Showing posts with label dollars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dollars. Show all posts

Monday, August 22, 2022

A Copy of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Sold for Over N1 Million

https://a.co/d/6swXgCI

The first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series has become a collectors' item among art collectors of unique books and now selling for US$1, 882.91 which is equivalent to more than N1, 100, 000 with the current exchange rate of the US dollar to the naira 

Why is it a highly priced book?

* This is the first edition of the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.

* The articles and photographs document the genesis of the phenomenon of Nollywood and the history of filmmaking in Nigeria since the first feature, "Palaver" directed by Geoffrey Barkas in 1926. 

* The fonts are unconventional and  seen as art form.

* The prophetic cover of the photograph of Kenneth Gyang, whose film, "Confusion Na Wa" starring Ramsey Nouah, OC Ukeje, Ali Nuhu and Tunde Aladese won the coveted awards for the Best Film and the Best Nigerian Film at the 9th annual Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in 2013.  Kenneth Gyang has become the poster child of the Big Picture of the future of Nollywood and Nigerian cinema on Netflix and international film festivals.

#Nigeria #Nollywood #africa #future #art #art #filmmaking #AMAA #movies #awards #KennethGyang #filmfestivals
#netflix #books #collectors

Nollywood Mirror by Ekenyerengozi, Michael Chima (2013) Paperback https://a.co/d/6swXgCI

Saturday, June 19, 2021

Red Sea Film Festival announces $10m fund for Arab and African Filmmakers

The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation has announced the $10 million Red Sea Fund that will support projects with directors from the Arab World and Africa, launching a new generation of filmmakers and supporting established auteurs as they bring their work from script to screen.

The Red Sea Fund is part of the Red Sea Film Foundation’s commitment to the regional screen sector, that will also include launching the inaugural Red Sea International Film Festival that will take place from 11th to 20th November 2021.

The fund will support fiction, documentary and animation feature films, as well as episodic content. Additionally, Saudi nationals will be able to apply to the Red Sea Fund to support short films in development and production.

“Helping African and Arab cinema grow, that’s a very exciting responsibility. That’s what the Red Sea Fund will do at every stage of the making of the chosen movies and episodic content. In providing more than 100 grants of up to $10 million to help the development, production and post-production of movies across the Arab World and Africa, the Red Sea Fund will help cinema that is in full metamorphosis,” says Edouard Waintrop, Artistic Director, Red Sea International Film Festival.

Applications are welcome from around the world to support projects that are being helmed by an African or Arab director. The fund is open from 15th June – 21st July 2021, with all details and requirements available via https://redseafilmfest.com/en/red-sea-fund/.

The Red Sea Fund will be split across three main categories:

Red Sea Fund – Development

The fund aims to support bold and creative directors in developing live-action, emerging media, and animation projects from treatments to production-ready screenplays and concepts. Red Sea Fund will develop projects from Arab, African and Saudi directors that have a director and producer attached.

Red Sea Fund – Production.

The Red Sea Fund – Production is for projects going into production and is aimed at supporting any aspect of the shoot. Open to viable projects at the production stage, with a script, committed director and producer attached, as well as potential cast and confirmed timeline. The team can be emerging or established, but with proven experience in filmmaking.

Red Sea Fund – Post-Production

A fund supporting all aspects of post-production on feature-length projects. Once a rough cut is ready, these grants will support filmmakers to complete their films and get them ready for distribution and exhibition. The team can be emerging or established, but with proven experience in filmmaking.

The festival will see the launch of the Red Sea Souk, its market place and industry hub for the region. Red Sea Souk will include a Project Market, with pitching sessions of more than 20 projects from the Arab World and Africa, as well as the Films-in-Progress workshop. All projects that apply to the Red Sea Fund will automatically be eligible for Red Sea Souk – Project Market and Red Sea Souk Films-in-Progress Workshop.

The Red Sea Souk - Project Market will take place from 12th to 15th November 2021 at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. The projects will compete for the Red Sea Development and Production Awards respectively in the amount of $25,000 and $100,000.

The Red Sea Souk Films-in-Progress Workshop will take place from 12th to 15th November 2021, at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. Each selected project in Films-in-Progress will compete for the Red Sea Post-Production Awards in the amount of $30,000.

“The Red Sea Fund is a major boost for the African and Arab film industry. Over the past two decades, we have seen the Arab and African film industry grow and flourish. The Fund and the Red Sea Souk will provide more tools to support the Arab and African film business to make even more of an impact on the international marketplace with the launch of its project market and films in-progress workshop this November,” said Shivani Pandya, Managing Director, Red Sea International Film Festival.

The Red Sea Souk will also contain panels, networking events, workshops and booths connecting the international film community to the exciting new Saudi market.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Virtualization Saves Microsoft Customers Nearly a Half-Million Dollars Per Year



Virtualization Saves Microsoft Customers Nearly a Half-Million Dollars Per Year

Businesses gain value via server consolidation, integrated management tools and application management.

