How Genesis and Diepe Waters brought Christmas to life

Long before Santa Claus started checking his naughty and nice list, DStv’s telenovela magic makers were already hard at work on bringing us festive cheer.

“You're going to experience love, and not drama, hated, betrayal, or whatever. It's just love. Just people coming together and celebrating, putting their issues aside just for that episode,” promises Genesis head writer Kagiso Mogale.

Diepe Waters’ art director Craig Ming-Son agrees, “One has to try and make it as magical as possible, to make the viewers feel part of our Diepe Waters family, with warmth, peace and love – because that is what Christmas is.”

Here’s how they did it…

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The Swarts family’s candlelight Christmas on Diepe Waters

Aside from a long-table feast that promises drama and tension, the Swarts family will attend a carols by candlelight concert with their community. Craig reveals how the production team spent months preparing to bring the holidays into our homes. 

When did you start preparing to shoot Diepe Waters’ Christmas episodes?

My art department team and I began our Christmas preparations around mid-June, started dressing our Christmas sets towards the end of July, and it remained up until the end of October. Our set dresser, Ronda Schoeman, and our props master, Makhasonke Mthetwa, ensured that our set dressing and our props remained in sequence for both shoot days and story days. We worked with different colours for each set, while creating different patterns of Christmas material. These items were made in-house, while small dressing and decorations tended to be lucky finds by shopping around.

How did you create Christmas in July?

From sourcing giant Christmas trees, which suppliers usually only unbox towards the end of the year, to going Christmas décor hunting from every conceivable store under the sun, sourcing festoon lights and Christmas-themed light boxes, our entire team rallied together to bring this magical event to life. As challenging as it is for our set dressers to find Christmas décor six months out from the festive period, it is even harder to find specialised, scripted props! Trying to hunt down a green Christmas stocking in June would be a mission, but luckily some stores retained their previous year’s stock. Additionally, sourcing a fruitcake presented us with a bit of a challenge – while we did hunt it down, we needed to put our art department magic on it to make it look home-made. 

Which Swarts family traditions can viewers look out for?

Storing specialised Christmas props is very important. For Season 4, the specialised prop that our audience remembers would be the photo album that Gys’s (Justin Strydom) first wife, Annemarie (Natassja Ras), gave to Sanet (Nadia Valvekens).

Stream Diepe Waters Season 4 on Mondays-Thursdays at 6:30PM on kykNET Channel 144. Available on DStv Stream.

The Thabethe-Gigaba family’s mega-get-together concert on Genesis

Between the In The Garden concert tour, and their Christmas feast, Felicia Thabethe-Gigaba (Baby Cele) and her husband Gabriel Gigaba (Buyile Mdladla) have been busy. But behind the scenes, Genesis head writer Kagiso Mogale has been even busier laying the groundwork to get the whole cast (and some special guests) under one roof for Christmas and the one-hour gospel concert special on Friday, 26 December. (Read more). 

What emotional story did you want to tell around the Christmas season?

It started in the writers’ room because we realised that throughout the season, people have been fighting, and families have drifted away. And I love how easy it is for people to put their issues aside and say, ‘Today it's about Christmas. It's not about what you and I went through yesterday.’ That is the most beautiful thing ever.

How did you get everyone together?

That episode was carefully planned because we use the relationships that people have with each other.  The Thabethe house represents family love, so we decided that everyone should gather there. Bishop Hlophe (Josias Moleele) invites Felicia's long lost nephew to come through and deliver a sermon. He shows up at Felicia's house, Felicia's children reunite with their cousin, and we find out why his mum and Felicia have been estranged. 

Then we go to church, where Ishmael (Craig Nobela), a struggling artist who just joined Genesis, will serenade church members with one of his songs from the album. And then all our characters will come back home to the Thabethe home for Christmas lunch. 

Around that time, the storyline is that Nobuhle, who is the last-born Thabethe ‘princess’, is ‘vat en sitting’ – cohabiting – with Ishmael, but the parents don't know that. Nobuhle and Ishmael come together, but pretend that they’re not together. It’s the folly of the youth, you know! And Ishmael brings his friend, Fistos, who's always wanted to be in the Thabethe house because of the glitz and glamour. Seeing Fistos crossing paths with Felicia Thabethe – they don't normally cross paths because of their standings in society – that is something beautiful to watch! And Bishop Hlophe, who works as spiritual father for a lot of the Genesis Records artists, decides that he and his wife are going to celebrate with the Thabethes. So all these characters find themselves around the table.

What can we expect, musically?

Music is the heartbeat of the show, so we used the music to celebrate the spirit of Christmas. As they gather there in the living room, Bonko (Nay Maps), who's Genesis Records’ music producer, plays a beautiful gospel song on the piano. He's so good! It's not even pre recorded, it's him playing. Then you see everybody joining in. Nobuhle (Kealeboga Masango) shocks us, because we just never thought she had the talent! Fistos (Louis Vega Ngcayiya), Ishmael’s friend, jumps in, Mamfundisi (Sibongile Phakathi) the preacher's wife, jumps in. Everybody's having that Christmas vibe through song. 

Will you be watching Genesis with your family?

We never miss an episode! I'll be home back in Rustenberg, back in the rural areas. All my family members will be there, and every day at half past seven, we'll be gathering around the living room and watching and just clapping hands. It's going to be such a beautiful moment.

Stream Genesis Season 1 on weekdays at 7:30PM on Mzansi Magic Channel 161 (and from 7PM on Friday, 26 December). Available on DStv Stream.