Shoot Your Shot Africa Content Lab organised a two-day Cinematography and Mobile Content creation workshop titled, Unlock Your Creative Potential, recently.
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The workshop was aimed at empowering the youth on content creation and cinematography, film and sound.

Founder of the Initiative, Adebisi Peters, said as a beneficiary of the British Council Creative Enterprise in 2018, which changed his life, he started the series of free workshops for the past three years as a corporate social responsibility, with the sole aim of empowering young creatives in the entertainment industry.

Peters said: “The world is changing and so does technology, with cameras on our phones, technology has evolved, so I thought of how to prepare these young ones who use their phones almost the whole day and convert these skills into something that will fetch them money, therefore providing employment.”

He cited the example of one of the resource persons who participated in this kind of programme in 2021 and today she makes money through the use of her phone by shooting for event planners, companies, and weddings.
Peters is enthusiastic that the youths will be able to take what they have learnt and put it into practice and be able to fend for themselves such that in the next three years, brands and companies will look out for them to do jobs for them.
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“Images speaks louder than words and as long as we have people who write words, we would have people who want to create images to also sell their businesses and profile,” he said.
One of the participants, Rukayat Oderinde, a trader in Lagos, simply said, she learnt a lot.

Another budding cinematographer and photographer, Ebikade Festus Iyere, narrated his experience of the programme as thus, “a friend of mine gave me the flier for this event, and I was really interested because having to create content with my mobile phone is something that I have always wanted to do, though I still create content on my own, having this experience was like an added step to my ladder. So, I was here for the two days, all the way from Sango Ota axis in Ogun State. I took the train down here and I have no regrets.”

Iyere added, “It was a beautiful experience. The first day, we were taught about the art of directing and the intricacies of taking pictures with mobile phones and all of those stuffs. It was exciting for me; it was innovative; it was new. I really appreciate the producers of this programme, the teachers and the facilitators. They did an amazing job. I am more excited about the sound class because it is one of the reasons I came here. Sound is very important when it comes to creating such projects, I am glad I learnt a lot about sound.”

Actor and cinematographer, Josephine Zoe Said, “I am really marveled at a lot of things I could do with my phone. I used to think that I needed a big camera to be able to make content or something, but from my experience yesterday, I got to find out that with my smart phone I can do a lot of things; I can make videos and post them.
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And they can give me the same or similar result that a camera can give me.”

She added, “Today, I learnt about editing; I just got to find out about an editing app VN, that is actually very easy. I never used to like editing, but now I am super hyped to want to create and edit my videos. Now I have broadened my knowledge and it’s a whole lot. The organisers are amazing, because giving such opportunities for free is rare. I mean in two days I have learnt a lot.”

The creative director of Enhance 360 and a co-founder of Shoot Your Shot Africa, Seun Adeleye, throwing more light on the programme, said, “this is a platform for developing young creative minds to discover their talents, build and nuture it so they can begin to tell stories and make the world better and earn money. Basically, the idea for us is to build talents and give them opportunity to express themselves and expose them to bigger opportunities in the production industry out there.

“Last year, we had a major programme at Yabatech and we had over 3000 youths in attendance. We had various professionals in the creative industry teach them so many things and it was a big mind shift for the students.”

Adeleye said, “this training is called Content Lab, because a laboratory is a place where people test some chemicals or ideas and see how it could perform or make discoveries or fine tune ideas, so, the idea of Content Lab is where we gather creatives to speak to them. We also learn from other speakers so that at the end of the day, we can have a more robust creative industry. It is a content class where people who are not interested in creating content can pick their phones and start with something and grow from there.”
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