 Paul took over as head-writer on iNkaba, a Tele-novella about the fashion industry, for the Mzanzi Magic channel on DSTV. Paul took over the series when the original head-writer was replaced and was responsible for overseeing the story-lining and writing of 84 episodes. Paul also wrote over 25 episodes of the series.
During 2011-2012 Paul was one of the senior writers on the last two seasons of Jacob’s Cross, a one hour drama for the DSTV Africa channel. Jacob’s Cross is set in the oil business in South Africa and Nigeria. Paul was a principle member of the story-lining team for 26 episodes and broke and wrote multiple episodes. Jacob’s Cross is sold to various channels around the world and was one of the most popular and most watched shows on the Africa channel.
During 2010 – 2011 Paul took over as head writer of Zone 14, a prime time soap opera for SABC One - the main channel of the South African national broadcaster. Zone 14 was a series about a football team in Soweto. Paul took over the series in crisis and was responsible for overseeing the writing of 242 episodes of the half hour Prime Time Drama series. That process was completed in a little over a year. Zone 14 was the second most watched TV show on South African TV.
In 2008 Paul was employed to direct Siri, a 10 part, half-hour educational drama in Kenya. Paul was employed as director with a brief to also mentor the Kenyan writing team. He also consulted on the writing of the second series in 2009.
In 2006 Paul wrote all thirteen episodes of season two of Jacob’s Cross after the producer rejected the original scripts written by a writing team and needed new scripts writing ahead of extremely tough deadlines.
From 1993 – 2010 Paul was a partner in his own production company. Paul served as functioned as Writer / Director for the THE boom boom BOYS which produced non-broadcast and broadcast video, produced concert films and documentaries.
In 1993 Paul wrote a feature film, Songstress, as a commission for the SABC. The film was not completed due to changes in the SABC commissioning team.
In 1991-1993 Paul wrote two seasons of Honeytown for SABC ONE. Set in the music industry, this one hour drama ran for two 13 episode seasons. Paul re-wrote the first season as his first professional TV commission and then completely originated and wrote the 13 episodes of the second series - which was the first ever episodic series written for the SABC.
While working as a Production Manager / Line producer, in 1989 – 1990, Paul’s first two professional writing jobs were two small action films Prey for the Hunter and Deadly Hunter; written as low budget action films for the local South Africa market.
Between 1993 & 2010, while writing extensively and continuously for broadcast and non-broadcast productions, Paul also wrote a number of spec feature film scripts and spec TV scripts as well as completing English language adaptations of two small feature films, Dark Desires: The other side of the mirror and Eva, originally written in French but produced in English in Johannesburg.
Paul has also written many speeches, editorial pieces, magazine articles, columns and other printed material including serving as Editor and chief writer for Corporate Social Review, a magazine dedicated to corporate social responsibility and social issues in South Africa.
Since 2005 Paul has also worked as script editor and script consultant on several short films and a pair of small budget feature films - Finding Lara and Fractured - for Matt Maude at Leeds based Left Eye Blind.