REVOLUTION Media, conveners of the annual ground breaking Lagos Comics and Cartoons Carnival, have announced their plans in collaboration with Image Animation Studios – a Cape Town, South Africa based powerhouse for multimedia communications to present a three-day workshop in 3D communication from January 18 to 20. The workshop is being supported by the culture activist organisation – Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and stage design and lighting maestros’ Total Consult Ltd.
The training will be led by Oladeji Victor, a director of Image Studios, Cape Town, S.A. and founder of Animation for Africa – an initiative geared towards training hundreds of Africans in visual effects and animation by the end of 2010. Deji has worked on several projects and adverts with Character Matters Animation Studio, Ambient Animation Studios, Telegenic Production and some of his work can be found in Issues of Faith – a television magazine programme on SABC 1, a TV commercial for Bank PHB, TV commercial for Kenyan Power Authority, SABC1 Anthem, and Cosmopolitan-Fashion Video, amongst others.
The workshop course content will cover introduction to 3D modeling with the Maya interface, understanding of textures, bump maps and the photoshop workflow, lights and rendering, principles of animation and project workflow. Oladeji, a representative for autodesk, will be launching a campaign in Nigeria later in March to create awareness about the latest auto desk products. His most recent work has been on the feature movie “Lion of Judah” which is still in post-production and is expected to be out in America this summer.
He has been privileged to work with the likes of Tom Roth (from Disney) and Eric Lessard (Dream works), among other South African animators. “Participants will be provided with lecture notes, Maya PLE 8.5, Training DVD’s, software, and free registration for internet resources. We are planning to open up the 3D animation industry in Nigeria so that it can compliment the home videos and service the visual effects industry worldwide while we produce our own (Nigerian) animated feature films.” he added.
The programme is designed to involve three months of intensive training and three months of internship with established animation houses in South Africa at a highly subsidized rate, much cheaper than what obtains in Canada, the United States of America or India for that matter where they have partners. Already, four Nigerians have benefitted from this arrangement and Oladeji hopes to increase that number by ten folds in the present year.
Sewedo Nupowaku of Revolution Media is particularly excited about this collaborative effort at the very start of the year and is convinced that it portends an exciting year for the entire industry. His media and entertainment company had made efforts to stand in the gap as regards capacity building for the animation industry in November 2007 by holding an introductory workshop on animation at their third annual Lagos Comics and Cartoons Carnival which exposed the wide enthusiasm people had for animation.
“Now through this collaboration with Image Animation Studios, we can take that initiative to a whole new level and quicken our dreams for mass empowerment.” The three day workshop will run from January 18 till 20 at the CORA House, 95 Bode Thomas Street, Surulere, Lagos, and will cost N15,000.00 per participant.
