Together with our partner the Sierra Leone International Film Festival we hosted an animation workshop for the WeOwnTV filmmakers and welcomed animator Alice Dunseath as the workshop director. The goal of the workshop was to teach introductory animation skills while developing a promo for the first Sierra Leone International Film Festival, to be held March 29 – April 3, 2012.

SLIFF from Alice Dunseath on Vimeo.

Our very own Alluspa King, Jr. delivered a report about the workshop experience: The animation workshop took place over three days. The first day was about how to do storyboarding for animation films and understanding how pictures can tell your story. We did a variety of exercises for day one focused on storyboarding and other techniques. The second day we took on new learnings and used them to animate the logo of the Sierra Leone International Film Festival. We also did time lapse of the painting of the logo on our front wall.

Alluspa hard at work his animation excercises.

For the final day we did some exercises on Adobe® Flash and Adobe® After Effects. We created images and make them move with the use of after effect. Everybody gained new skills by participating in the workshop. We have got the basics so we can continue training ourselves and in time to come we can animate films for ourselves. The workshop was counted as a blessing to participants as they have been looking forward to such an opportunity to come their way and now everyone is waiting with excitement for the festival to receive their workshop completion certificate which are planned for presentation on the final day of the festival.

Barmmy Boy also had this to say about the workshop, “The animation workshop was meaningful, it gives us another perspective of how can be creative to tell a story and how we can improve on our filmmaking venture. I learned the basics and that has got me thinking widely.”

WeOwnTV is always open to having filmmakers join us in Freetown to share their expertise and movie making know how; you will not find a more appreciative group of students. Interested? Get in touch by emailing sierraleone@weowntv.org.

Tags: africa, Alice Dunseath, animation, education, Sierra Leone International Film Festival, WeOwnTV