Located somewhere in the Niger delta, there is a remote village, whose inhabitants have very limited access to internet, due to the lack of infrastructure and high cost of WiFi data. Many young Nigerians in these areas have very few resources available to them, including adequate education or jobs, and resort to very low paying back braking work in dangerous construction sites or online scams to just make ends meet.

“We don’t like working on building sites, ‘cause most times we use all of the money we earned to buy medication due to illness and injuries we incur during a job. That’s the only ‘legal’ way for boys our age to raise funds, except for a very few percentage of us, like myself, that actually go online to carry out ‘love scams’ to earn money. I no longer want to do that ‘cause I’m causing more damage than even the ‘wicked’ and greedy politicians in our world.”

Simply Splendid, committed to empower young minds with a creative and collaborative outlet, is providing film-making education, as part of a new pilot project. Students learn life skills and gain confidence as they go through the entire process of creating a short film, whether its a music video, or a short narrative, experimental or documentary film. Making a film is a multi-disciplinary field and requires an array of skill sets, such as organizing, managing, conceptualizing, familiarity with equipment, understanding visual composition, editing, distribution, marketing and most importantly collaboration. No only is film-making about to storytelling as a means to sustain a culture, but it is also a group and collaborative activity, which demands that all people involved in the production work together towards a single vision of the creative work, which is typically under the guidance of the director and executive producer.

Pre-Production

This phase students learn how to develop an idea, begining with the conceptual idea, and followed with creating script and accompanying storyboard. Once the script is finished, and pre-visualization is complete, then the script is broken down, in which all of the elements in the script (actors, props, locations, sets and decor, visual FX) are identified, planned out and budgeted.

Production

This phase students plan and execute their film, which includes finding locations and the building of the sets, the scheduling, casting of the actors, equipment and the filming of all of the scenes in the script.

Post- Production

This final phase includes learning the editing process. They assemble all of the shots of the entire film, which would include the music composition and mixing, foley sound effects, digital visual effects, titles, distributing and film exhibition.