Photo credit: @GovKaduna
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has received a group of young teenagers who have recently risen to some fame following the social media success of their Sci-Fi short films.
In a twitter post by the state government, Governor El-Rufai praised the creativity of the young teens and offered the government’s support and constituted a team of senior officials to work on the details with their family.
The group of young cousins says they taught themselves special effects on youtube, using a smartphone.
The teenagers who are on the verge of making a major break in the Nigerian movie industry (Nollywood), following the massive social media attention which their short films garnered, the teens who call themselves ‘The Critic’ might indeed find their way and take their place in scheme of things within Nollywood.
Using just a basic green screen, the student filmmakers have been playing around with the sci-fi movie genre and are beginning to get the attention of the world.
With basic tools and just smartphones, these students come up with rather surprising short films that have left a wow effect on many viewers.
These crew of 8, is said to have short their first film titled ‘Redemption’ from visual effects skills which they learned through YouTube Tutorials.
According to one of the young filmmakers, Godwin Josiah, their aim was not just to go viral, but to show that kids within the north are doing something different.
As often is the reward of creativity and hard-work, films by The Critics caught the eye of a well-known producer – who encouraged a fundraising campaign making them almost $6,000 which is enough to buy them new equipment which will see to the production of more qualitative films.
Despite the various challenges they face, The Critics have continued to excel in special effects, making very commendable clips with a smashed mobile phone, a tripod made from a broken microphone stand and other equipment made from improvisation and thinking out of the box.
A video by Reuters earlier this month also highlighted the creativity of the teenagers.
