MTV Base, Shell energise African music industry

The initiative is designed to challenge and empower young directors and movie-makers to develop skills that will improve the continent's pool of music video talent.

Featuring high profile contemporary African musicians, MTV Making the Video Challenge with Shell puts African filmmakers and music video directors in direct contact with their peers from the international directing scene, allowing them to gain new skills and share insights while engaged in the creation of a state-of-the-art music video. MTV Making the Video Challenge with Shell also gives them direct experience of collaborating with well-known artists on the creation of a music video.

Touring South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana between August and September 2008, the MTV Making the Video Challenge with Shell sets up a competition between four teams of directors in each region. The four teams compete against each other to come up with the most creative, original conceptual video for a given song or track, and the team with the strongest idea is given the chance to create the video for their region. While each team has complete autonomy to realise their own vision, they will be mentored during the contest by an international director who will put their skills and experience at the disposal of the team. Other elements of the campaign will include an open Q&A session with the international director, a series of half-hour TV programmes based on the challenge, and a music video premiere in each region, where the music videos will be unveiled for the first time.

In South Africa on 25 August, the first MTV Making the Video with Shell challenge partnered Little X, the Toronto-born music video director behind cutting edge music videos with Sean Paul, Jay-Z and Rihanna, with South African video directors, Bleksem and Mozambique's Dama do Bling on their single collaboration, ‘Thula Uzoyiboma.'

Commented Alex Okosi, senior vice president and managing director, MTV Networks Africa, "MTV Making the Video with Shell is a great initiative which empowers young directors on the African continent to develop and hone their craft by working with their peers at home and internationally."

The seven-episode TV series of MTV Making the Video with Shell, charting the progress of the four music video shoots and featuring the premiere of the music videos will air weekly from 15 October 2008 across sub-Saharan Africa on MTV base (DStv Channel 322, GTV) and terrestrial partners in Ghana (TV3), Kenya (NTV), Nigeria (STV/AIT) and Uganda (WBS-TV).