Nigerian Teens Are Making Sci-Fi Shorts with Slick Visual Effects | Hacker News Reader

Nigerian Teens Are Making Sci-Fi Shorts with Slick Visual Effects

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343 pointskwindla54 comments

They use Techno Phones [0]. It's really the leading telephone in my country back in Africa to the point my wife refused me to buy her a Samsung one. :D

You find those phone have really nice camera, and most importantly power consumption that can span at least 2 days...

Peoples complaining that China is just copycat-ing stuff do not know how China is influencing peoples in developing countries.

[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/07/africas-top-mobile-phone-s...

China is well famous for its hardware remix culture. They get a bad reputation for copying unique inventions without regard for IP agreements and foreigner expectations.

>Peoples complaining that China is just copycat-ing stuff do not know how China is influencing peoples in developing countries.

The problem is that altruism does not exist in geopolitics. Why is China influencing these people? Because it wants their support when it comes time to ask for favors. China is using Western inventions to grow its sphere of influence and defeat Western influence (and thus Western values, culture, etc)

Not that the West is entirely innocent in its quest for power either, but considering the dystopian state of Chinese government (compared to Western governments, at least), it is perhaps better to keep the devil you know in charge than the one that wants to know you much better.

> Not that the West is entirely innocent in its quest for power either

You don't say - most of Africa got a taste of Western "values" and "culture". The last generation that suffered from colonial rule is still living.

Ow. Even I felt that.

do you believe africa was some peaceful wakanda-like utopia before europeans arrived? arabs got there first anyway.

Certainly not. Just like every place on earth, Africa had its share of problems. But that didn't warrant the damage slavery and colonialism did - the effects of which are still rippling through the very fabric of the continent today.

You are responding to a case that has not been made. Furthermore, you are responding to that fictitious case without solid reasoning or good sourcing. It would be nice if you could provide that.

> The problem is that altruism does not exist in geopolitics. Why is China influencing these people? Because it wants their support when it comes time to ask for favors.

But more likely an entrepreneur sent a schematic to a fabrication line in Shenzhen for an underserved market they perceived, got a ton of the phones made for very cheap, and sold them as a service in that underserved market and it became a hit.

Africa is ripe for the picking, it just needs infrastructure to get the resources back to China.

American tech companies dont target Africa because there is no money for them. China works on different economic principles. State backed companies dont just want profit. They want to your know dirty secrets. They want leverage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

> Not that the West is entirely innocent in its quest for power either

My father grew up in Nigeria under Colonial Britain.

My Dad, and most Nigerians, do not have fond memories of British rule. Nor do they have fond memories of western meddling afterward.

I don't think the African people really have a positive view of any form of government local or foreign.

Most influences, internal and external, have been deeply motivated by exploitation.

The truth is, this ancient proverb from the Bible sums up ALL human ridership:

"man has dominated man to his harm"

This is fantastic. It's been a promise for a long time that computers would become ubiquitous, open source software would be able to allow people to do (semi-)professional looking things for free, having access to the internet would be a great enabler, etc.

This is just proof that it's happening! It's genuinely inspiring to see this.

Semi-professional? So, only being paid for some projects and not others? Being a “professional” is not a skill, but an employment status.

I argue that many amateur productions exceed the quality of professionally made productions.

Are you arguing against the term "(semi) professional looking"? Because that last word clarifies what they meant.

"They saved for a month to buy the green fabric for the chroma-key background".

Amazing the things we can learn from kids.

If it’s any interest, I meant this genuinely. In my experience kids with less tend to be more resourceful. I find that a valuable lesson in humility and gratitude. The comforts we seek are often not what we need. Kudos to these kids.

Nerds!

I love how these guys had better sound recordings from their low cost setup than the TV crew covering them, good work!

I think they have the right idea though, start with what you already have. Try to test out ideas and learn with as little pre-investment as possible. Some friends of mine have purchased $3k-$4k gaming machines with the intention of live streaming gaming - all of which never came to fruition.

The very best of luck to them, I hope to see their movies on the Western big screen one day.

One of the biggest gifts that we can give our children is a limitation of resources. It is amazing how they learn and get really creative when given really basic tools to work with. They try things that they wouldn't normally try.

I remember once my son wanted his own "phone" when he was 5. He ended up drawing the whole UI on paper and stuck it on a little slab of wood. Played with it for weeks.

Yup, creativity usually takes a hit when you have limitless options.

It's quite funny you post this on this article since it's literally about kids in the developing country becoming LESS limited.

