A five-week workshop for African creators of animated cartoons was recently held in Durban, South Africa, as part of UNESCOs Africa Animated! initiative for the production of childrens cartoons.
The intensive training and production workshop was organized in partnership with the Durban Film Festival (DIFF) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal from June 18th to July 22nd 2005 as the second course organized by UNESCO after a pilot workshop in Zanzibar and Nairobi in 2004.
These workshops have been extremely successful, for the broadening of animation skills base in the region, and the production of sixteen short animated films , says Alonzo Aznar from UNESCOs Office in Nairobi. The workshops prove that animation production is both feasible and sustainable in Africa and UNESCO will use this experience as a basis to establish a permanent regional animation training and production centre, Aznar adds.
Africa is still a receptacle for foreign childrens animation programmes in spite of having great creativity, stories to tell and a magnificent sense of aesthetics. This apparent incongruity evolves from the fact that broadcasters and the audio-visual industry in the region (with the exception of South Africa) do not always have the financial means to produce them (also with the exception of the advertising industry).
Also maybe because there hasnt yet been clear market research to show what actually an animation industry could bring to African children; for the media industry; as well as for the public and private sectors. African broadcasters and the audiovisual community in the region are aware of the importance of childrens programmes made by Africans for Africans with African cultural values but lacking resources they have to import mass produced cartoons imported from abroad which have no bearing with African realities.
In order to address this issue, UNESCO has launched Africa Animated! an initiative that assembles resources and expertise for the production of childrens animated cartoons in the region. To this end it started a series of hands-on training courses for the production of African childrens animated cartoons. These workshops target regional animators, visual artists, scriptwriters, broadcasters and other media professionals with the objective to build a critical skills base for the production of high quality animated cartoons.
Africa Animated! wants to encourage the production of programmes that allow children and young people to hear, see and express themselves. Productions that edutain while reflecting the regional culture, language and life experiences. Productions with African imagery, dialogue and music, reclaiming it and preserving it for the coming generations.
The development of a cost-effective, quality driven and African branded" training and production model, lies at the core of this initiative in order to make African animation competitive for regional and international production and broadcast.
Two main results have also achieved: a record time in the production (4-5 weeks) and an extraordinary culturally relevant quality which has been awarded with number of prizes in international film festivals from Africa to Latin America and Europe.
Source:< link http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=19993&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html UNESCO>
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