REDMOND, Wash. - Feb. 9, 2009 /PRNewswire/ — Microsoft Corp. today announced that some business customers around the world have saved on average $470,000 (U.S.) per year through IT projects using Microsoft virtualization software. Microsoft's business customers have been able to use virtualization to help reduce operations and capital expenses via reduced electrical power consumption and cooling within datacenters, reduced hardware acquisition costs, automation of desktop and server management, and centralized application deployment.

The cost of running IT systems has increased as electrical power, cooling and physical space has become constrained. In his 2008 refereed journal article, "Worldwide electricity used in data centers," Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University concluded that total datacenter power was about 1.5 percent of all U.S. electricity use in 2005, with 80 percent of that amount going toward powering and cooling servers.

A separate report, by Gartner Inc., stated that "the effective use of virtualization can reduce server energy consumption by up to 82 percent and floor space by 85 percent" (Gartner: "Energy Savings via Virtualization: Green IT on a Budget"; Nov. 12, 2008).

"Businesses are looking to reduce and manage computing costs in datacenters and across server and client computing devices," said David Greschler, director of integrated virtualization at Microsoft. "Virtualization software allows businesses to pool computing resources to drive down IT costs, increase IT efficiency and be more responsive to business needs. Customers are getting a better bang for their buck with the Microsoft platform and virtualization solutions because virtualization is in both the operating system and in the holistic management tools. Customers can manage IT services and a broad set of applications across the datacenter and desktops. There is less of a learning curve for customers, and it eases interoperability with existing systems."

Savings Through Available Built-In Virtualization and Management Automation
Microsoft's approach to virtualization, which incorporates server and presentation virtualization into Windows Server 2008 and unlimited virtual machine management with Microsoft System Center suite license, is helping break down barriers to broad virtualization adoption.

"The VMware ESX solution would have cost $30,000 (U.S.) for four servers. With Microsoft, we have a service provider agreement that allows for monthly payments with no capital costs — costing us less than $1,000 over the life of the contract," said David Straede, president and chief operating officer for Santa Barbara Web Hosting. "Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V has the core features businesses need. It's the Windows people know, is installed just like other Windows-based applications, and works in a management console that IT staff are already using. The ESX feature set simply doesn't justify its additional expense."

If making it easy for customers to implement virtualization is important, making it easy to manage the environment is just as critical for saving time and money. With Microsoft System Center, customers have a single solution for managing the entire IT life cycle, from deployment and provisioning to monitoring and backup. Equally important, customers can manage both server and desktop resources, both virtual and physical assets, and both Microsoft and VMware hypervisors, all with the same platform.

These capabilities helped Banverket ICT choose Microsoft for its virtualization strategy. "We knew we wanted to build a compatible virtualization platform that would encompass server consolidation, Terminal Services and application virtualization that we could manage with a single set of tools," said Pontus Blomkvist, service design manager, Banverket ICT. "With Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services, we have been able to reduce the number of terminal servers because we can run many applications on any server at any time, without worrying about conflicts. With Hyper-V, we are now running 50 virtual machines in production, with a utilization rate of 80 percent for some of the servers as opposed to 15 percent before we deployed Hyper-V."

Savings Through Consolidation, Reductions in Power
By running multiple virtual machines on fewer physical servers, Microsoft customers are drastically cutting hardware requirements and easing server management. For example, Indiana University's Auxiliary IT Department went from 152 to just 32 servers, which it expects will save $85,000 (U.S.) annually. Saxo Bank had an average physical server utilization of just 20 percent and was deploying nearly 200 new servers per year before using server virtualization. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V allowed the bank to reduce the number of servers needed by 36 percent and realize savings equivalent to $1 million (U.S.), because of lower server hardware costs and associated reductions in space, power and cooling costs.

Many customers have realized similarly dramatic electrical savings as a result of server consolidation, which is a particularly important benefit in today's climate of volatile power prices. TALX expects to save approximately 50 percent in annual power and cooling costs by consolidating its server environment with Hyper-V. HotSchedules, which noted that its No. 1 cost in the datacenter is power, spent about $11,000 (U.S.) a month on datacenter power costs, but with Hyper-V it anticipates that this monthly figure will go down to $2,500. Santa Barbara Web Hosting uses Hyper-V to reduce its power consumption costs by $5,220 (U.S.) per month, helping the company provide more cost-effective services to its customers. And Slough Borough Council took advantage of the savings from eliminating 10 physical servers to preserve the electrical power needed to turn on a new storage area network.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see us virtualize 60 servers once our physical-to-virtual analysis is complete, which represents nearly half our server holdings," said Chris Wintermute, technical infrastructure manager for Slough Borough Council. "We've achieved hardware savings of $148,000 (U.S.), and we expect to reduce server deployment costs by $23,700 (U.S.) annually, based on rolling out 20 servers a year."

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft's corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.
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