8th November, 2013
As Nigerians count down to the centenary anniversary of the country’s amalgamation, filmmaker and historian, Dotun Taylor, is putting together a commemorative series of short, didactic documentary entitled: 100 Years in 100 Words.
In a chat with P.M.NEWS Entertainment Café, Taylor said he decided to put the documentary together as his own contribution to the preservation of Nigeria’s rich history and culture for today’s generation and posterity.
“Nigeria will clock 100 years as an amalgamated country come 2014. It is therefore expedient that as a nation with serious people, we should have data so that we don’t continue to run with distorted data,” Taylor said.
“That is why we are developing 365 episodes of different topics touching different aspects of our evolving history as a country since 1914, from Culture, Cuisine, Currency, Dance, Music, FESTAC ‘77, Personalities, Tourism and many more.”
A product of the university of Ilorin, DT, as he is also known, is partnering with the History department of his university, whereby students would be co-opted into writing specific topics, which when certified okay would then be shot into a five-minute video.
Already, some of the videos are on his Youtube channel, and beginning from 1 January 2014, the documentaries would go on radio and television stations across the nation if he gets sponsorship.
“We want to run the documentary all through 2014 as it is the year of our amalgamation and good enough, we are already getting encouraging responses from sponsors who want to seize such responsible medium to advertise and reach out to their different demographics,” he said.
With a background in television having worked at the Nigerian Television Authority, Jos; music video production for both indigenous and contemporary artistes, and filmmaking, where he has produced and directed a rich catalogue of home videos and soap operas, it is in voice-over artistry that Taylor has probably done more. He was the baritone behind the recently concluded Gulder Ultimate Search anniversary narrative.
—Funsho Arogundade