Yaoundé Filmmakers' Community

Let's build from ground up.

RUSHIAN moves...

Apart from the main characters' misbelief about what the nubs of HIP-HOP truly are, back-biting and back-stabbing in R.U.S.H. heave into the entertainment industry. This means that it sticks out more than any other filmmaking misdemeanors, therefore making it hard to avoid creative failure. Events in this TV Series reflect what happens out here and we shall do everything in our might to use R.U.S.H. and change things a little or spark the brains that will bring about the change.

Some actors from Yaoundé Filmmakers' Community after a fun-filled TV Series production session.

These are one of the most resilient stars in the Cameroonian film space. They've put in the work; they've shown the commitment, they've taken those great strides for our film industry and are now REPRESENTING CAMEROON AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IN CANADA.

We're moving steadily and surely.

All roads lead to OLD TOWN ROAD...

You have been looking for a place to show your acting skills. A place to hone your craft. You live in Yaoundé, or its environs. Go to Black Home Movies. Go there. That's where you belong.

The next most essential characteristic of a film apart from entertainment, is the statement it makes. Filmmaking is interesting when it speaks with a gruff voice, loud and clear.

A voice that rasps all the ills of our society, all the vices that have nibbled into the morrows of our bones. R.U.S.H. makes that statement. From subjects like DRUG ADDICTION, the Tv series has woven themes that not only educate but reprimand things that plague the community.
Stay glued…

Here's a project in post-production from one Yaoundé Filmmakers' Community stake holder. Filmmakers based in Yaoundé are doing everything in their capacity to hoist our flags in the Motion Picture universe. SEMO is one of those projects we must anticipate to savor when it comes out in the theatres.

The R.U.S.H. team is organizing the pilot episode’s TABLE-READ in two weeks. All those who are interested in being part of this culture-shifting endeavor and are based in Yaoundé, just leave us a message and we’ll have a conversation. R.U.S.H. is that contemporary urban vibe. Be part of history.

You have a flare for ACTING, you need an opportunity to show what you got, you're looking for a place where you can hone your acting skills. The place is here in Yaoundé. The opportunity is in the flyer below.

It’s still a very common misconception that in the rap world, everything pivots around gang-banging and drug-pushing.

While this used to be the case, times have changed and tables have turned. So, these days, it is hardly ever about street-cred. I mean, very few rappers still glorify that life in their verses. And most cannot walk that walk and talk that talk anymore.
They just brag about it.

Since they’ve come to discover all the honey and the milk in the industry, they now focus more on the biz and less on the show. R.U.S.H. is here to look into the devastating effect this misconception heaves on some of the stakeholders.
Stay glued…

Bribery and Corruption are one of the most prevalent subjects in R.U.S.H.

If our community must know growth and crime reduction, we must put up
a stiff fight against givers and receivers of bribes. We must be willing
to take action.
It will not be easy but will also not be impossible.

R.U.S.H. delves into crevices that conceal the cradle
for societal ills. It weaves together themes that question our very own
moral values.

Nothing compares to COLLECTIVE EFFORT. The only thing that comes close is MAGIC.

CAN ONE PICTURE TELL WHAT A THOUSAND WORDS CAN’T?

YES! For myself and a smattering of others, STORY-TELLING is the greatest human gift. It has been with us like forever. Makes us stunningly different from other animals. Our ability to educate and entertain with story started way back in the caves. Thousands of years before our large brains could evolve and offer us the genius ability to invent words, we were still very able to visually recount our daily experiences as well as our visions by drawing them on cave walls. So, how does one picture tell you what a thousand words can’t? Or, how can one make one picture provoke thought? The answer is simple.

Make the picture speak. As a filmmaker, do not just rush into gathering actors, switching on your camera, setting up gear, pressing record and calling shots. I know we’ve said this before and it might sound a little cliché but it is worth some nudge of reminder. First think of the story you want your picture to tell- I think “sell” is the better word. Be meticulous and creative about your intention. Do it like our ancestors in the caves did. Remember, their tools were nothing more than bones and stones with color. But those cave-wall drawings remain masterpieces till date. They will remain etched in our memories forever.

