Time flies with great content! Renew in to keep enjoying all our premium content.
Prime
Freelance animators come together to improve their work
Eddie Khisa, one of the founding members of EMX Africa. Photo/Courtesy
EMX Africa, a group of freelance artists, has come a long way from their first animation, the Kayamba Africa music video of singing and dancing lions.
No longer doing free projects to proof their worth, the three year-old collective is ready to make its name in the Kenyan animation industry.
At the beginning of this year, they initiated a branding campaign where they are trying to get freelancers in the industry to work together to add value and improve their work.
EMX Africa was originally started by Eddie Khisa, a communication director and script writer, Mwangi David (3D animator) and X-Files (Cyrus Gathigo), a 2-D illustrator. EMX is a combination of their first names.
They set out under a single entity with the aim of revolutionising the animation industry in Kenya and Africa, telling African-inspired stories to the world.
Undervalued freelancers
Companies got interested in working with them largely because they were dealing with a company, not an individual.
They say this is one of the reasons they came together —they were tired of doing projects alone and being undervalued as freelancers by large organisations.
In the beginning, business was hard but things are looking up as more companies are getting more interested in animations.
“The Faiba and Nchi ni Yetu ads have brought a lot of to the current animation industry. Right now, there is a lot more animation on TV and its good for us. The [ad] industry is accepting that animation can be used to expose brands and tell brand stories,” says Mr Khisa.
EMX Africa began by showing companies that it’s possible to do animation locally.
They came up with samples to demonstrate character development and movement to show they can tell stories and personify an idea.
They then uploaded the work on Youtube channel, Mwangi Animations, soon to change to EMX Africa as part of the branding process.
Investing in the latest software and hardware has helped improve their products. It has enhanced clarity, the lip synching and expressions of the characters.
“The style is more put together. We go for more caricature. We go for what expresses a personality,” says Mr Khisa.
They are still developing an overall style for the entity as being a group of freelancers, each has developed his/her own style.
At the moment when working on a new project, they agree who is the best in the particular file who takes the lead while the rest assist in their areas of expertise.
The system is not without challenges.
“We have realised that if you have the mentality of a freelancer, then working with so many other guys can get tricky.
‘‘I am in the process of streamlining that. If someone calls any of the others with a job, they bring it to EMX and we sort it out,” says Mr Khisa.
Although they are getting more jobs, their main competitors are video production companies which by his estimation get 75 per cent of the advertising campaigns. It becomes a challenge running an animation studio without a constant flow of projects.
“One thing we have in common is that we want to tell stories,” Mr Khisa says.
They are inspired by Dreamworks, a US animation company, that has created animated movies like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda.
EMX Africa has grown to a group of seven people; three script writers and content developers, three 2D and 3D animators and a music and scoring specialist.
“We like to call them consultants because they are professionals in their own right. But when EMX has a job to do we do it together. It’s a place where freelancers get to be part of an entity,” says Mr Khisa.
The three founders used to seek out and identify the talent that would fit in their fold. But with the current branding, more animators are approaching them.
“EMX is a place to find and improve yourself. We find guys who are passionate about what they do. We love to exchange ideas and take criticism because it will mean we have to up our game. We are willing to improve. We love making ourselves better,” he says.
The company plans to establish itself as the go-to animation production company in Africa.
Thus far, it’s trying to package itself for both an international and local audience, hence employing a lot of social media strategies and uploading their content on the Web. So far, their content has attracted some international clients from Canada.
“We believe that we have stories to tell and the world needs to hear our stories hence we are in the process of packaging ourselves and our stories to attract an international audience,” says Mr Khisa.
