Not only have primary and high schools been disrupted by the COVD-19 pandemic, nursery schools have been impacted as well. The Gauteng Film Commision (GFC) & the African Animation Network (AAN) recently teamed up to respond to the crisis with a series of “mini-workshops”, called FUPiVERSiTY, targeted at high school learners. They have now turned their attention to early childhood development (ECD) through a partnership with an ECD-specialist Pan-African social enterprise and edutainment creators, Ubongo.
Said Desmond Mthembu, Senior Manager, Industry Support Development at the GFC: “we have a tendency in Africa to look outside of Africa for solutions in times of crisis, when there are a plethora of African companies and organisationsresponding to the many challenges on the continent already. Partnering with AAN and, by extension Ubongo, enables us to find an African solution to a global pandemic”.
Nick Wilson, Head of Projects & Content at AAN, continued; “Ubongo and AAN, both social enterprises, have aligned goals. We’ve been exploring opportunities to collaborate for some time- COVID-19 accelerated those discussions with Ubongoquick to respond to the pandemic by making their content freely available online as educational aids for parents and teachersworking from home in English, Kiswahili (an African lingua francaspoken by more than 140 million people), French, Hausa, and Kinyarwanda.”
Nthabeleng Phora, Skills Training and Audience Development & Industry Support and Development at the GFC, continued: “Our solution is two-fold; create teaching aids for ECD practitioners in local South African languages (isiZulu and Sesotho), and ensure that the content is representative of that viewing audience. Our partnership with AAN and Ubongoticked both those checkboxes.”
As Africa’s leading edutainment company, Ubongo has had a significant impact in East Africa with independent research (Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology & International Journal of Early Childhood) concluding that children who consume their content are at a significant advantage.
“Children who watch our content perform 24% better in counting and numeracy” Nisha Long, Co-founder & CEO of Ubongo, extrapolated. “Furthermore, children who watch and remember characters from the series show 19% gains in health knowledge and healthy behaviors. In Tanzania, 92% of parents who’ve watched our health content say that it helped them learn how to stay safe and healthy.”
The Ubongo ECD teaching aids will be live on the Ubongo’s SA YouTube channel in isiZulu (see HERE) and Sesotho (see HERE) from 12 September. There are 39 songs covering numeracy, self-awareness and hygiene in both languages.
AAN used the opportunity to blood some very promising interns in post-production; with Monicca Rampine and Laurnelle Beukes as assistant video editors and Ndzwakazi Ntikinca-Biyana as a translator. AAN also enlisted the talents of veteran voice artists, Nozizwe Zulu and Boitumela Maretele, both of whom have voiced characters for the South African adaptation of Sesame Workshop– Takalani Sesame.
About:
Gauteng Film Commission:
The Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) develops, promotes and coordinates the film and television production industry in South Africa‘s wealthiest province. An agency of the Gauteng Provincial Government, we are tasked with positioning the province as a world-class destination for film-making as well as attracting local and international investments in the film and television industry.
Our core business is to facilitate and enhance the contribution of the industry to the economic growth of the province. The GFCmarkets Gauteng, with its world-class industry infrastructure, recognised expertise and wide range of locations, as a destination of choice. We also act as a centralised industry intelligence hub and ensure that people across Gauteng can experience the magic of cinema.
We work with industry, government agencies and other key stakeholders, advising on the development and growth of a sustainable audiovisual industry. We support the transformation of this sector into a world-class industry and our vision is to cultivate an environment that allows it to play a meaningful role in the socioeconomic development of Gauteng. (Read more HERE)
Ubongo:
As Africa’s leading edutainment company, we create fun, localised and multi-platform educational media that reaches millions of families through accessible technologies. Our programs significantly improve school readiness and learning outcomes for kids, and also promote social and behavioural change for kids, caregivers and educators. (Read more HERE)
The African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise and open network with a core mandate to empower African animation professionals and build a sustainable African animation industry.
In a recent article in Forbes, it was concluded that one of the few broadcast industriesnot completely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic was animation owing to a significant portion of the labourforce being able to work from home.
With the disruption of schools due to lockdown measures, learners looking for a pandemic-resistant career path need look no further than animation. And it is with this in mind that the Gauteng Film Commision (GFC) & the African Animation Network (AAN) teamed up to respond to the crisis. With a series of “mini-workshops”, called FUPiVERSiTY, targeted at highschool learners.
