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Carly Barnes

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Oju Africa introduces the world to Afro emoticons

Carly Barnes
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Oju Africa, a subsidiary of African mobile manufacturer Mi-Fone, has launched the world’s first offering of Afro emoticons. The icons have been designed for use on Android platforms, and will be available on IOS following its official release.

Alpesh Patel, CEO of Oju Africa and Group CEO of Mi-Group International Ltd says: “We had a dream of digitally uniting Africa, liberating Africans from digital exclusion. And with the launch of the Oju Africa Afro Emoticons we are sharing African soul, funk and unparalleled smiles with the world.

“The launch of our Oju Emoticons has come at an ideal time where celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Tahj Mowry are also becoming increasing vocal about the need for a more diverse range of emoticons. They have even gone as far as approaching Apple with this request, yet what people don’t realise is that there is no need for anyone else to develop these when we have them available right now,’ Continues Patel.

Mobile industry professionals and celebrities will be at Oju Africa’s Global Brand launch which is set to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa on 10 April. The Mi-OJU Children’s Foundation will also be introduced at the launch and Patel explains: “The purpose of the Foundation is to empower and educate the Children of Africa via ICT.’

Visit the Google Play store to download the Oju emoticon app.
Visit the Oju Africa website for more information.

South African Film and Television Awards set to dazzle

Carly Barnes
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The eighth annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) takes place on 4 and 5 April at Gallagher Estate in Midrand and will honour outstanding talent in the South African film and TV industry.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) plans to broadcast the ceremony live on SABC 3 with red carpet coverage beginning at 19h00 followed by the awards ceremony from 20h00 to 22h00.

The voting line for the 8th Annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) Best TV Soap award category is now open. This is the only award category in the SAFTAs that is voted for by the public.

The competing TV soaps have been allocated a number ranging from “1’ to “9’ and to vote, the public can SMS the relevant number allocated to their favorite TV soap to 33100, SMSes cost R1.50 (a flat rate on all networks).

The numbers allocated to TV soaps are as follows:

For 7de Laan SMS 1 to 33100
For Binneland SMS 2 to 33100
For Generations SMS 3 to 33100
For Isibaya SMS 4 to 33100
For Isidingo SMS 5 to 33100
For Rhythm City SMS 6 to 33100
For Scandal SMS 7 to 33100
For The Wild SMS 8 to 33100
For Villa Rosa SMS 9 to 33100

The voting line will close on Saturday 5 April 2014 at 21h00 and the winning TV soap will be announced at the awards ceremony.

Visit the SAFTA Facebook page, the SAFTA Twitter page and the National Film and Video Foundation website for more information.

Cameras featuring at the NAB show

Carly Barnes
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The NAB show, which takes place from 5 to 10 April in Las Vegas in the US will feature a number of conventional HD camcorders.

ARRI
ARRI will present the AMIRA documentary-style camera, which is versatile and has a combination of image quality and affordable CFast 2.0 workflows. The camera includes in-camera grading with preloaded looks based on 3D look up tables, as well as 200 fps slow motion.

Canon
Canon’s Cinema EOS C500 4K digital cinema camera will be showcased at NAB. The camera offers a Super 35 mm, 8.85-megapixel CMOS image sensor, DIGIC DV III image processor and a range of recording and output options specifically for 4K and 2K image acquisition.

FOR-A
Designed for super-slow-motion acquisition, with 4K resolution at up to 900 frames per second, the FOR-A FT-One high-speed camera will be on display.

Grass Valley
The LDX series and the LDX Compact series of advanced imaging cameras, including the LDX Premiere, LDX WorldCam, LDX Elite and the LDX Flex are the latest models from Grass Valley appearing at the NAB show.

Hitachi
The Z-HD6000 CMOS HDTV studio camera from Hitachi makes its debut at NAB. Featuring 2/3-inch 2.6 megapixel 1920 x 1080 CMOS RGB sensors, the camera provides greater operational efficiency with its head providing extra power and communications.

Ikegami
Ikegami will feature its broadcast-style production camera with digital cinema characteristics, the HDK-97ARRI, as well as the Unicam HD camera line which includes multi-format HD cameras with 3G-SDI 1080/59.94p performance.

