Interplay between media and sensibilities that add to the experience of this story.
Katrin Mehl (User Interface Designer)
“I love the idea behind ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’. It is a privilege to support kids’ development process in school. What I find compelling about participating in this narrative is the responsibility I have, to work on a learning environment that supports literacy encompassing cultural-historical, creative, and aesthetic dimensions.
We have to consider cultural norms of kids in schools, teacher-child, parental support and peer-relationships which support a child’s ability to grow up with an open mind. As a result, I find this narrative a creative, organisational and user-centred design challenge. As kids grow up as digital natives, it is essential to provide them with digital narrative shaped experiences within the primary school system.
It is a function of literacy when these narratives are brought to life in class with audio-visual references, animation, script-books, board-game and three dimensional art-forms. When film, literature and craft-making are used together in the classroom, kids can transfer techniques from active viewing to their experience of craft-making with reading literature. This process can enhance their skills as active readers, listeners and cultural interpreters.
Ayo and Rebecca Jones approached a few Key Stage Two teachers in London and Cambridge to find out how they prefer to teach elements of cultural literacy, such as reading, writing, and comprehension, in order for kids to decode context. They ran a series of interviews and usability tests with parents, project colleagues and teachers during the project to generate, evaluate, and validate minimum viable experiments. Ayo and I reviewed video documentary of sessions where he asked teachers to view a teaser of the digital narrative to get a perspective on how it might engage interest of children in their class. We evaluated wire-frames and click-through prototypes of the learning platform, to validate design decisions against their existing weekly schedule and a cross-curricular plan for a term.
“..it nails the head for literacy, you can never do too much storytelling, which is why I would love to adopt it into my curriculum..” - Fikhret Aslan, Year 4 Teacher at St Mary’s CE Primary School, London, N3 1BT.
“We will be happy to look at working with a completed version of the project as part of our education programme”- Mark Reid (Head of Education BFI).
“This is an exciting project, with a cross-curricular approach that allows students to develop a real appreciation of Nigeria’s literature, music, art and history” - David Walker, Teacher, Cambridge.
Teachers suggested ideas which allowed us to explore the user journey in terms of their cross-curricular plan. It is interesting to note that a class where we carried a usability test has decided to trial a design technology component of the learning experience this spring term.
For the teachers we approached, literacy is not just about the written text, word and sentence levels. They love to make the case, in their school, for using cross-curricular film based projects to enhance learning to the extent that text, words and sentences are used to create meaning. For them the benefits of pedagogy in their class are wide ranging, from critical thinking and creativity to extending cultural knowledge and awareness.”
Tadhg Culley (Screenwriter)
“Writing ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ has been a true pleasure. It’s such a treat when a project falls into your lap through synchronicity and seems to attract other specialists that are perfect for the piece. The story was definitely one that needed to be told. Its unique selling point is that it is written for children and by children. The duty and responsibility to communicate their vision loyally to the screen was immense. Storytelling is all about educating current and future generations and when young generations can actually educate the old it is exactly how the process should be.
The team behind ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ is a unique bunch of truly creative and diverse individuals. I believe every specialist behind this body of work does so with a proud and loving heart. Our passion for this project is unparalleled and I truly believe this is visible to all that watch the trailer for ‘FOF’.
I believe that having stories for children actually written by those children is the future of storytelling. This is how it should be!”
Kat Michaelides (Animation Director)
“It has been a joy to work and collaborate on ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’. One of the aspects that I admired about it was the inclusion of children in the storytelling process, and the way Tadhg wove together their story and themes with the Yoruba culture into a very compelling first episode.
When I was approached by Ayo about his idea of a multi-platform educational experience following the story of a young boy and girl exploring different cultures, I was immediately struck by its ambition.
I was very happy to have the chance to work on a project with people from many different disciplines, from around the world. I believe representation both on screen and behind the scenes, as well as the responsibility of showing accuracy and respect for different cultures, to be important. I was very honoured to have the opportunity to work with an anthropologist, and to gain regular valuable feedback from the whole team to help bring the concept trailer together.
