A group of young Nigerians ranging from 7 to 27 years old are making waves on social media by using their mobile phones to create short films with visual effects, or VFX.
Members of the group known as “The Critics” based in Kaduna, Nigeria taught themselves to make films and experiment with greenscreens — used to superimpose an image onto a different background — by reading Wikipedia and watching YouTube tutorials.
The group’s VFX artist and editor, Raymond Yusuff, 18 told CNN that they began in 2015 by exchanging DVDs and watching a lot of CGI (computer-generated imagery) movies and movies with VFX.
“We wanted to do what we were seeing on screen. We actually started running around our houses, wrappers tied around us, acting,” he disclosed.
Yusuff who noted that the Critics had no sophisticated camera to capture their stories, added that they had to make do with his Samsung phone and an old laptop.
“My dad had this old laptop that was lying around, and I asked him for it. We looked up video editing software like Blender, which we used to create our (CGI) effects,” he explains.
Fast forward to 2020, the critics have created no fewer than 20 short films, often telling stories about robots, aliens and people with supernatural abilities.
Although the Critic’s productions take anywhere from one week to seven months to shoot, their movies are short due to lack of constant electricity and lack of internet data to upload their productions on the web.
Other members of the group with designated roles include: “The girls (Rejoice, Rachael and Rachael, ages 14, 9 and 7) are actors, but some of them are beginning to express interest in filmmaking.
Godwin (age 20) is the director and writer. Ronald (16) makes our props; Victor (16) is our lights guy. Lawson (18) is our sound man, Richard (15) is our continuity guy,” Yusuff says. Ridwan Adeniyi, 27, rounds out the group as their manager.
Interestingly, The Critics, are getting attention from Hollywood and were recently contacted by American film executives including Franklin Leonard, Scott Myers, and J.J. Abrams — director of Hollywood blockbusters such as “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” — after one of their interview clips went viral.
“Franklin Leonard sent us a message on Twitter, and he was like ‘First of all, you are doing a good job,'” Yusuff tells CNN.
“He told us he found our videos and that he was friends with J.J. Abrams and a couple of people in Hollywood. He told us to send a list on WhatsApp of equipment that we might need for our films.”
This past August, the kids received a large shipment of gear, including high-end gaming PCs, monitors, cameras and stabilizers from Abrams and Leonard.
“We were so excited, so happy about it,” Yusuff said.
Now that they have the sophisticated gear to shoot more ambitious projects, the plan is to create even more sci-fi short films.
Yusuff says The Critics Company’s primary goal is to become one of Africa’s biggest multimedia studios.
“It seems like quite a big dream for us, but we know it’s possible.”
