Plus TV guests; Moses Ikeakhe, Ferdy Adimefe, and Harry Dunkwu

By Taiwo Okanlawon

Ambassador Ehigie Moses Ikeakhe, ECOWAS Youth Ambassador, on Friday was hosted by Plus TV, to discuss the Animation Industry in Nigeria with alongside other guests.

The inception of the discussion was highlighted and addressed by Ambassador Ehigie Ikeakhe who urged Nigerians to be focused and determined on achieving greatness.

He said, “I believe in consistency and hard work as these are the secrets that keep propelling me to greatness.” He proceeded by saying “Failure is inevitable but the ability to learn from failure and a little adjustment confers victory.”

He, however, shared a word of encouragement to the Animation Industry in Nigeria to protrude in their relentless pursuit in conducting and inspiring Nigerians as well as the new West African Creative in pushing boundaries and applying competent creative skills into production.

The second guest speaker on the show, Ferdy Adimefe (A creative entrepreneur) furthered in emphasizing on the ideology of entrepreneurship and ways in relating its skills into production as a vast and generally accepted technique in all professions.

He said, “Entrepreneurship requires a lot of sacrifices, so you must be able to stay and delay gratification; you must be able to think of your company/business and your people before yourself.”

He reinstated in another dimension by saying “Entrepreneurship is like a special relationship that you must nurture.”

He concluded by being laudable of the fantastic dots of professionalism and enthusiasm pulled out by Animation Industry in Nigeria and urged them to be ever consistent and determined as these are the prices required in achieving success.

The third guest speaker, Harry Dunkwu, (CEO scroll Entertainment, Lagos) fueled the discussion by talking about the scope, limitations and of course the challenges of his profession.

He started by outlining some of the challenges he encountered. Absence of funding and infrastructure From getting a studio space, furniture setup, buying of high-end graphic computers, graphic tablets, rendering machine, power generating machines, inverters (due to power failure problems), payment of staff, and so on.

“Funding an animation studio is a capital intensive venture, every project burns money from the inception. Absence of open culture that leads to collaboration It is important to note that collaboration and openness helped transform the Tech space in Nigeria to what it has become.

“Embracing a more open way of collaboration that focuses on leveraging on team strengths and not on an individual’s strength is key to finishing projects and maintaining the sanity of the artists involved.

Lack of quality training hubs The world wide web (WWW) has made it easy to acquire some certain skills in animation, but trained people also need to learn how to work in teams while being trained. Seeing training institutes as hubs will help trainees appreciate every part of the system and understand the technicalities involved with working in a team.”

He said “The animation space in Nigeria is still small with limited professional hands available. The absence of quality studios with the necessary technical know-how is a challenge that sees individuals starting studios all over the country in order to meet the needs in the market for animation.”

He however said “My passion for creativity is innate. I studied Electrical/Electronics Engineering at the University of Benin, yet I decided to become a Digital Artist.

“I founded a start up Animation Studio (Scroll Entertainment) in Lagos, where I work daily providing digital art content solutions for clients who want to tell their stories. I also conduct digital art and 2D animation training between.”

He said that he’s delighted by the progressive status of the Animation Industry in Nigeria. He said “Art for me is a portal to a world of unlimited possibilities for storytelling. I started creating comics and my business (then scroll comics) was shortlisted in 2014 as a top 50 business in Nigeria by Etisalat.

He thereby advised Nigerians to set a goal in any profession/business they desire and work towards in achieving those goals, as age is not a barrier or any form of excuses in tasting greatness. He however concluded that Animation Industry in Nigeria is just at the verge of an unstoppable breakthrough and will eventually be a blockbuster in the nearest future provided the consistency continues.