For the concept trailer, I worked very closely with Ayo and the team to pick out key moments of the first episode that would best introduce the characters and their personalities, as well as letting the sound, music and voice-over reveal the story and atmosphere of the world.
We started by storyboarding different scenes and then piecing them together with the editor, Will. Once a draft of the animatic had been made, it was sent out to the team for feedback and ideas on story, sound, music and narration, and then brought back to the editing suite. Once we had a strong template, I took it on to animate using TV-Paint and After Effects. For the animation, one of my aims was to find a balance between the style and the limited 2D animation technique, so that it would be practical to progress into a series, while remaining colourful, detailed and appealing for children to watch.
I hope they like it, and I’m excited to see where both the project, ‘Omo Osogbo’ and ‘Omo-igi Ilu’ go next. in the world!”
Will Winfield (Editor)
“We set off by making reference to themes and ideas developed at a kids’ storytelling session Ayo organised.
Tadhg adapted these themes and ideas into an engaging and entertaining script for episode one. We rendered his adaptation to ensure narrative elements of the story work, as a trailer. At the back of our minds we kept the objective of the project as a cross-platform educational experience in mind. The idea is to increase kids’ understanding of the world and boost their imagination in class.
Myself and Kat developed ideas for the trailer by assembling a narrative montage that hints at the plot as well as ‘Omo Igi-Ilu’ and ‘Omo Osogbo’s journey across various episodes. At this point sound and music had begun to influence our production decisions. The animatics allowed us to have creative conversations around how our audiences’ senses tease one another. We all agreed this production needed to be evocative and authentic. Everyone viewed and listened into what was going on in each frame; from dramatic creaks and swings of a perilous vine bridge under the weight of vulnerable children to swooping camera angles in a mysterious cave. It was important that we were clued into people’s perception of this production.
Our sound and music team came on board to refine the animatics and move towards post production with us. We had several conversations informally at lunch, in hallways and at working sessions about what we want to achieve with this project and suggested means to get it done. We opened our processes to each other so changes can be made effectively. Getting the project to a pitch-ready level has been down to relationship building and a lot of co-ordination. We all saw the big picture emerge together, but someone had to facilitate relationships between its component parts.
Ayo’s ability to put together a team of experts from literally all over the world is astonishing. If we bumped up against any issue which required a new expert on the team, Ayo would send round a note a few hours later saying he had found exactly the person we needed and they were now on-board and beavering away on the other side of the planet.
To date, Ayo’s concept and the trailer has been very well received by a wide range of interested parties, both inside and outside the NFTS. I hope the full scale of the idea can be brought to fruition. I would love to be involved in the future development of this project as a whole and the animated series in particular.
I look forward to helping bring ‘Omo Osogbo’ and ‘Omo Igi-Ilu’s adventures to life as they travel the world.”
Stefano Fasce (Composer)
“This project is a learning resource for children. Each episode sets them off to explore cultural geography through languages from different countries around the world. Music, instruments and sound are a language.
As each episode is set in different countries culture crossing musically within and between each episode is inevitable. Collaboration between me and my colleagues on the creative team is about the relationship between music and cultural coming age of journey ‘Omo Osogbo’ and ‘Omo Igi-Ilu’ embark on. In this sense it is really about communicating ideas. I reflected a great deal on how we might express animation sequences to evoke feelings and emotion for children between ages 7–11.
At a variety of work sessions we considered how teachers might help children to examine song lyrics, cultural themes and instruments as part of their school work. On a personal level I began to look at instruments such as Kora the 21 stringed bridge harp widely used across West Africa, for perspective. The fact that one can blend West African and European instruments with various musical traditions is not lost on me, particularly its universal meaning. This is why I feel the use of music and instruments to express a personal viewpoint or tolerance are important for children.
I also worked with Ayo to figure out how to actualise craft-making of musical instruments as part of the learning experience for children. As a project my contribution is to enhance a creative learning experience, where music and craft making are intrinsic to cultural literacy.
