I love animation movies. I love cartoons. I will take myself to the cinema to watch colorful human beings or even non-humans made on computers with their big eyes tackle the world and I will laugh till I cry. Who needs real human beings when you can have cartoons and animation and bulls like Ferdinand to lighten your spirits? I love animation so much that I took animation writing classes and even did some voice acting for animation movies however I have not gone as far as our superhero for today. She is an animation queen and sound recording goddess. Joan Kirabo!
Now, Ugandans have a weird relationship with animation. The open majority of adults seem to dismiss it and say ah! Those things are for kids. But, I kid you not; you may walk into the house of one of these individuals and find them raving over Tom and Jerry or some Japanese Anime. Then there is another group of individuals who make a distinction. They say that they only watch the cool stories like Star Wars, the Avengers, etc. because at least there is something to follow. The bottom line is, it is hard for the majority of individuals to admit that they watch cartoons. It is as if it strips them of their adult hood or something. Anyhoo, so Ugandan animators come on the scene with stories of African legends, myths and gods that are amazing intricate stories but they are met with this audience challenge. How to get the kids to watch African anime? How do you get the adults to route for it too? Don’t just watch the Disney black princess; watch the African queen and kings. What about you reader, how many African animation movies have you watched?
When Joan first approached me about starting up her production company, Agape Anime, I said – woman I know we love cartoons but how are we going to get the populous to love them as much as we do? It’s a tough niche. But Joan was and still is determined. Rather than jumping into the animation movie pool prematurely and attempting to swim with the big boys, Joan has taken another route. She has slowly developed her fan base by animating her followers and giving them something to smile about. This enables her to market her product. Simultaneously she builds her skills by doing animation for adverts and companies. All this is arsenal to blast her off to her original dream. But Joan is a Mademoiselle of many talents and her work ethic is super solid. I once had the privilege of working with her on a TV Series where she was the sound engineer and everyone agreed on set that her sound was reliable. It is easy to see the glint in her eyes when she hears good sound or when she finally delivers a great animation project.
When I watch Joan take pride in her work it inspires me to go back to mine and learn to appreciate it to or at-least work on it till I can be satisfied with it. So many times as creatives we jump from project to project, gig to gig and forget to just pause and acknowledge what is created and say hey, that was good. Today is Joan's birthday so Happy Birthday girl!
Check out her Youtube channel below where speaks about Millennials.
Ciao