NIMATION RENAISSANCE IN KENYA; TINGA TINGA TALES
{This post is about my views as an animator in Kenya having worked as a Lead animator for three years on the award winning series, 52 episodes of Tinga Tinga Tales amongst other numerous productions, and currently running HomeBoyz animation studios}
Animation in Kenya, Mediocre Start!
Animation in Kenya is fairly new, and barely in its infancy, However, the animation industry has gone through such a revolution that it’s astonishing. From the various genres that exist, i.e. 2D hand drawn, 2D digital animations to 3D animation, great leaps have been made. Understanding animation is very different from knowing how to use software or using a pencil on paper and making lines move to create the illusion of life. Many animators lack the greatest skill in animation! UNDERSTADING LIFE and reproducing it through the magic of animation hence, producing great performances on the screen, I guess all am trying to say is that I have seen quite a lot of animation on TV and on you tube but the acting is just disappointing, you don’t experience what the character is feeling, there is no great intensity in performances! This is further elevated by the fact that many animators are motivated by money rather than passion for the craft hence, the superficial acting in animation, poor story telling skills, lack of originality, and lack of motivation.
If you looked at the early animation experiments by Windsor McKay and the very earliest bits and pieces from Disney’s experimental animations you will see that we are yet to get there, the characters are well connected to their performances, the timing is great, the communication is beautifully brought out, and the stories are awesome, majestic and timeless. Good examples of what am taking about were films produced as early as 1940s, 50s etc, like Bambi, Pinocchio, Alice in wonderland, Sword in the stone to the recent classic "The Lion King” amongst others.
Advent of the Renaissance
Coming back home to Kenya, three years ago,2008, a British production company “Tiger Aspect” set up a huge studio in Nairobi and a production company called Tiger Tinga was born! Its main mandate been to create and produce 52 beautifully animated episodes, 10 minutes each, telling African stories to children all over the world and across the frontiers. These stories are mainly on how animals came to being whom they are today e.g. why “Giraffe has a long neck” or “why flamingoes stand on one leg”, to mention but a few titles in the series. These films are characterized by great songs, fun, games and color, clearly bringing out beautiful age old African stories and an amazing experience to the viewers around Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas.
What made Tinga Tinga Tales an Animation success?
The studio gave animators, Designers, scriptwriters, voice actors etc a great opportunity to showcase their talents. The start wasn’t easy at all, internet was slow and our backup system wasn’t very good, not to mention many animators had just been retooled and trained on how to use industry software and hardware. Each person struggled to find a style to animate and eventually adopt the demanding working pipeline of the animation production with deadlines due for each episode. Animation is not easy! It’s demanding! The pressures of production can be unforgiving and overwhelming. You need to be really sharp, a quick thinker, a good actor, fast worker, very creative and most importantly; your ability to work in a team, bringing forth new ideas hence, helping solve animation technical problems as well as your ability to take criticism and correcting your work to fit the needs of the producers and directors! These are just a few traits that the industry demands from you.
Been well drilled by a great animation support team, we had a great crew from London namely; Rich, Marty, Jim, Joe and our very supportive producer Claudia Lloyd, we were all full of cheerful readiness to tackle the task before us “To bring into life the most beautiful African stories for children around the world.” Everyone had their own way of finding motivation for their acting scenes. Some animators would stand up and act a whole scene out trying to find and what would appeal and communicate best, others would make dozens of drawings for reference or go to the Nairobi National park on a Saturday to study animal movement and behavior. It became evident very early that planning out a scene and exploring every pose for a shot is very crucial.
Another key factor that I discovered from the team I was supervising was that there was a tremendous spirit of competition to be like the early great Disney master animators {the nine old men} Hence, names like Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl or Glen Keane to Andreas Deja were quickly fought for and adopted and every day we would continually strive to find out how Glen Keane would have animated a scene that you would be working on or how he would have solved a problem etc. this competitions amongst team mates greatly improved the animation quality as beautifully animated scenes bore fruit and surprised our producer as well as connecting well with the audiences.
Hard work, dedication, sacrifice and passion were also key ingredients to the success of the Animation series, all the way from script writing, storyboarding, design, Animation to directing all the teams worked with such zest to produce regal work. Sometimes we were so overwhelmed with work that we would spend a night working in the studio, I personally spend four consecutive days and nights working without any cessation! I was not the only one, even Claudia herself been our boss would spend a night at the studio and work till morning. We were very happy to be part of such a great production; finally, around March 2010, our animation performances came to life on the screens around the world! This was greatly satisfying! The result? Kids LOVED the show! It was just like Disney back in the days! And more satisfying was the fact that when we sent our work to Disney for approval, initially we would get many corrections but with time and hard work we got less and less corrections and instead we got appraisals. At the very end of the production, Claudia had gotten a handful of masters, her very own “nine old men” animators who had refined their skills to great heights. Hence, a renaissance of excellent animators in Kenya, whose hard work put African animation in the global market and set standards for future productions.
Aftermath, Whats Cooking Yo?
Now that the series is done, what’s next? That’s the question I have to continually answer, Tiger Aspect was generous enough to hand over the studio to us and we are currently working with Homeboyz Ent as partners, we are running under the name “Homeboyz Animation” at the moment we are still a production house focusing on Animation. Amongst our newest ventures is an Animation training program that’s currently running focusing on character animation. Apart from that, we are working very hard hoping to produce our very own high quality Animation feature length movie. COMING SOON IN THE NEAR FUTURE
Many thanks to all the animation fans around the world whom we love so much...lets keep the candle burning even brighter.
Special thanks to Paula Callus whose animation notes {at AA3} have been a constant source of inspiration and guidance
Post by
Allan Mwaniki, Lead animator,Tinga Tinga Tales