This is exactly what a few of us at the Yaoundé Filmmakers’ Community are set to achieve with the R.U.S.H. project. If you are an aspiring filmmaker, do not fail to follow us through this thought-provoking motion-picture we prepare for Africa and the world at large. Follow us each step of the way as we craft the story, hone it and make one picture tell what a thousand words can’t.

Read in between the lines and anticipate this blockbuster serie coming up….

Titled: R.U.S.H. project OVERVIEW.

The Yaoundé Filmmakers' Community (YFC) created R.U.S.H.in order to uplift its members, give them an opportunity to make a living out of their art, and put them into the national and international film market.

R.U.S.H. is an acronym that stands for: Rappers Under Struggle Hustle. It is a five-seasons, thirteen-episodes-per-season TV Series. A CRIME DRAMA that follows a young aspiring rapper who joins a rap group out of desperation and discovers that members of this group still cling to the belief that street credibility is the core nub of the rap game.
A belief that allows them to involve themselves in arm-robbery, drug dealing, gang-banging and other wanton criminal activities of the underworld. But at the end of the day, they must face the full brunt of the law.

As a PRODUCER, you must not impose you view on the DIRECTOR. He is the one with the VISION. You rather have to listen to him carefully and do everything in your power to help him realize these motion pictures in his head. Never stand in the way of it instead.

MAKE EACH FRAME A PERFECT PICTURE.

I have often wondered why pictures in the films I watched more than twenty years ago still remain etched in my memory till date. Though I have never watched them a second time, I still vividly remember Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon as well as Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master. Why? Not only were the stories genuinely crafted and not only were dialogues embedded with clever one-liners, the pictures were themselves, nothing short from the grace of greatness. This is what dawned on me later. So, how do you compose a shot in such a way that remains etched in the head of the audience like forever?

In order to pull this off, you must take a myriad of things into serious consideration. These include, storyboarding, camera and lens choices, framing, lighting, depth of field, contrast, set design, make-up, costume, color grading etc. But there’s this phenomenon of an almost negligible rule that will help you greatly if you think about it. What’s that? What the eyes see, must already be a perfect picture before camera operators set up their equipment. No matter how genius they are, neither the camera operator, nor film editor can make beautiful what was ugly before the cameras rolled.

THINK ABOUT IT.

Being passionate about acting or film making is not enough to make it a profitable venture or a career. Here comes the very first training program that doesn't just focus on training you on acting .But how to transform your Passion into a business. How to become a profitable brand. How to position yourself for opportunities and how to survive as a Film makers with little Budget and still make money. After this one month training we are ready to refund if it is not satisfactory. Every actor and film maker needs to know these realities because your Passion can be the greatest source of your frustration in Life if you do not know how to make it a business .Don't miss this .

OBSTACLE VS CONFLICT

If story was a vehicle, obstacle and conflict would be the drive shaft. Which is the part that carries power from the engines to the wheels. Without the drive shaft, the vehicle can’t move forward. Without great Obstacles and compelling conflict, your story’s plot cannot develop in an enthusing way.
The difference between the two is that; one relates to the hero’s tangible physical goals while the other only relates to one character in disagreement with the other. Tangible, physical goals? Yes, don’t go citing me a list of films that only had internal goals; and they succeeded in the box office. Don’t flaunt how you just want to break rules. The more physical the goal, the more visually invested your audience get. The hero’s goal might be to stop a bomb from going off, but there are lots of things on the way: Traffic, whether, villains etc. These are obstacles. Hurdles that change your hero. After putting him to the test. This is not conflict. Has nothing to do with it. Conflict is that heated argument over a plate of meal. That break-up conversation on the phone that rends one character’s heart into pieces. You must not confuse them. Though they both send power to the wheels of your story and move it forward, the don’t share behavioral capacity.
Think about it

RAISE THE STAKES

We have made several posts about important things to consider when embarking on this arduous filmmaking odyssey. But none of those things comes close to what is at stake in your story. As a filmmaker, if the term “stakes” eludes you, then there’s a myriad of loose ends you need to tie. Let’s distil things by making you know which loose end needs the first knot.

