A writing lab for women in Africa saw nine women land jobs on the Supa Team 4 series that has since been picked up by Netflix.
South Africa (25 August 2023) – Earlier this week, we shared that animation was having a fantastic year in Africa and expanding on that, we look at how one animated series was born from the dedication of nine women who joined a writing lab and ended up making a show to empower and inspire!
Looking for talent where others aren’t has become Triggerfish’s trademark. For the show Supa Team 4, they launched an all-African-women writing lab with Netflix, which resulted in nine placements on the series’ writing team. The show has since started streaming on the site and young African girls are seeing superheroes that look like them. You can catch the trailer below.
In 2021, Triggerfish partnered with Netflix on a pan-African Story Artist Lab, led by veteran Pixar story artist Nathan Stanton. In 2022, they partnered with The Walt Disney Company and The American Film Showcase on a masterclass series, giving a comprehensive overview of the animation pipeline to 41 creatives from eight African countries.
These partnerships are now seeing positives in the way of creating jobs for African creatives. Not only jobs though, these big projects ignite dreams in young minds and allow hopeful animators on the African continent, to believe their works can end up on major streaming sites. One of the positives is that Triggerfish has now launched a free Triggerfish Academy training platform and sponsored bursaries to The Animation School, school outreach programmes, and multiple competitions aimed at getting Africans to make their first animation, often in partnership with the likes of the German-funded Employment for Skills and Development in Africa (E4D) Programme, GIZ, the Goethe-Institut, and Wacom.
This isn’t just philanthropy: to keep up with demand, finding new talent has become a business imperative. In 2015, when they launched the Triggerfish Story Lab, they’d just been named Western Cape Business of the Year at the Premier’s Entrepreneurship Recognition Awards, where they also took home the prize for the Business With Global Reach.
At the time, they’d released two animated films, Adventures in Zambia and Khumba, which had generated over R1bn at the international box office, and they employed around 85 people. In 2020, Triggerfish opened an Ireland office in Galway to make it easier to attract global talent – and access the attractive rebates there. Last year, on Kizazi Moto alone, Triggerfish contracted over 1,300 people from almost every continent. The growth has been exponential.
“Parents in South Africa often treat the idea of making a career out of iPopeye [South African slang for animation] with skepticism, but animation is a growing, labour-intensive industry which is struggling to keep up with the global demand for talent,” says Silverston.
“Even outside the traditional film industry, there’s demand for animation talent within fields like advertising, app and web design, architecture, engineering, gaming, industrial design, medicine, and the motor industry, not to mention growth sectors like augmented reality and virtual reality. So, in a country like South Africa, with a 32.9% unemployment figure for the first quarter of 2023, animation can make a big impact.”
Check out the trailer for the show below.