The sweet spot of limitation :)

Yeah but likewise, when I learned to code in the early 90s, I had no internet. I had to do a lot of exploratory coding and doc reading. It drastically shaped the way I not only learn but has helped me even today to be able to do my own research to solve problems and write good docs.

Africas tech talent is on the rise, it's quite interesting to see as even 10 years ago it was still hard for them to get access to cheap computers and internet.

...and this is my hope for Africa. As new ideas, unique to different regions are allowed to fight their way to market share...this, hopefully, will improve their quality of life in the ways they desire. This is closer to freedom, in my opinion, than having a government, technology, and a way of life designed on another continent then dropped in.

Kids making movies by remixing copyrighted content and perhaps shooting some more is the topic of Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow. Pretty good book that explores the social implications of such efforts.

What’s the TLDR?

> Kids making movies by remixing copyrighted content and perhaps shooting some more

That was already stated to be the topic of the book, but says nothing about the social implications thereof that the book was stated to explore.

Where we are now is such an odd place compared to, for example, early Disney remixing open fairy tale story content.

Whenever I come across a description of Cory Doctorow's novels, I almost always find them compelling.

It's probably time for me to check out his books :)

You should. They are all on different themes and more or less equally good so you can start with whatever issue you are interested in. In immortality, read Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom; crypto, read Little Brother + Homeland; maker culture, read Makers; in anarchism (the good kind), read Walkaway.

The last one is particularly good. He really drives home some important points about our current capitalistic world.

Awesome creativity! Naija no dey carry last. Proudly Naija!

So glad that they understood that the gain for the dialogue does not need to be set to 11, something that seems to be lacking from Nigerian TV "professionals" in my experience!

Super impressive overall!

Can anyone tell me what apps they're using? I'd love to play around with a green screen, but don't have much budget either

Blender, I suppose, just as the article says.

Blender...I did some green screen work in Blender back in 2009 and it was pretty straightforward even back then.

If you just want to play around to get the hang of it without spending anything, last I checked you can get free-to-use, pre-made videos featuring green screen or other chromakey elements and load them up in Blender's video editor. BTW you can use any color you want, so if all you have is a blue bed sheet, you can make it work.

It's not what they're using, but Davinci Resolve also does chroma-key, as well as pretty much anything else in v16. It's also free!

Impressive! I wonder what they're using for video editing and vfx? Blender is great for 3d assets, but what open source software can make this?

Recent versions of Blender can also do video editing and vfx. They're probably also using Blender for that

Not just recent versions -- I just checked my old copy of Blender 2.49b (built on 2009-09-01), and it has the Video Sequence Editor.

For video editing, quite a few:

https://www.lifewire.com/best-linux-video-editors-4176979

Openshot and Kdenlive I'm familiar with (I've used the first in an earlier version, and the latter I know by the name, but have never used) - but the others are new to me. I'm sure there are still more than these, too.

Also Blender (most likely). It supports video editing and general vfx, not just 3d asset building. It's also being used professionally for this purpose in a few places too!

A contender to Wakaliwood?

More like Wakaliwood is a contender to Nollywood. The Nigerian film industry is the biggest in Africa, to the point that some people in other African countries complain about Nigeria's dominance. VJ Emmie even jokes about this in his commentary to Who Killed Captain Alex?.

Posted on twitter ‘Hope that George Lucas either Disney could finance these guys’

I hope not - can we let them explore what film-making means to them, instead of sending the worst offending film-colonizers after them?

"Can we let them continue to create videos with old smartphones and OSS for YouTube, instead of letting them unleash the full scale of their creativity and massively changing their lives with one of the most well-known movie producers of all time and the multi-million $ funding that comes with him?"

> unleash the full scale of their creativity

What if their creativity is about making amazing stuff with limited resources?

You suggest giving essentially unlimited resources, seems like a good way to use badly that creativity.

I remember when I wanted to do 3D on Flash before Sandy3D. I had a 500 mhz P3 processor at the time, with a a crazy 368 MB of RAM. I learned/did much more interesting things on that machine than when I upgraded to some much more powerful computers.

Constraints are pretty great ways to be forced to learns and move fast.

Ha. Who knows? Perhaps they will invent a remarkably efficient way of creating vfx. Maybe they'll design the next generation of processors to help them out. Maybe they'll build a content sharing system that makes sense for their environment. Maybe they'll do things we can't imagine.

Who knows?

At least on netflix, saw even worst shows there

At least for George Lucas, he was self-funding to start Star Wars and did not want Hollywood to own a piece of the pie (source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416716/). I'd think that would count for something in that he'd want others to realize joy in a similar model of creation.

good to see creativity beyond 'ohey check out my youtube product reviews and live vlogging' (not that I don't benefit from those as well)

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