I-Movix
The X10 UM (Ultra Motion) Phantom-based high-speed camera system and the X10 SSM (Super Slow Motion) camera system by I-Movix will feature at NAB. While the X10 UM offers frame rates of up to 2,600 in 1080i or up to 5,600 in 720p with instant replay, the X10 SSM delivers up to 10x normal speed capture in full HD resolution.

JVC
JVC will present the GYHM850 ProHD shoulder-mount camcorder, which comes with a built-in streaming engine, FTP and 4G LTE connectivity. The camera also sports an interchangeable Fujinon 20x autofocus zoom lens, dual SDHC/SDXC card slots for simultaneous or relay (continuous) recording and native file recording compatible with most NLE systems.

Panasonic
Panasonic will introduce a number of new innovations including: The AJ-PX270 P2 HD camcorder, which records to P2 and microP2 cards in the company’s AVC-ULTRA codec, the 4K, PL-mount Varicam 35, which employs a single 35 mm sensor to mount cinestyle lenses, and the high-speed Varicam HS which shoots HD at up to 240 frames per second.

Sony
The latest 4K CineAlta cameras, XDCAM camcorders and compact NXCAM camcorders as well as Sony’s full range of cameras and camcorders will be on display. Sony will premiere a number of cameras, though announcements are delayed until the show’s opening.

Joe Public creatives win 2014 Cinemark Young Lions Competition

Carly Barnes
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Art Director Marina Andreoli and Designer Sonia Dearling of Johannesburg-based advertising agency, Joe Public, have won the 2014 Cinemark Young Lions Competition and a trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity which takes place from 15 to 21 June in France.

Aside from the opportunity to represent South Africa in the Young Lions Competition, the prize includes a screening of the winning advert in Ster-Kinekor cinemas, return flights to the festival and accommodation in France as well as a full week’s Young Lion Registration.

The competition was open to creatives under the age of 28 who had just 48 hours to submit a film advert supporting the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) I VOTE SA (IXSA) campaign. I VOTE SA (IXSA) is the theme for the 2014 National and Provincial Elections campaign and is a call to South Africans to register and vote in the upcoming elections.

Jenny Glover, Jury President and Joint Creative Director for Net#Work BBDO, said the winning team had a unique approach to the project.

“It also stood out because it didn’t try to replicate a R5m shooting budget and made the best of limited resources. Boxing clever is what good creatives do and it’s what the contenders in Cannes will have to do. It stood out for its witty execution, clarity of thought and the way it nods to the cinema medium. Smart ideas are what this competition is all about,’ said Glover.

Yvonne Diogo, Marketing Manager of Cinemark, the local representative of Cannes, concluded: “We are highly impressed with the quality and standard of work that was submitted by all young creatives this year at Cinemark’s Young Lions Competition. We are also thrilled for Marina and Sonia as the winning team – their submission really depicted creative execution. There is no doubt that they will be South African representatives of a very high calibre at Cannes this year and will do us all proud.’

Visit the Cinemark SA YouTube channel to view all submissions.

Diepsloot community receives state of the art film studio

Carly Barnes
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On 26 March 2014 Paul Mashatile, the South African Minister of Arts and Culture granted the community of Diepsloot in the north of Johannesburg, a modern film studio facility.

The initiative is a collaboration between Top Crew Home Brew Movies, a 100 percent black owned holding company which produces locally made films, and the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) and was brought about as a way for community members to tell their stories through the medium of film. The project will not only provide valuable resources and information to aspiring filmmakers in the area, but will aid to identify potential talent while facilitating training and mentorship.

Mashatile said: “Diepsloot should no longer be seen as a notorious area where children are raped and murdered, but as a model of a society that is producing actors and actress, who will be making South Africa’s film industry vibrant.
“With the opening of this studio, gone are the days where people would not dare to visit this area… You must produce the best actors so that people will always flock to the township in their numbers.”

The Top Crew Film training programme will initially be hosted in three provinces and dependent on the programme’s success the DAC, which has contributed R1.5m to the project, may include a further three provinces.

The DAC’s support aligns with their ongoing Mzansi Golden Economy Strategy which aims to encourage arts and culture while nurturing skills development and creating sustainable employment.

