Tamale Film & Television Academy of Northern Ghana Commits to Higher Digital Horizons

Tamale Film & Television Academy of Northern Ghana Commits to Higher Digital Horizons

Alhassan Abdul washeed, Tamale Film & Television Academy December 13, 2022

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Northern Ghana's video and television production industry is ripe for development. Students of production in Tamale are watching this industry boom in Africa's market, as well as across the world, and they are ready to build careers in the growing array of digital mediums.

Ghana's video production industry is managed by creative individuals with a collective skill and knowledge, and yet it's still yearning for more creative personnel to fill the ever increasing video and television business opportunities across the country with the advent of more digital innovations and mediums such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok etc.

These mediums offer a greater opportunity for creative contents to be shared and monetized, which means that more creative skills and support is needed to be able to provide content and expertise for the youth to take advantage of.

Unfortunately, the academic institution needed to teach these courses have been few and far between. Almost all these media schools are located in the capital Accra, over 600 km to the south, which is very expensive for most of the youth from Northern Ghana to attend.

My Story Having observed the marginalization of Northern Ghanaian students who searched for video and television careers, I needed to do something about it. I realized that many youths from Tamale wanted to learn how to operate a camera, edit movies, or generally play a creative role in producing videos, much like myself.

I knew from experience the struggle to learn cinematography in Ghana, and the personal sacrifices I had to make.

I had traveled from Tamale to Accra for greener pastures after completing my secondary education in 1995. I knew that it was important to learn a creative skill which would help me in future.

I was able to write short stories for a few newspapers in Accra, until one day I saw an advertisement in one of the newspapers about a school where one can learn skills in video editing and camera techniques.

I wanted to pursue a career in that field, however I had no money to get myself enrolled into the school which was known as the Academy of Screen Arts (ASA).

It took me two extra years to be able to raise some amount of money through working at a butchery. However, I realized that the amount of money I'd raised was insufficient to get me full tuition in all the modules the school was offering, which included cinematography, video editing, script writing and acting.

The procedure for admission was for a prospective student to write an essay on why they wanted to enroll in the school. It was the essay I wrote which got the attention of one of their lecturers, an expatriate from the Netherlands known as Louis Erwin Stippel.

Louis told the admission officer about my inability to raise the full cost of tuition but they would give me an opportunity to study only one module instead of the four modules the school was offering to its students.

I was therefore to attend school only on days that we had cinematography classes, which I readily accepted.

After completing my certificate in cinematography from the school in 2007 I realized I needed to become a multi-talented individual to get far in the Ghanaian movie industry. I also noted that there was so much I still needed to learn and the only the internet was the only source to do that.

At that time the only online source I knew where one could learn tips and tricks on Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects was through Creative COW, which I got to know because of my frequent search on the internet for lessons on video production.

It was on Creative COW that I first heard about the term podcast'', and I would buy hours at the internet caf to watch and practice with numerous podcasts on various Adobe software.

Through my online learning I was able to practice and perfect some motion graphic techniques in Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro and Photoshop, which came in handy during my stay in Accra.

Soon, my peers began to call upon me whenever they had issues applying certain post-production techniques, and I would explain the concepts as best as I could. This got me started teaching the Adobe range of software to some colleagues who were having a hard time learning the programs.

It was through these one-on-one lessons for individuals that I thought it would be great if I came back to Tamale to set up my own media school. And so Tamale Film & television academy was conceived.

The History of Tamale Film and Television Academy Tamale Film and Television Academy (TAFTA) started in the absence any other video and television schools in Northern Ghana. The idea arose between myself and my close friend Ignatius Awafu in 2012. We were both part of the broader media and entertainment industry in Ghana.

After working together in some media and film related projects, we realized that the youth in Northern Ghana were very interested in video and television production, but did not have money to travel from Tamale to Accra, and to pay high school fees in order to get professional training.

TAFTA Leaflet

However, it wasn't until 2014 that we put the idea into motion. We registered the school with the Ghana Register General's Department with the name, rented one classroom from a proprietor of a secondary school, and began to hold classes on weekends. Posters and flyers were printed to help advertise the school as well as Radio and Television announcements.

Through our community entry research, we came up with a video documentary on the northern film industry in Ghana to highlight some of the challenges faced by the youth in the five regions of the North.

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