So, what are stakes? Let’s begin from there. Simply put, in story-telling, a stake is the thing we risk losing if the hero doesn’t take action. The what-is-at-stake phrase makes it a lot easier to understand. Imagine the worst possible thing that could happen if the hero in your story does not risk it all to prevent. Industry people say your film is bland when it lacks stakes. No, when the stakes are not raised enough.

The higher the stakes the more compelling your story. The more alluring it feels to the audience. A story in which we risk losing the entire human life will definitely affect a broader audience than a story in which someone risks losing his job. A story in which the peace of the entire country, city or village is at stake, will touch more people than a story where the peace of a single family is at stake.
Think about it.

KNOW YOUR GENRE
After the widespread success of A Fisherman’s Diary, I had an interaction with Kang Quintus in which an opportunity was given me to pitch him an idea. I had this twenty-five-plus-words logline, that summarized a story about science gone wrong. When he read it, his answer was straight and simple. He said the idea sounded beguiling but it was not the type of film he would love to produce. I was mad at first. But on second thought, I discovered that the only-one-who-ever-did-it producer-director, had a nous in his choice of genres. Meaning, he had the intelligence and the ability to be practical when it comes to choosing the types of stories he would love to tell.

Great film directors like Stanley Kubrick never had any specific genre they stuck to throughout the span of their filmmaking careers. All his films were different genres. All of them, exquisite classics. But as an indie filmmaker here in this part of Africa, you are not Kubrick. You are a passionate hustler who wants to find his niche in filmmaking and at the same time wants to make a living out of it. So, you might want to explore the genre that’s easy for you to handle as you embark on your filmmaking odyssey. If it is Drama, stick to it. I love action and thrillers. So, that’s where I focus my energy for now. There’s a genre you love. That is the branch you grasp and cling to.

However, no matter the genre, the right thing for us to do is find a way to tell story in an interesting way. A way that’s simple but catchy. A way that puts the audience at the edge of their seats. All the genres have a beginning, middle and an end. There’s someone or a group of people that wants something so badly they are ready to sacrifice anything just to get it, else . . . and there’s someone standing in their way. All genres tell the same story. So, tell the story you are able to make. The one that fits into the size of your budget. Because you can’t go all Michael Bay on a film when you only have the resources for A Fisher Man’s Diary level of film.
Think about this.

ASK THE WHAT-IF QUESTION.
When I first discovered the what-if question, I was in a friend’s filmmaking hub trying to buffer up my niche in directing. Up until then, I had never had an inkling about the question. But what is a what-if question?

It is a question you ask yourself or others in the brainstorming room, when crafting a premise. Sorry for this but permit me veer you back to the main nub of story. The foundational idea itself into which plot is embedded. Industry people call it PREMISE. One of the best ways of coming up with an idea that works for visual storytelling, is crafting a strong premise. How do you do this? By asking yourself questions like; what if the earth stopped to rotate; what if two planes crashed into the presidency; what if, what if…

I no longer have to grapple with ideas for weeks before finally smacking my story into an enthusing position. I no longer have to drop any clanger when pitching it. Why? I Do not just go ahead and start writing a story without first brainstorming its PREMISE and asking myself a smattering of what-if questions.
THINK ABOUT IT.

By Nfor R. Ngala

DIALOGUE VS ACTION

One glaring mistake we make as indie filmmakers is saddle our actors with lengthy - most times watery - dialogue. It is true that Dialogue has its place among other nubs in the screenplay elements. It is also true that with it you can reveal how characters are doing on the inside. You can go into deep recesses and reveal very important information about story, plot, theme, trait, conflict etc. The list of things dialogue can do is endless. But this begs the question, in this visual, motion-picture sphere, are these things really necessary?