The training programme will also contribute towards local content which can be used on community television stations and Mashatile urged that residents use the facility to produce authentic South African movies.

“The world is hungry to hear our stories: stories of a nation that has overcome adversity, stories of a resilient people, stories of reconciliation and stories of how together we are building this nation on the foundation laid by giants such as Nelson Mandela,” concluded Mashatile.

SA human rights documentary Miners Shot Down wins international awards

Carly Barnes
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Miners Shot Down is the latest offering from renowned South African documentary filmmaker, Rehad Desai. The film has won the Camera Justitia Award at the Movies that Matter Festival 2014 which took place from 20 to 26 March in The Hague in The Netherlands.

The award follows an earlier accolade attained at the international human rights documentary film festival, One World, which took place from 3 to 12 March in Prague in the Czech Republic where the film was awarded The Vaclav Havel Jury Award.

The documentary reconstructs the events surrounding the Marikana miners’ strike in August 2012, when police came up against workers from the British Lonmin mine who were conducting a peaceful strike for higher wages.

Unique footage of the seven days leading up to the fatal event which shook South Africa and made international headlines is included in the film. Emotional and moving, the documentary is a tribute to the courage and resilience of people who used their fundamental rights to stand up for themselves.

Desai accepted the award and said: “Winning the Camera Justitia Award will mean a lot to the tens of widows and to the hundreds of miners who still face charges. It is critically important for the campaign for justice that those charges are dropped, that the police are prosecuted.’

An initiative by Amnesty International, the Movies that Matter Festival is focused on human rights and social justice and the Camera Justitia section highlights the importance of justice and the issues which surround it. Made possible by the Dutch vfonds the Camera Justitia programme features eight relevant films along with a number of master classes and debates.

Rehad Desai has had key participation at the festival, and has played an influential role in driving discussion around the issues presented in the film. Desai gave a master class on filmmaking as part of the ESoDoc training programme and took part in the jury of the other competition programme at the festival, A Matter of ACT.

He has taken part in debates with experts on trade unions, culture and politics in present-day South Africa and shared his thoughts on global economic inequality as part of a panel featured on a talk show.

Digital asset tools feature at NAB show

Carly Barnes
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Pronology, a developer of web-based tapeless workflow solutions for content creation and distribution, will showcase its asset management software at the NAB Show in Las Vegas from 5 to 10 April at Booth number SL124102014.

As Pronology users are given the option of working in the cloud via an internal intranet or a secure Pronology-hosted network, they are able to perform a number of actions simultaneously and remotely with limitless other users.

Ingest-control application

As well as facilitating the entry of organisational metadata prior to and during ingest, the application is able to directly manage recording devices from leading manufacturers in the industry. Clear communication about a recording and its significance is offered due to the Pronology system using the same information throughout, which minimises the capacity for human error.

In addition, a fully integrated transcode engine allows users to create proxies from imported material, without the need to license and configure external transcoding software.

Production Tools

Regardless of their location, multiple users have instant access to a live web proxy of video and audio feeds being captured by the production’s record operation which can be logged instantly and time-coded accurately. As log entries can be imported into an NLE environment and associated with a recording, coordinating between off-line and on-line editing is made simple.

Pronology’s sub-clipping tool allows users to sub-clip content into customisable bins for ease of organisation. By dragging and dropping selected clips into a storyboard, producers are able to send a sequence of desired shots to the editor. The editor is then able to load the Pronology storyboard into their NLE and link to the appropriate resolution for on-line or off-line work.

Post-production professionals are also able to e-mail a link to producers / clients seeking feedback or authorisation for recorded and edited content.

Both imported and recorded content and its associated metadata can be archived to both LTO data tape as well as to the cloud.

Pronology also offers web video hosting and advanced content delivery services, including multi-platform distribution and VOD delivery.

Visit the Pronology website for more information.

Winners of Luxor International Film Festival announced

Carly Barnes
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The Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF), which took place from 16 to 24 March 2014 in Luxor, Egypt, awarded prizes to a number of African films.

South African films which featured at the festival included Durban Poison directed by Andrew Worsdale; The Devil’s Lair directed by Riaan Hendricks; William and the Windmill directed by Ben Nabors; and Light and Dark directed by Paulene Abrey.

