BY TONY ABAH

Aid to the  Church in Need (ACN) one of the biggest Catholic Charity organizations in the world with Headquarters in Germany, has organized a training workshop for staff of Catholic Television of Nigeria (CTV)  to build their capacity in the area of documentary film making and short video production.

The workshop which was held in Accra, the capital of Ghana, provided an opportunity for Catholic television and the Catholic Aid organization  to deliberate on areas of mutual interest and collaboration.

 Speaking during the workshop, the Director Catholic Radio and Television Network (CRTN) based in Poland, Mr. Pawet Warigora, stated that the workshop is a way of strengthening and upgrading the skills of the CTV staff in documentary film production ahead of the five film projects to be carried out in Nigeria in the course of the year. “I welcome you to Ghana for this workshop which is meant to improve your skills in the area of documentary film production, we at the ACN have two campaigns every year to raise funds to support the people who are in need in different parts of the world. The first campaign is done during the Advent season and the second one is done during the Lenten season. These campaigns are done using short video and documentaries to highlight the plight of the people around the world and seek for help for them. For Nigeria we have five projects we will want the Catholic television to carry out on behalf of the ACN. That is why we are organizing this workshop to train you all in this area. Our style of documentary film production is  to use a two minutes video to highlight the plight of people around the world”.

The regional Manager of CRTN Mr Jacek Komorowski who was one of the facilitators at the workshop took time to highlight salient points on how to carry out documentary interviews to get the desired result. “In this type of documentary interview, the director needs to prompt the protagonist to say something that will elicit sympathy and emotion. But first, research is key to achieving this, research gives you the ability to dig deep into issues and how it affects the society. This type of interview captures the cause, effects, progress and a call to action.”

The director of Catholic television of Nigeria, Rev. Fr Patrick Alumuku who was also at the workshop, in his remarks, appreciated the team from ACN for the  collaboration that has started between the two organizations. According to him, the knowledge from this  workshop will help CTV staff to Improve in their production skills proficiency beyond the Lenten campaign plan.

During the workshop, participants were taught practical techniques on  documentary film production with a task of producing a short documentary in Ghana and to produce five other documentaries in Nigeria by November this year. Participants at the workshop were drawn form CTV Abuja and Jos.

At the end of the week-long workshop, a certificate on film production was awarded to the participants.