June 2010 - Halfway Already

Afroshok and Web 2.0
Kenya has recently been hit by the Web 1.0 wave made possible by the arrival of fiber optic cables galore. Then, as usual, Web 2.0, packed with Social Media and streaming video has arrived as well. The impact is what they call a "double whammy". Afroshok Media is currently in "Web mode" developing a website for The Arts Canvas that will be a platform for artists in Africa as a whole to keep in contact with each other and their fans. It will revolve a calendar in which artists put up their schedules whether it be exhibitions or shows. This calendar will be accessible to the public. It will also include news, features. linkage to the social sites and services, and a "movie shop" for access to hard-to-find African movie jewels.

Currently The Arts Canvas is on tour and the coverage is being undertaken by Allan Gichigi, a dynamic young photographer who recently finished an MFA in film in Kent, England.

Afroshok Media is excited by the direction Kenyan TV productions have taken with a certain seriousness in the technical side of things. The Canon 7D is the rave at the moment, with lots of productions going "DSLR" to deliver on the "filmic" look. Afroshok Media hopes to get into the action in bringing the motion graphics up to match. Here is the latest show reel from 2009 work.

A3 - Association of Animation Artists, Kenya
In the last 3 years, Afroshok Media in collaboration with other animation artists such as Kwame Nyong'o and Red Particles among others help set up the Association of Animation Artists, Kenya with a mandate to create a platform on which artists in all areas of animation, from scripting and concept art, to post production and scoring can see how to create critical mass for "things to begin to happen".

As of August 2010, the Kenya ICT Board has called for proposals to offer grants to parties interested in creating applications and content for government as well as the private sector. This is tied to the vision of making Kenya a ICT hub for BPO as well as innovation. A3 hopes to engage the ICT board in funding content development in animation especially in creating "collaboration paradigms" in students. A3 will undertake to carry out this projects with partner institutions such as the Nairobi Institute of Technology.