Encounter with Master of Lighting, Matthew Yusuf

Matthew Yusuf who won the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Award, AMVCA 2023 award on ‘Best Lighting Designer in Movie or TV Series’ for Brotherhood is making his mark on Nollywood in the most unconventional way.

Often, the actors get the fame while the professionals working behind the scenes are hardly seen. Yusuf had earlier won the AMVCA Best Lighting Designer award in 2022 and when it happened again this year, the spotlight naturally fell on his growing status.

Born into a family of six children, Yusuf attended Kuramo Primary School, Saint Gregory’s College and The performance studio workshop (PSW) where he had his theatre training. He later proceeded to Federal Polytechnic Idah, Kogi state for my national diploma in business administration.

PSW was the much-needed training ground for him despite his parents’ disapproval of his interest in the arts.

“It was a sponsored program and to get into that space you had to pass the audition,” he recalled. “I was one of the lucky students that was picked; over 300 to 500 people attended the audition, and I was one of the 15 students that were lucky to be picked.”

His mother had to call on her father’s best friend for his reference form to get signed. Out of the 15 students that enrolled for the year-long programme, only eight of them graduated. He emerged as the best student in his set. PSW was owned by Chuck Mike, the school is being run with support from MacArthur Foundation, British Council, Sister Help, and support from other corporate bodies.

Reflecting on his journey into the cinema, he continued: “Theatre was my first love and I got into the space as I learned from scratch. To be honest,there was not a lot of money in the theatre and to survive in that space I was actually renting most of all the equipment and I was not having enough to fall back to as profit at the end of the day. I took that discipline and because I was still with my parents at that point I was able to save some money. For each project, I had to save some money and I had to call my friends in the US and UK also to help me buy some used equipment.”

In spite of not having a formal training in lighting, he was able to secure projects and his first TV gig was with Jade Osiberu for “Gidi Up 2.’’

“I run a company called One House Lighting Crew and every member of my team never went to an institution to learn this profession every one of them has practically learned everything they knew about lighting through me.’’

“In most projects I have worked on, I worked on it with my last sweat and my last blood, like I want to see the best out of that project. I think that has given me that level and has helped me grow from that space. How it has helped me to get to the place where I started doing international gigs was through Qudus Onikeku.’’

Currently, he is working with his friend, Kayode Sodunke on a project called “Voices in my head’’ which addresses the subject matter of depression. He has worked on over 150 projects including “Hear Word” directed by Mrs. Ifeoma Fafunwa.
“I have also worked on “Ada the Country,” under the Doyenne Circle Production also directed by Kemi Lala Akindoju and Kenneth Uphopho. I have worked on cinema movies, some are on Amazon Prime and Netflix. The ones on Netflix I would say are “Nneka The Pretty Serpent,’’ actually the project that got me the AMVCA award in 2022. I worked on “Rattlesnake” and I also worked on “Living in Bondage.” On Amazon, I worked on “Gangs of Lagos” and “Brotherhood”.