The Chase: Young Nigerian Filmmakers Go Viral After Shooting Sci-fi Movie With Smartphone

A group of young Nigerian filmmakers called “The Critics” have gone viral after shooting `sci-fi film’ using a simple smartphone and green screen.

Science fiction (sometimes called Sci-Fi) is a genre of speculative fiction that has been called the “literature of ideas”.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the group, which includes an eight-year-old, broke the internet following a short Reuters documentary highlighting their work.

Nigerian student filmmakers create sci-fi short films with their smartphones, @samholdertv reports #AfricaJournal pic.twitter.com/BtO4wOVFxC

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) August 13, 2019

The young filmmakers from Kaduna State, what made their first film “Redemption” in 2016, revealed that they saved for a month to buy the green fabric for the chroma key and taught themselves how to do visual effects by watching tutorials on YouTube.

A member of the group, Godwin Josiah said:

“Well the main aim was not for our stuff to go viral, we just wanted people to see that, okay, there are kids in Kaduna doing something different.

“That was just the main aim. So it all of a sudden just happening, it blew our mind.”

The group of eight used a smashed mobile phone as a camera and a broken microphone stand as their tripod.

They record the film and edit the sci-fi using special effects despite facing regular power and internet outages.

Another member, Raymond Yusuf, also a student said:

“The system is really slow; it takes time to render.

“Our five minutes short film called ‘Chase’ took us like almost two days to render and not only the fact that this system is slow, the electricity where we stay here is pretty poor.”

Their work has gone viral and attracted the attention of International filmmaker, JJ Abrams known for highly successful movies like Star wars, Star Trek, Spiderman etc.

AL Jazeera International also made a documentary on them and The Visual Effects Society.

These Nigerian teenagers are producing short sci-fi movies using a smart phone and other everyday items. pic.twitter.com/9dXhPGuD9z

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 16, 2019