INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR ENOCH (THE ANIMATOR FOR THE HOUSE OF AJEBO)

Victor Enoch

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 Compliments of the season everyone, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a fantabulous Happy New-year. To spice up today’s event, NewDawnBrothers happened to interview Nigeria’s finest creative personality/animator whose works so far has recorded itself in the book of life especially in the history of Nigeria technological sector and animation. Here is an exclusive interview with Victor Enoch, the animator for the famous comedy clinic “The House of Ajebo”.

Please introduce yourself?

My name is Victor Enoch, I’m from Enugu State but I was born and brought up in Kano State then moved to Lagos in 2003. 

When and how did you start animation?

I have been doing this for like 8years now. When I was growing up I used to draw a lot; I see lot of artist showcase their works on the streets and I ask myself if they generate enough income from it so I decided to do something different. I didn’t just want steady art drawings; I wanted to bring my art to life thereby making my drawings move.

Did you learn art in school?

Basically I did some animation programs from MTI 2009 (Multimedia Training Institute); I did an online American Mentor program for one year.

What inspired house of Ajebo?

Ajebo is a very good friend of mine. Ajebo is one of the comedians that saw things differently because he is a creative person as well. Like two years ago, he called me up and we got talking. He played an audio comedy skit he created then said “why don’t we make animated comedy skits” which we did and it went far. We reasoned, instead of us doing comedy like every other comedian why not makes ours an animated comedy. That’s what inspired the House of Ajebo.

What’s the best part of animation?

Watching your finished work, playing it and seeing the motion.

What’s the most challenging part of animation?

Spending a lot of hours rendering, also when you working on something really interesting and you’ve gone far into it then maybe something happens to the file, you find out it wasn’t saved. This takes you many steps back which can be frustrating and because you are working with creative people, the initial idea you may be working with may not be like the first one, it might be better but it can get you discouraged.

What’s the difference between animated pictures and animated videos?

Animated pix are still images; for the animation to come to life, you have to design the animated image in different frames thereby giving the image motion. Back then Disney started with Flipbook animation. Technology has made everything a whole lot easier where programs are designed to make the work easier.

NewDawnBrothers with Victor Enoch

What software do you use?

Making this thing happen is not just done with one app or software. Like the Photoshop we all know about can be used to make the background also the manga studio I use that for character developements. Z.brush, cinema 4d, Anime studio pro or After effect to animate. We also have softwares that create the sounds; we have others for video editing after making the animations in bits, that combines everything together.

What are your challenges?

The right tool to work with is a major challenge but as time goes on we are trying to get all these things in place (the equipment). And also having people appreciate the kind of work we do too is also very challenging.

What’s the size of your team?

Right now we are not really large, we starting up but we have a lot of people we working with right now. We have Emerald who is our creative director, Safee who is the project coordinator, Daniel assistant project coordinator and we have Ajebo who is the main star in idea developments and comedy skits as we are all trying to grow.

How did you meet your team mates?

There is something about creative people “they have like minds”. Not like we went out to scout but when you are a creative person, you attract people of your kind (creative people) and that’s how the team was built. Meeting people who share and see things from the angle you are seeing them from. Everyone has something to offer, it’s not all about Victor Enoch, there are people who are very good in creating backgrounds and characters, while others have got voices that fit in perfectly well for the characters. The creative ability of a person is what attracts two people of its kind together for effective workmanship.

Do you have sponsors?

For now we don’t, we have been talking to a few people who might be interested in our new project ‘Dave & Golly’. Everything we do, we fund it ourselves because you cannot get a sponsor like that especially when people are still buying the idea of Animation in the country, the stage although right now, people are beginning to key into it and hopefully something will come up. Like the House of Ajebo show in Lagos, people were actually standing to watch our cartoons. It was amazing! we showed our animated comedy skits…been getting calls since the show.

What’s your current project?

Currently we are working on an animated film called “Dave and Golly” which would be the third animated film we produced. We’ve done two animated films in the past time which are “Story for me” (2012) and “God’s Love” (2009).

 ‘Dave and Golly’ is a full length animated film coming in 3D so it’s going to be the first 3D animation we are putting in the cinema. We have done the voice over already, we’ve still got more to do and our target audience for this is quite different from our target audience of our previous works.

Judging from the title of most of your works, it seems like you are a very religious person. Are you?

Well I wouldn’t say I don’t have a belief because am a good Christian, but religion isn’t what we preach. It’s basically good morals so that people can benefit from our works including educationally unlike other cartoons that are out there.

Tell us about ‘Dave and Golly’ project?

Well, ‘David and Golly’ is framed out of a story we all know already which just simply encourages small minds to do big things not minding the size of it. We have been working on it for a while and we are targeting its release date to be the 2015 Easter season.

Where do you see yourself and your team in the future?

Well just like how every other cartoon company started somewhere, in the future we want that Disney standard of animation coming out of Nigeria. 

Do you guys have a website where fans can get your videos?

For now all we have is a Facebook page and YouTube channel but we actually working on a website. We using our Facebook platform to show people the process at which a cartoon is done. A friend once told me that she thought people wear these characters like costumes and have them move around and talk, unknown to her that it’s the voice of humans needed.

Do you think you guys have any competition?

Right now I cannot say we have any, because every other person who does this work or something similar to what we do, have their own touch thereby discerning us all.

You can as well follow the animation project on: www.facebook.com/theanimationproject.ng

@victorenoch on twitter and victorenoch on instagram

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