Durban-born musician Jim Neversink, first time film composer of the musical score which features in Durban Poison won a special jury prize for his work on the movie.

In The Long Narratives Competition, the Grand Nile Prize for Best Long Narrative Film was awarded to The Pardon (Imbabazi) by Joel Karekezi (Rwanda) who won $4,000 and The Golden Mask of Tutankhamun. The Jury Prize in this category was awarded to Rooftops by Merzak Allouache (Algeria) who won $3,000 and The Silver Mask of Tutankhamun. The Prize for Best Artistic Contribution was awarded to Tall As a Baobab Tree by Jeremy Teicher (Senegal) who was given a Certificate of Appreciation and The Bronze Mask of Tutankhamun.

In The Long Documentaries Competition the Grand Nile Prize for the best Long Documentary Film was awarded to Doaa Aziza by Saad Hendawi (Egypt) who won $4,000 and The Golden Mask of Tutankhamun. The Jury Prize in this category was awarded to The Devil’s Lair by Riaan Hendricks (South Africa) who won $3000 and The Silver Mask of Tutankhamun. The River, by Abdenour Zahzah (Algeria) and Emirs in Wonderland, by Ahmed Jlassi (Tunisia) both received Certificates of Appreciation and Bronze Masks of Tutankhamun for their shared win of The Best Artistic Contribution award.

Winners in the Short Films categories

Wooden Hand by Kouther Ben Henia (Tunisia)
Made in Gougou by Latifa Doghri (Tunisia)
Haunted Souls by Godwin Otwoma (Uganda)
El-Bostan El-Saaid Street by Maysin El-Masry (Egypt)

Freedom Films winners

My Stolen Revolution by Nahid Persson (Sweden)
The Professor by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud (Tunisia)
Independent Panorama winner
Without by Islam Wefky (Egypt)

Visit the LAFF website for more information.

Special screenings at The Bioscope Independent Cinema

Carly Barnes
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The Bioscope Independent Cinema in the Maboneng Precinct in Johannesburg features a number of special screenings as part of its March and April line-up.

Four Corners

A once-off screening of the South African drama, directed by Ian Gabriel, takes place on Friday 28 March at 19h30.

Selected as South Africa’s official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film and nominated for Best International Film by the International Press Academy, Four Corners explores family bonds and culture within the 26 and the 28 gangs which dominate the Cape Flats.

As The Palaces Burn

The feature-length documentary, which aimed to follow the band Lamb of God and their fans before filming took a dramatic turn, screens from 4 to 6 April at the following times:

4 April: 19h30
5 April: 20h00
6 April: 19h00

Filming ceased in 2012 when lead singer Randy Blythe was blamed for the death of a young fan in the Czech Republic and arrested on charges of manslaughter. What followed was a heart-wrenching courtroom drama.

March of the Gods: Botswana Metalheads

This documentary screening takes place on 5 April at 18h00 and 6 April at 19h00 and focuses on the metal music scene in Botswana.

Presented by X Fest, an annual film festival by Flamedrop Productions, the movie features interviews with local bands, fans, musicians and people offering anthropological insights into the metal subculture.

Visit The Bioscope Independent Cinema website for more information.

SA film features at US film festivals

Carly Barnes
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Konfetti, a South African film produced and directed by Zaheer Bhyat, will feature at the Beverly Hills Film Festival (BHFF) as well as at the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival (JDIFF) in the US from 23 to 27 April.

The film stars well-known South African actors in both television and film, including Louw Venter, Nico Panagio, Jana Strydom, Casey B. Dolan, Kim Engelbrecht, Casper de Vries andChristel van den Bergh and will release nationwide on 18 April.

Bhyat says: “I am enormously proud of everyone involved in making Konfetti. Louw and I worked for years to realise a film we could be proud of. To be recognised internationally with big wins for our Afrikaans films is a great moment for us, for Afrikaans and for South African film.”

The movie is a romantic comedy about a couple about to get married and the ensuing drama that unfolds as their friends and family prepare for the big day. Tension builds between the two families, one of which is Jewish and the other Christian, while friends scramble to find a band at the last minute and control the best man who had gone on a drinking spree.

View the trailer for Konfetti and visit the Konfetti Facebook Page for more information.

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