When I read Alfred Hitchcock, I learned one thing. Not only how to create suspense for which he is famously revered, but how to do everything with ACTION and resort to dialogue only when it is impossible to do otherwise. Even if you must include dialogue for very specific reasons, it should not take more than twenty percent of your screenplay. Eighty percent - or more – of the story must be action-driven. Why? This is MOTION PICTURE. What we see characters go through matters more than what we hear them say. That’s where the difference lies between film and stage plays.
Most of our filmmakers open scenes with characters just seated and telling the story. This sphere is visual. So, make the characters do something. And it must not be anything. It must be something that tells the story. That enhances its plot. A character searches for something everywhere. In the drawers, the cupboard, under the bed, nooks and crannies…etc. After almost giving up, he finds it, and it is a brand-new bank note. But the numbers have been nibbled away by rodent teeth. This means the bill is useless. Imagine the disappointment. A scene that opens like this is way more visually intriguing than a scene that opens with the same character telling someone how he searched his bank note and found it eaten by rats.

Which of the two scenarios can you mute its sound and still get the message? The former right? I think so too.
Apart from the fact that this visual communication is indispensable to us as filmmakers, it eases performance for actors. Reduces a lot of cost. You’re not going to have actors memorizing lines and rehearsing them but just go into blocking and shooting. You’ll show, not tell.
Think about this.

How do you HOOK an investor?

A very clever one-liner is your go-to when you embark on the investor-fishing odyssey. It plays two distinct roles. It plays the role of both the BAIT and the HOOK itself. But pause for a second. Let’s crack the nuts and find out what these terms really mean.

The Oxford dictionary defines “bait” as food put on a hook to catch fish or in nets, traps etc. What this means is that, if an investor asks you what your story is about, you don’t go on explaining the idea and recounting the events in it. Just tell him something clear, short and concise. Something that does nothing else but draw him in. Put a bait in the hook. It is the bait that pulls the fish towards the hook itself.

The Oxford dictionary also describes a hook as a curved piece of metal, plastic or wire for hanging things on, catching fish with, etc. In the last part of this lies our interest. The word “Catching” is what we take home. Now you get the point. Let your idea not only bait an investor in but catch him. Hook him bad he has no choice but invest those nickels and dimes bulging his pockets.

Once again, you do this by creating A troubled CHARACTER, by giving him an external GOAL (Internal too, if need be), a goal which if they do not achieve, a lot of things will be at STAKE, by putting someone or something in their way, an OBSTACLE/CONFLICT and by letting there be an OUTCOME. This is how you bait someone into hooking within a couple of minutes.

As a struggling filmmaker, if you have not succeeded to do this yet, keep that RED camera first, let those method actors of yours be, forget lights, editing, hype… Just get that bomb idea and craft a clever one-liner from it that blows the investor’s mind into tiny pieces.