In the words of Desmond Mthembu, Senior Manager, Industry Support Development at the GFC: “Animation is not only a pandemic-resistantindustry, it has the potential to create a significant amount of employment for the youth of South Africa in a period when Africa is positioning itself as a global hotspot for animation services. The GFC’s mandate is to promote Gauteng and South Africa as a film destination, we’d like that to extend to animation services and cement the province as an animation destination”.
“And for that to happen, we need a skilled workforce”, continued Nthabeleng Phora, Skills Training and Audience Development & Industry Support and Development at the GFC. “Furthermore, with FUPiVERSiTY being an initiative run by AAN’s FUPiTOONS FESTiVAL, we believe that there are synergies between the young audience that view the festival content and the learners amongst them that would like to explore opportunities within the African animation industry”.
This groundswell in the African animation industry, referred to by Mthembu above, is articulated in a recent article in Forbes magazine.
The FUPiVERSiTY mini-workshopsmap a path for learners to develop skills in animation (Animation Hacks) and writing for animation (Writing 101) with the curricula developed respectively by Thinus van Rooyen (who completed his masters at les Gobelins, France and is currently doing a professorship at The Savannah College of Art and Design, USA) and Garland-Waide Bradford (Head of Communications at AAN and who has a BA Honours in Media Studies and has written for animation TV series).
According to Nick Wilson, Head of Projects & Content at AAN; “over a year ago Garland, Thinus and I discussed the challenges of entering the animation industry and reasoned that core skills can be acquired at relatively low expense. Essentially, learners only need readily available stationary like pens, pencils and paper. Thereafter, we developed some mini-workshops (3-5mins in duration, reasonably cost-effective in terms of data expenses) to convey this message. And to further underscore that learners don’t need expensive equipment to develop and produce decent content, we used a smartphone and a cheap microphone to record the mini-workshops”.
AAN also used the opportunity to blood some very promising interns in post-production; with Monicca Rampine as assistant video editor (who’s duties included colour grading), and Joel Mutshaeni as motion graphics designer.
The FUPiVERSiTY mini-workshops will go live on Monday, 17 August 2020 on the following platforms:
Marthinus “Thinus” van Rooyen is a professor of animation and an animation director, currently teaching at The Savannah College of Artand Design in the United States of America.
Thinus is a past lecturer at The Animation School in Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated in 2019 from the prestigious Gobelins l’ecole de l’image in Paris, France. He is co-director of the film DOGS which is part of the Official Selection of Annecy Festival 2020.
Garland-Waide Bradford:
Garland-Waide Bradford has a career path that has varied from corporate work as a PR manager in communications strategy to media work as an insert producer for factual television.
Purposeful choices to integrate creative choices with market requirements, turning content into brands. Growing up in a township meant that many educational opportunities were out of reach due to access and financial constraints. Garland completed his BA Honours in Media Studies in 2017. His focus has been on media management and has been studying models of sustainability in the media for several years. He started his journey with the African Animation Network as Head of Communications in 2017 where he hopes to use his skills to empower aspirant African animation professionals to further their global reach.
Gauteng Film Commission:
The Gauteng Film Commission (GFC) develops, promotes and coordinates the film and television production industry in South Africa‘s wealthiest province. An agency of the Gauteng Provincial Government, we are tasked with positioning the province as a world-class destination for film-making as well as attracting local and international investments in the film and television industry.
Our core business is to facilitate and enhance the contribution of the industry to the economic growth of the province. The GFCmarkets Gauteng, with its world-class industry infrastructure, recognised expertise and wide range of locations, as a destination of choice. We also act as a centralised industry intelligence hub and ensure that people across Gauteng can experience the magic of cinema.
We work with industry, government agencies and other key stakeholders, advising on the development and growth of a sustainable audiovisual industry. We support the transformation of this sector into a world-class industry and our vision is to cultivate an environment that allows it to play a meaningful role in the socioeconomic development of Gauteng. (Read more HERE)
The African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise and open network with a core mandate to empower African animation professionals and build a sustainable African animation industry.
With the submission deadline fast approaching (), the African Animation Network’s (AAN) brand for adult animated comedycontent, MSHINI TV, announces its stellar judging panel!
