richardmurray

Malenga Mulendema 

Creator of Supa Team 4

 

My Reply to her replies to the questions posed to Malenga Mulendema

0:12 What is the project that you pitched to the Story Lab?
Triggerfish is a firm in south africa, I think white owned, that was given opportunity by netflix to be an animation studio for their animation project in africa. 
Triggerish invited artist from africa, gardless of phenotype, to submit and Malenga was selected. 
her pitchline is four black teenage girls saving the world on a budget, not a premise I will think of but ok.

0:30 Why did you chose that story?
Well, as always I have a problem when people don't speak properly. She said, as a girl she liked watching cartoons absent stating all the cartoons were made outside africa. Araciality in assessing the genesis of art is a sin. Yes, a black girl from Zambia, didn't see cartoons made by black people or zambians  or involve black characters cause most cartoons in the market were made by whites of european or asian descent who made characters that are white of european or asian descent. No artist has to consider all groups in humanity in their art. 
I am happy she has the opportunity to have her creative vision. The four different types of young females will definitely attract an audience. She wants characters that showcase how the majority in the african continent, under governments that do not promote industry aside a wealthy minority that accept the usa/european imposed system of being a king in all but name  happily to evade responsibility to their larger community how they utilize their wealthy, have to figure out how to use resources that are scarce or foreign to come up with solutions. 

0:53 Why do you think your project was chosen?
Oh my fellow artists, very few have the honesty to admit, pure luck. She talks about how her story stayed true to something or has universal themes. hogwash, she got lucky. She was the only story triggerfish saw that stayed true to something or had universal themes, hogwash. She got lucky. Why do artists throughout history keep suggesting commercial opportunity is based on creative merit. It isn't. She was selected because she got lucky. ... I am hapyp for her luck, and hope she gets luckier, but all this, commercial meritocracy crap I hear many artists utter all the time is a lie. Creative assessment has artistic merits. Commercial opportunity is a thing of luck.

1:10 Describe the process once accepted in Story Lab?
Funny how Walt Disney was fired from the firm he worked at that stole his character and he decided to start his own firm and do as he pleased, and he got lucky and succeeded. While now, people from Disney are guiding people all over the world on how to get into animation without telling them to start their own business and create as long as you can, hopefully getting lucky.

1:43 How did the Project evolve during development?
It is called preproduction. But she is correct, the word refinement is best. Though remember, producers can demand things, ala Kevin Smith and the pitch to superman.

2:06 What was your main challenge during development?
The fact that she felt she didn't believe she belonged explains one thing, she never would had started her own animation studio or tried to make animations like walt disney who started the walt disney company. 
Not believing in yourself is devastating for any artist.

2:32 What was your main takeaway from the development process?
Well, she says you can always make better, but I don't like that language. 
Is any artists fully satisfied with a finished work? no. Butsaying you can always make better suggest a project is never finished, this isn't true. 
I prefer to say, I can always gain experience, not make things better. As you gain experience you grow.

2:47 Any advice for anyone wanting to create an animated series?
The one answer that showed wisdom from beginning to end, make the show you want to see.

3:07 Where are you now with the project?
3:21 What are the next steps?
This interview is behind. Supa Team 4 is coming out July 20th 2023
say Congrats folks!!

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT
 

0:00

[Music]

0:06

my name is Mulenga me and Emma and

0:08

America from Lusaka Zambia

0:13

okay so the product has admitted to

0:15

trigger 50-lap competition is code my

0:17

Mac a super foe and it's an animated TV

0:20

series set in Lusaka Zambia about 4

0:22

African girls who are recruited to a

0:24

former secret agents low-budget

0:26

operation so basically they are saving

0:28

the world but on a budget

0:32

if the growing up I used to love to

0:34

watch a lot of cartoons so I'd never see

0:36

myself represented in any way so in my

0:38

Mackay super 4 I get to see myself on

0:41

screen and I get to see my city or the

0:43

context that I live in represented in a

0:45

way only cartoons can and this show also

0:47

shows how Africans are resourceful or

0:51

innovative

0:55

okay I think this show was selected

0:58

because it does a good balance of

1:00

staying true to what specific to to the

1:02

store in terms of the carat and the

1:03

location but it still has those

1:05

universal themes that anybody anywhere

1:06

in the world can relate

1:12

so why is the project

1:14

cept it in two-story lab I got the

1:16

opportunity to go to triggerfish and

1:17

attend the workshop so we had Pilar

1:19

lissandra a screenwriting consultant who

1:21

took us into different topics on spin

1:25

writing and we also had worked a

1:28

workshop with Aaron rose from Disney who

1:30

basically just told us a lot of

1:31

information about how to bring an

1:33

animated TV series to screen as I got

1:36

the opportunity to go to Disney World

1:37

and learn from different different

1:39

departments about bringing an animated

1:40

TV series to screen

1:44

so the project didn't change in a major

1:48

way but what happened is a lot of things

1:50

we're refined in the concept the

1:51

characters the story itself and and the

1:56

episodes that were written as well were

1:57

also refined so the overall project has

2:00

just been going through like a series of

2:02

refining

2:06

so my main challenge during the

2:09

development process was convincing

2:11

myself that I sort of belonged to this

2:13

animation world because it was very new

2:15

to me but I relied on the fact that at

2:18

least I understood story and story felt

2:21

like the foundation to everything so

2:22

every time I felt like I was going into

2:25

a panic I just remembered that okay I

2:27

have an understanding of story and

2:28

everything felt a little bit easier

2:34

my main takeaway from the development

2:36

process is that you can always you know

2:39

make your story better and you can

2:41

always make your characters better so

2:43

just keep working at at your story your

2:45

concept and your characters

2:50

my advice to anybody trying to create an

2:53

animated TV series is to create a TV

2:55

series that you yourself want to see

2:57

because once you think of something that

2:59

you want to see you in television you

3:01

become more invested and more

3:02

enthusiastic about about the story and

3:05

the show itself

3:09

so at the moment we are reworking the

3:12

pitch Bible and trying to get a pile of

3:15

script done and also we're trying to

3:17

create an animatic for the project

3:23

at the moment we've signed development

3:26

deal with kake entertainment a global

3:28

distributor and licensing agent and we

3:31

have deal with the major broadcaster

3:34

[Music]

English (auto-generated)

AllFrom Triggerfish Animation StudioAnimated filmsRelatedRecently uploadedWatched