From the children’s point of view, I consider it an achievement if this work helps to make better sense of the world around them.”
Lekan Babalola (Two Time Grammy Award Winner - Percussionist)
“My work has been about contemporising Yoruba culture through different art forms, particularly music which is my specialism. ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ is one of the first animations that I am aware of that brings the art of Yoruba storytelling into the digital age.
The opportunity to be involved with telling the story in this format is one I greatly value.
I believe in this format the story will reach many people and will advance the understanding of Yoruba culture and define its potential to contribute, as stories do, to humanity globally.”
Seyi Awolesi (Artefact Design Advisory & Voice Over Artist)
“When Ayo approached me about ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ I felt honoured and humbled by his request. Being a creative with a background in architecture, animation, music, film and production, I have a very strong view on representation and delivery with authenticity.
As soon as I heard the concept that was being defined I knew that bringing the likes of Lekan Babalola (Award winning percussionist) and Bumi Thomas (Award winning singer / song writer) would lift the project within its demographic and inspire those who interact with it on many subliminal levels.
Being asked to do the voice over was a supreme honour as I have spent many years assisting others in defining and evolving their voice, so lending my voice to a project that will help craft imagination was an obligated joy.
I also had the opportunity to channel my ancestral heritage being a Yoruba man with cultural ties and transformative identity.
Storytelling is a very unique part of my culture. This project is steeped in a narrative that is dear to me. As much as I believe culture should be retained I believe it must and should evolve to create new philosophies and adaptable realities.
Being a part of this team bringing this vision to light has been an immensely satisfying journey.”
Bumi Thomas (Singer / Songwriter)
“Follow Osogbo’s Feet integrates education powerfully with digital storytelling, to empower teachers and kids in meaningful ways. It presented me with a rich opportunity to lend a soundscape to Ayo’s vision and explore Yoruba mythology in a contemporary medium. When I read the script, I fell in love with the compelling tale of two young characters, looking to find their voice in a rigid society.
The core themes of a rite of passage and coming of age echo powerfully through their journey. I experienced a sense of nostalgia likened only to the magic of childhood folktales synonymous with ancestral awakening. I was very excited about cultural stories that travel delivered in schools on a digital learning platform.
The musical dimension had to reflect a dream state and stir the imagination of the learner. Working with master percussionist Lekan Babalola made it possible to create a sonic texture of this dimension. We set it against a historical backdrop of Yoruba drum patterns juxtaposed with the phrase ‘Only you can tell your story’. Working on the soundtrack for the animation was a delight.
The narrative presented us with an opportunity to take children on a sensory journey to parts of the world that few of them may have seen. We recorded a harmony of visual and sonic landscapes, to evoke a sense of immersion, to understand what it is like to live in diverse places with a sense of self.
We realised a true spirit of collaboration, by working as a multidisciplinary team, driven by the solitary objective of bringing this story to life in a beautiful, engaging and authentic format.’
It was an inspiring process, especially when tasked with the creation of a musical narrative designed to enrich and stimulate inquisitive young minds.”
Rebecca Jones (Lecturer and Research Anthropologist)
“Working on ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ with Ayo and his team has transformed my ideas about how academic researchers like me might collaborate beyond the walls of the university, and bring ideas from our research into a wider audience. My research as a literary scholar and anthropologist is concerned with the way Nigerians encounter cultural difference, particularly through travel writing.
When I began working with Ayo, I was so excited by this opportunity to see a story of travel told through African characters. ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ follows the adventures of two African children as they go out into the world to explore. We see so many stories of travel told through Western eyes, but Africans have long been travellers too, and it is time that this perspective on the world was brought into the mainstream.
Ayo helped me see how some of the ideas contained within my research could be made into something that was exciting for children — and most of all, how that could be done by making it into a story told by children, for children.
Working with Ayo on the storytelling workshops for children I was interested to see which aspects of the original inspiration, Osun Grove in Osogbo, Nigeria, resonated most with the children. Their imaginations were fired by the possibilities for supernatural elements — ghosts, spirits and fantastical creatures — but also by the possibility to create elements of stories that enabled them to work through situations they encountered in their own lives, such as interactions between boys and girls.
‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ takes up both of these aspects of the children’s ideas, so the result is a story that we hope will be both exciting and adventurous, but also something that any child can relate to.
Similarly, the main characters are designed to be both universal — so they are drawn as ‘African’ rather than ‘Nigerian’, so that any African child watching might find something to relate to — and also specific, drawing on aspects of Yoruba culture and mythology.
It has been especially interesting for me to see the huge amount of work done by the extremely professional and creative team that Ayo assembled.
It has made me appreciate how truly collaborative a project of this nature has to be.”
Nahee Gil and Saerom Im (Product & Graphic Designer, respectively)
“Nahee and I immediately warmed to the kids’ storytelling sessions, particularly their use of visual storytelling prompts, which precedes script-writing for each episode.
To have adults immerse themselves in fictional story worlds created by kids and realise them in a way that stays true to these worlds was directional. We explored how children as makers might use the combination of storytelling sessions, picture writing prompts, the script and animatics to tell stories.
In this story the drum as cultural artefact is an object through which the characters explore their similarities and differences with friends they meet on their journey. We had to consider how teachers might challenge kids in their class to investigate the narrative potential of drums as cultural artefacts, episodically. In addition to this we considered how it might reflect literacy whilst conveying cross-curricular themes as diverse as history, geography, music and design technology.
The artefacts influence on the characters’ journey is at the core of the user experience for teachers, children and parents. It manifests itself across the narrative as kids watch, read and reflect on content and make artefacts with each other, relative to the facts that inspire each episode. Much of our Skype conversations with Ayo revolved around how teachers might work as guides, to help kids interpret or recreate this story through each other’s perspectives, develop new ways of thinking and identifying with what an artefact tells as a story.
The time difference between London, Sokcho where I live and Chuncheon where Nahee resides in South Korea meant that we had to follow project updates at Dropbox and a Facebook project timeline. Interestingly it gave us time and space to visually translate agreed concepts with Ayo into a range of options. For 3D and 2D visual coherence we referenced Kat’s animatics for recognisable story themes.
We enjoyed relating context to technical issues associated with ease of use in class, such as fold lines for a printout plan, glue and seal areas and graphic colour-in themes.”
Felipe Bolano (Sound Designer)
“I was at one in the studio when we produced Lekan Babalola finger jingling in between playing with various drums with full flat hands whilst Bumi Thomas strummed away with vocals, live. I can’t describe it in words but I tuned into their comfort level. We knew as soon as the live production session revved into gear that these artistes intrinsically are at one with their beats. They revelled in their ability to allow these beats to travel as well as resonate with other music traditions. It was a memorable live studio session at the Power House, NFTS.
Nigel and I listened to a variety of stem beats including Seyi’s voice-over, clarifying voice-over and stem beats into rhythmic syllables for the audience to grasp. Stefano and myself viewed and read the animatic for right moments for rhythms to sail with Stefano’s composition.
I vocal sampled sounds to mimic how children might feel diversity from rich instrument mix as a range of sounds and music patterns come together around the story’s turning moments.
I imagine the audience enjoying the story as much I enjoyed it myself.”
Nigel Woodford (Sound and Music Production Lead)
“I was approached by Ayo with this idea at the beginning of 2016, during my initial days at the NFTS and I was sold from the get go! I never looked back, and neither did he. My journey on this project is in essence very similar to the story of Osogbo’s Feet. I was challenged to lead and manage the sound and music production which brought me to unfamiliar territories but with the aid of my guides I returned.
From sound to music ‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ was nothing short of inspiring. We were a highly talented team of creatives with a thirst for perfection but more than that we had great respect for the authenticity of the story.
‘Follow Osogbo’s Feet’ in my opinion brings us closer to a fundamental truth that we are no different from each other on a cellular level. The opportunity to share this awareness through profound stories from every corner of the globe to children on a multi-platform educational experience is simply extraordinary.
There is an ‘Osogbo’ in all of us.”