CARL JONES:
Over the past decade, the name Carl Jones (CEO of 245 Enterprises) has become synonymous with cutting edge animated TV comedy. He is best known for his work as Executive Producer and Head Writer of Black Dynamite: The Animated Seriesand Co-Executive Producer of Adult Swim’sThe Boondocks, the first Cartoon Network program to win a Peabody Award and be nominated for a NAACP Image Award. Carl’s plethora of show credits include iconic titles such as The Last OGand Legends of Chamberlain Heights. Carl joins the MSHINI TV jury as Head Judge.
MSHINI TV: HEAD JUDGE: CARL JONES
MIKE DE SEVE:
Mike de Seve, President of Baboon Animation, is an Emmy-nominated animation writer and director, working in both feature films and television. For more than 2 decades, Baboon Animation’steam has provided Emmy-winning (27 collectively) and Oscar-nominated writing, directing and development to the most successful animation studios and networks worldwide. As a director-writer at Dreamworks, Mike served as a sequence director and story consultant on Madagascar, and as a story consultant on several films including Shrek 2, Shrek The Third and Monsters vs Aliens. But, Mike is probably best known in adult animated comedy circles as the director of the full 7 seasons of the original Beavis & Butt-Head series, for which he earned that show its Emmy nomination; sequence writing/directing on the Beavis & Butt-Head feature film; and writing and/or directing multiple animatedSesame Street and Saturday Night Livesegments.
MSHINI TV: JUDGE, MIKE DE SEVE
“GRIFF”:
Comedian, motivational speaker and veteran on-air personality, “GRIFF” is co-host of Get Up! Mornings with Erica Campbellwhich reaches a listenership of 1 million people in 40 markets. An Emmy-nominated sportscaster, “GRIFF” is probably best known for his stand-up comedy however, with an impressive resume that includes; BET Comic View All Star (x 5), Martin Lawrence’s First Amendment and Bounce TV’s Off the Chain. But, one of “GRIFF’S”, proudest achievements is his regular tours to Africa where he was the 1st American to tape Comedy Central Africa and has done so thrice so far.
MSHINI TV: JUDGE, “GRIFF”
NINA HASTIE:
Seasoned South African Stand-up Comedian and former late night talk show host on SABC 3’s Trending SA, Nina Hastie is a SAFTA & Comic’s Choice Award Nominee. As a scriptwriter Nina has received 2 SAFTA nominations for Bantu Hour Season 1and (as head writer) on NBC Universal & E! Entertainment’s ‘Celebrity Game Night’. Multi-talented, Nina is also the official voice of; Comedy Central Africa, BBC First Dates Africa, and BBC Lifestylewhilst she has also voiced character’s for Cartoon Network Africa’s Imagination Studios shorts.
MSHINI TV: JUDGE, NINA HASTIE
MSHINI TV is a corruption of the isiZulu phrase “mshiniwamahlaya” with “mshini” meaning “machine (gun)” and “wamahlaya” meaning “joke“. Combined, “mshiniwamahlaya” is a pun which means both “machine (gun) jokes” and “joke machine/factory“.
The African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise and open network with a core mandate to empower African animation professionals and build a sustainable African animation industry.
The African Animation Network (AAN) isn’t only focusing on children’s content and has opened a call for content for its new MSHINI TV brand. This will be another Open Network Platform and home for animated content of a more mature nature. Making it possible for creators who want to focus on the +16 target market with a platform to showcase their work.
MSHINI TV is a corruption of the isiZulu phrase “mshiniwamahlaya” with “mshini” meaning “machine (gun)” and “wamahlaya” meaning “joke“. Combined, “mshiniwamahlaya” is a pun which means both “machine (gun) jokes” and “joke machine/factory“.
The African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise and open network with a core mandate to empower African animation professionals and build a sustainable African animation industry.
Since the African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise, let’s start our trip with some of our 2019 social analytics. And, if you’re having problems reading the smaller text, click on the image to zoom in…
MARCHING TOWARDS ANNECY & AFRICA 2020 (PART 1): INFOGRAPHIC
The African Animation Network is a pro-profit, talent-driven social enterprise and open network with a core mandate to empower African animation professionals and build a sustainable African animation industry.
As Africa’s leading edutainment company, we create fun, localised and multi-platform educational media that reaches millions of families through accessible technologies. Our programs significantly improve school readiness and learning outcomes for kids, and also promote social and behavioural change for kids, caregivers and educators. (Read more HERE)
