Meet Eguvwe Majomi Yugbovwre {EMY} Founder/CEO Of Ajebotoons
Admin 0 0 1806 Date: 08 Dec 2016
AG) Good day Emi, Hope you are well. Now lets get straight to business.
AG) When did you kickoff Ajebotoons Animation Academy?
The Academy was first kicked off in August 2016.
AG) How did Ajebotoons start and what were the challenges faced when establishing Ajebotoons?
Emmy) I started animating during my final year in school 2010 and Ajebotoons was first registered as a business name in 2012 during my NYSC year. Ajebotoons began at the stage of my life where I was waiting for a good job to come along, and I decided I couldn’t just do nothing while waiting, so I registered my company. At the time, the only challenge was choosing between “Ajebo cartoons” and “Ajebotoons”, I guess we both know which one I ended up with.
AG) Are you come from an artistic family?
Emmy) hahaha, no I am not. None of my family members can draw. Well, unless you want to count my little nephews who love drawing because they see my animations.
AG) What are your main influences?
Emmy) Influences? or Inspirations? Well, i would say looking at other artworks online always keeps me on my toes. I see a lot of really cool art works from friends and popular artists and i'm like wow! What am i doing with my life that i cant draw like that? lol. But then, i have my own art style that i try to stick to.
AG) Do you listen to music when you work and if so, what do you listen to?
Emmy) Yes i do listen to music a whole lot! While i'm working and while i'm not. hahaha. Depending on my mood, i listen to Gospel music- Sinach,Frank Edwards,Donnie, e.t.c, or Naija mix- Banky W, Olamide,Techno, and the rest (I honestly hardly take note of their names.If i like the song, i listen.) or Old School- Luther Vandross, Elvis Prestley, Barry White, e.t.c or Cartoon songs- Disney Classics. lol. I'm weird like that.
AG) What are your favorite animations?
Emmy) This one is hard oh! Because i have a lot of favorites and as the year goes by, they keep adding up. That said, I would watch MegaMind a million times, and my favorite this year is Zootopia.
AG) Seeing that you are a self-trained 2D animator, what where the challenges you encountered?
Emmy) My most notable challenge would be my inability to draw very well. As a child, I could draw very well, but since I didn’t harness that skill, it couldn’t be harnessed to its full level. As a 2D animator, it’s a huge advantage to be able to draw very well, especially if you are going to be creating frame-by-frame animations, and not just cut-out animations.
AG) Compared to when you started 2D animation, how far do you think Nigeria has come in the Animation industry?
Emmy) I think, and this is my personal opinion, that the Nigerian Animation industry has come a long way in the past 4 to 5 yrs. Most companys didn’t think of using animations to advertise then, and the ones that did, would find foreign studios to get the job done. But now, there are quite a few number of Nigerian Animation Companys doing really cool looking animations, and we are beginning to get recognized, which is pretty cool.
AG) What type of reception did you receive when you started Ajebotoons?
Emmy) Oh, I got weird faces from people when they hear the name.lol. Which is actually what I wanted when I decided to use the name. And then, I got to find out some years later about another animation house in Nigeria using a similar name, and was owned by a celebrity. The news did not sit well with me at first, but after a while, I got to realize that our animation styles were totally different, and quite noticeable, so I just gave it a rest. Apart from that, Ajebotoons has been received quite well, I would say.
In a male dominated industry, what are the challenges you have faced?
Challenges? Hahaha, I would say it’s been an advantage being a female Nigerian animator. Almost every time I tell someone I’m an animator, I get this look that just makes me smile. And then I get comments like “wow, I’ve never met a female animator”. And I go ahead to tell them that there are quite a few of us in Nigeria. One of them, I look up to, her name is Ebele Okoye, although she doesn’t live in Nigeria, she’s a Nigerian animator, and her story is one that inspires me.
AG) What is your preferred engine for developing content?
Emmy) If by “preferred engine” you mean “preferred software”, I would say Anime Studio, now known as Moho. I started with Toonboom, and then had to learn Moho in 2014 when I had to work on “Bino and Fino”, and have been using Moho since then. I came across Maya for 3d animation in 2011 for the first time when New York Film Academy came to organize a training in Lagos, and although I emerged the best 3d animator that year, I haven’t done any serious 3d since then. I find Moho easier and faster to use, but I still love Toonboom for frame-by-frame animations.
AG) How do you monetize your content?
Emmy) Mostly, I’ve been working for other companies in order to get paid and put food on the table. I haven’t been working on my personal projects. But now that I have broken out of that and working for Ajebotoons, and focusing on our in-house projects, we have partnered with a distribution company whose job is to deal with how to sell the content and get money for it, while our job is to provide the content.
AG) How do you reach your end users?
Emmy) A number of ways. Mostly social media for now as this is the age of social media. However, our goal is to be able to air on cable TV stations and local TV stations so we can reach a wider audience.
AG) What are your favorite animations?
Emmy) This one is hard oh! Because i have a lot of favorites and as the year goes by, they keep adding up. That said, I would watch MegaMind a million times, and my favorite this year is Zootopia.
AG) If you had the opportunity to work with any animator who will it be and why?
Emmy) I would love to work with the Japanese animators that worked on the anime "Hunter x Hunter" and "One Piece". I just love these animations and the personalities each character has. I also would love to sit with the writers and get to know how they think, because the storylines are just not of this world.
AG) Are your currently collaborating or open to collaboration with any other organizations?
Emmy) Yes, like I mentioned earlier, we have partnered with Vortex, and so far, the partnership has been a rewarding and challenging experience. Yes, we are very much open to collaboration with any other organization who might be interested in collaborating with us.
AG) How many employees do you current have?
Emmy) For now, I have 3 in house partners. I like to call the people I work with partners, because they are a huge part of the company’s growth and are not just working a 9-4 for the sake of money. I also have people I work with who are involved in their own thing but also work for us when needed.
AG) What is the piece of work that you are most proud of?
Every piece of work i work on, i am proud of it at that moment, but then the next day i feel ashamed of it and i try to do something better that i can be proud of. So what i'm trying to say is that i still haven't done that work that i am so proud of.
AG) Where do you see African Animation in the next 5 years?
Emmy) Wow, if we’re talking about African Animation, and not just Nigerian Animation, then that’s not an issue, African Animations have begun to break boundaries. I mean look at Triggerfish and what they are doing for us. They have proved that our stories can be told in our way, and accepted by the world. I can’t say where I see the African Animation industry in the next 5 years, but I can say we surely won’t be at the same level we currently are in.
AG) What new projects are you working on?
Emmy) At the moment, I have a lot of projects on the side that I would like to work on, but, I am focusing on working on our “Aje and Kpako” series. The series is an African family entertainment series that showcases our Nigerian culture to the world. In spite of all that’s going on, I still love my country, and this is my little way of sharing a part of who we are to the world.
AG) Where can fans watch your animations?
That’s easy. For now, we will still load everything we do in our website www.ajebotoons.com So I would suggest visiting the page often and registering to be updated whenever new things are uploaded.
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