Damiete Braide
To help support African aspiring and established filmmakers during these challenging times of COVID–19, Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA), has commenced a three-month knowledge-sharing initiative with over 42 pro-video webinars called Canon Tech Talk Series for the film industry.
First to kickstart the first Canon webinar are two renowned African filmmakers and directors, Nigeria’s Kunle Afolayan and Algeria’s Merzak Allouache.
With this collaboration, they shared their experiences with the latest Cinema EOS range after exclusive use in their latest movies of Canon’s EOS C500 Mark II.
After the special first webinar, the CCNA team will continue with a series of Canon Tech Talk webinars on changing the face of filmmaking, covering vlogging, streaming, colour science, post-production, and a range of other film-making classes.
The remaining 18 webinars are divided between beginner and professional courses in three different languages (English, French and Arabic), will ensure everyone continues to learn and grow during these strange times.
“Now more than ever, we must come together to ensure that the global standstill does not set us back in our careers or our passion-projects,” says Amine Djouhara, Sales and Marketing Director at Canon Central and North Africa.
“During these challenging times, this series of webinars offer a virtual developmental tool to maintain the evolution of critical skills for continued and sustainable growth of the film industry.”
Afolayan’s films are part of a growing number of African contributions to the global online platform Netflix. His latest film, Citation, explores the important issue of sexual exploitation of young female Nigerian students by their professors. For this gritty, hard-hitting movie, Afolayan chose the new EOS C500 Mark II from Canon.
Allouache also selected the Canon EOS C500 Mark II for his latest film, as part of a technical partnership with Baya Productions.
Following a glittering 40-year, 22 film career, which included 1994 Cannes Film Festival award-winning production, Le Repenti, 86-year-old Allouache marks his comeback with a new cinematographic masterpiece Une Famille, that plunges the audience deep into an intensely real political and family drama.
“The film benefited from the technology provided by Canon. The production team was provided with a Canon EOS C500 Mark II camera and a range of Cine Lenses and accessories so that the film shot entirely in 5.9K at 24 fps. The EOS 5D Mark IV and EOSR were also used throughout, to shoot the film and to photograph the behind-the-scenes footage,” said Hamoudi Laggoune, the gifted Algerian cinematographer chosen to work alongside Allouache on the new film.
According to Afolayan, independent filmmakers can be empowered by technology to share their success stories with a global audience.
“I first saw the Canon EOS C500 Mark II at IBC 2019 and I was amazed at its capabilities. Normally it’s not a director’s place to tell a director of photography (DOP) what kit to use, but I always wanted to shoot in 4K full-frame, and I knew that this camera would make it to the Netflix approved list, which was vital for this production,” said Nigerian actor, producer and director, Kunle Afolayan.
“Thankfully. Jonathan Kovel, the DOP working on my new film, loved the camera; therefore, we were able to shoot Citation with the Canon EOS C500 Mark II, which gave us another level of authenticity and creative freedom.”
“Canon’s continuous relationship with empowering the African creative market via innovative technology has supported the rise of Africa’s content. Our focus is on offering leading industry know-how and award-winning cameras and lenses built for enthusiast and professional level creatives,” says Amine Djouhara, Sales and Marketing Director at Canon Central and North Africa.
The latest model in Canon’s Cinema EOS Camera range features Canon’s newly developed Super 35mm 4K CMOS sensor and comes with 16+ stops of dynamic range, professional codecs in a compact, modular body.