This year the Commission has been involved in film industry skills development initiatives.

Screenwriting workshop
The Commission held two screenwriting workshops in May 2011.
In Nairobi, the workshop was held at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC). There were 26 participants, who included film production students, scriptwriters, actors and film industry professionals. A total of 24 graduated at the end of the week. The workshop was facilitated by Silvester Mutua, a lecturer in Communication and Journalism at the USIU and Cajetan Boy, scriptwriter, producer and director with Et Cetera Productions.

In Kisumu, the workshop was held at the Ministry of Industrialization boardroom. The workshop was facilitated by Rachael Diang’a, a lecturer in Kenyatta University and Cajetan Boy, scriptwriter, producer and director with Et Cetera Productions.

Copyright and related rights awareness March 2011
Catherine Bunyassi Kahuria a senior legal counsel at the Kenya Copyright Board dealt with gaining an understanding of copyright issues for those in film and animation. In her presentation, Catherine took participants through a definition of copyright,  who owns copyright for various works, what works should be copywritten and and the various rights that come with authorship and ownership of a work. Sylvance Sange, Principal Examiner at the Kenya Industrial Property Institute focused on how to uniquely identify their products through trademarks and patenting.

The Business of Animation March 2011
This workshop was facilitated by Allan Mwaniki who is part of the team at HomeBoyz Animation, an animation production house dedicated to producing high quality animated features such as Tinga Tinga Tales. In his presentation to over one hundred participants, Allan spoke about the experiences from production of this acclaimed children’s programme, describing the work flows and the amount of personnel and time it took to create the series.