CATCHY STORY PITCHING.
You may wink at it, but as an aspiring filmmaker, learning how to PITCH a story in a way that can enthuse an investor is one of the first things you should include in your to-do list. We already know who an investor is. Not so? If not, let’s shove that out of the way first. An investor could be an individual or an organization, willing to use their money with the aim of making profit from it. Making profit from it? Exactly. That’s the main cog that makes an investor’s engine move. PROFIT. Question then becomes, how do you compel an individual like Dangote or an organization like MTN to buy into your vision and want to spend those nickels and dimes in their pockets?
Here are three ways:
1- THINK: What do you want to talk about? Is it SPORTS, football, basketball, hockey? What kind of sports? Is it POLITICS, WAR? Think. The filmmaking odyssey begins with the power of imagination. Whether your idea is fictional or non-fictional, you cannot escape from the storms that must occur in your brain. The brainstorming processes is tedious, there’s no denying that, but it is a necessary activity. You must be able to carefully consider all the facts in order to understand your idea, make decisions about the facets, solve the problems that show up. Ask yourself these questions, “Can this idea of mine attract investment?” “To who can I sell this idea”, “Do I need to think of a different idea?” Questions like this will likely avoid you getting up on the wrong side of the bed.
2- PACKAGE: What brainstorming does in your head is this; it allows for all sorts of ideas to pop in from the thinking engine you ignited. Good ideas, bad ideas, all of them get strewn into your head. If it is about Sports, football for instance, then the main character in it will be a footballer, or a coach, or a footballer-wannabe, it will be about someone like Eto’o Fils, Patrice Mboma. How about Roger Milla? The setting will be in Douala, Yaounde, Carlifornia, where? It is up to you at this point to structure things up in a comprehensive order. The first things come first.
3- KILL: Don’t take this point literally. I just mean completely enthuse your investor for the very first time he gives you his ear. I love the elevator pitch effect. It sets you up on a two minutes opportunity where you have a producer’s attention. He finally wants to hear your idea, you have less than two minutes to wow him. How you craft what to tell him determines every chance of securing investment. How do you pull this? By using Character, stakes, goals, compelling conflict, obstacle, to create one or two concise statements about your story. Our next post will delve more on this…
Stay Tuned.

As a filmmaker, would you sacrifice your church service this SUNDAY for a film set like this?

5 Things That Hold Our Film Industry Back

What does the “Cameroonian film” lack?

Pose this question to the common people in the street, they will quickly tell you that we lack good actors. That our actors lack realness. Pose the same question to most Cameroonian film industry stake holders, they’ll whine about the lack of market and good infrastructure. Both points of views are not wrong, neither is any of them the nub of our filmmaking problem.
“The real nub of the problem are things other than actors’ flawed delivery and wonky market infrastructure”. These are the exact same words of an American independent filmmaker with whom I had a conversation after it was a wrap for one of his sets in Bastos, Yaoundé. Out of sheer curiosity I asked him to run that by me in detail and this is what I retained after his elaboration.

FINANCES
Why can’t we raise the right amounts of budget for industry standard films? I have asked myself this question and others like this several times and answers always steer towards ignorance. They say “ignorance is not an excuse”. That is very true. There are so many potential investors out there looking for what to invest their money on. Getting them is where the trick is. And we are oblivious of this trick. The trick of pitching a project and attracting investment.

IMPROPER USE OF INDUSTRY TERMS
How you define a word determines how you act upon it. For instance, a vast majority of Cameroonian filmmakers still refer to SUBJECT as THEME. Some still refer to the ART DIRECTOR as the ARTISTIC director. The theme of a story, is a complete statement about moral human conditions, while the subject is just a single word or two about the central idea. And even though he is kind of the boss for a theatrical production, there is just no place for an artistic director on a film set. Not knowing the existing disparity between these is already a serious issue we have to deal with. We have to raise our knowledge of industry terminology a notch or two higher.

LACK OF CREATIVITY
Filmmaking is an art. On a production set everyone is required to think creatively. This means that from ideation, pre-to-post production, creative decisions must be made intentionally and when need arises. Problems occur at every level. Serious problems. Getting these problems out of the way, requires a great deal of creative fuel.

POOR SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT
This is the part where we really do miss the point completely. We believe that as soon as we get an idea that we like so much and are so passionate about, we are ready to pick up a camera and start doing casting calls. Script development is one of the most vital k***s we need to fasten. Producers, agents, managers, studio execs must be able to see a spec script through a smattering of drafts until it becomes a production script.

PROMISCUITY
Lastly, there are so many people involved in the filmmaking process. The crews and cast that populate a production come there for very different reasons. Directors, producers, actors now use production sets as a dating venue. Girls are promised roles if they accept some certain conditions which they’re not comfortable with. This practice stands in the way of ingenuity and growth.
I will conclude saying that knowing a problem is already finding its solution. Now that we know some of those things that are on the way of our growth as a filmmakers’ community, it is time for us to think about them radically and look of ways in which we can find long-lasting solutions and guarantee commercial growth.