“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”
– Ingmar Bergman
N
|
ollywood, the title
given to the movie industry in Nigeria, has long been considered one of the
biggest film industry in the world (still is
considered one of the biggest today given by the amount of films they produce).
In fact, Nollywood occupies an enviable position among filmmaking countries as
it maintains a lofty position among the top three in the world according to a UNESCO
ranking – the other two being India (Bollywood) and the USA (Hollywood).
As a matter of fact Nigeria,
by extension Nollywood, averaged 1,093.5 films a year between 2005 and 2009 –
making it the second largest behind India at 1,178.2, with the Americans coming
in at third with an annual average of 554.6 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics,
2009).
Nigeria still maintains
such enviable position today. But then this statistic point to film volume and
not necessarily film quality, neither did it point to box office earnings nor
number of film admissions. So then, is this ratings good news or what? Your
guess is as good as mine.
In as much as we would
love to cherish our own and blow our trumpets wonderfully to the stars, but
then the quality of the movies we churn out on daily basis often leave too much
to be desired (I often times feel ashamed and embarrassed at having to watch
some of the shame we call movies today). And it’s not because the talents
aren’t here – far from it! Talents abound in the millions! My people –
including you and me – are blessed with great talents. So, why do we make
horrible movies despite the fact we are the second largest movie producers? The
answer is simple, and I shall demonstrate by listing my top 21 reasons. They
include:
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| A Nollywood Shooting |
1.
Poor planning.
The best films follow a plan and a workable timeline to achieve the desired
goal and objective. Films like the Lord
of the Rings Trilogy, produced and directed by Peter Jackson, and based
on the novel Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, took over 8 years to
complete between the films conception, planning and final production and
distribution. We saw the end results when the films finally graced our cinemas
and television screens worldwide. It was a resounding success! Not to say
Nollywood films don’t undergo planning, but the planning is often poor the end
results almost always leave you in tears – except for a few exceptions (Films
by Royal Arts Academy tend to strike a good cord among viewers, though more is
still expected).
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| A Movie Sex Scene in Nollywood |
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| A Ghollywood Sex Scene |
2.
Greed & Immorality. The amount of immorality and sexual brazenness in
the industry today is beyond unbelievable! It’s almost sickening, really. If
you’re new to the scene you may almost mistake the industry for a soft porn
franchise. So much nakedness everywhere for no reason but to sell copies! With
nonexistent quality in the movies themselves to placate the grudge. And what is
annoying is the fact that most of the nakedness is in bad taste. A few
partially covered body parts here and there are not entirely out of place if
movies must maintain ideals of realism in filmmaking. A shower scene should depict
a shower scene. A beach scene should depict a beach scene with its attending
bikinis or whatever flows with the reality of things in such regard. But when
they don’t serve any greater purpose other than to sell copies alone, then
that’s wrong. Very wrong. That will only spell bad taste, especially when the
bodies of models or actresses/actors aren’t screen/viewer friendly (you know
what I mean – if you don’t, call me up and I’ll whisper it into your ears, hush hush, eh?). To sum my point here,
the industry may not survive it if such trend continues.
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| The Lord of the Rings Movies - The Fellowship of the Ring |
3.
Lack of quality investment. Using the epic film The Lord of the Rings (a
Hollywood production) again as a case in point, the film, it has been reported
by various sources, had a budget in excess of $300million. One such report puts
it at between $310-330million. With this amount of money there’s no way
production values would not be top notch. Not to say money is everything
though, as many indie movies (indie – for independent) take less than a million and still churn out fantastic
images and film reviews from audiences and critics alike. And we have also had
expensive flops as well. But the point here is to make a case for better film
funding in the country and the industry - Nollywood. Without adequate funding,
Nollywood would be dead in no time. The Lord of the Rings films would go on
to gross a record box office revenue worldwide (at the time) of $2,917,506,956
(close to $3billion), with $1,035,942,020 in North America alone. Not bad. Not bad at all! For Nollywood,
funding must improve if such enviable heights are to be attained. I still await
the day our films would gross in excess of $10million or $100million from
cinema box office takings alone.
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| Gollum - The Lord of the Rings Movie |
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| Action Scenes in the Matrix Movies |
4.
Poor production values. Production values have to do with the
quality of a media production (such as a film) in regards to elements such as
colour, quality, style, etc. Production values are the lighting, sound,
scenery and props used to improve a film or play which involves the combined
technical qualities of the methods, materials, or stagecraft skills used in the
production of a motion picture or artistic performance. Films with greater and
better production values improve film audiences’ experiences of such movies as
well as performance at the box office. This is one area where Nollywood films
are still far behind their other contemporaries outside Africa. The
groundbreaking and innovative production values used in the film The
Matrix Trilogy was so captivating and so revolutionary that it has
shaped the movie landscape ever since with such innovation. For Nollywood to
grow and sustain its survival, she must begin to look inwards and come up with
revolutionary techniques to keep her top of her game and throwing her weight
with the in the global scene.
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| Jake Sully & Neytiri in the movie, Avatar |
5.
Patience, with an Eye for Perfection. Most Nollywood filmmakers lack this quality, sorry
to say. The film Avatar was originally developed in 1994 when James Cameron
wrote an 80-page treatment for the film, which was supposed to be filmed after
the completion of Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic, and was originally planned
for release in 1999. However, according to Cameron, the necessary technology
was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film at the time. The film
did not make its debut until December 10 (London), 16 (US) and 18 (Canada) 2009.
Why such a long wait? Because Cameron wanted to get it right. He needed to wait
for the right time and the right enabling technology. Because we lack the
patience to drive our movie visions home, most Nollywood filmmakers end up
making movies before their time that only succeed in insulting the intelligence
of the matured movie audience in the country and beyond.
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| A Nollywood Movie |
6.
Bad scripts.
The foundational element of every movie is the script. Without a story and its
attending dialogue (or lack of), there can be no movie. Therefore, the script
carries great importance in the life course of a movie. Most of the poor story
plots in films we see today and how badly they come across in the mind of the
movie audience and critics alike, are often due to hurried, inappropriately
written and very unprofessional scripting. People just hurriedly put a story
together in matter of minutes and voila,
they are already shooting the next day! The end result? Movies with disjointed
plot lines, horrible pictures, distasteful scenes, annoying music scores, poor dialogue elements and inappropriate
characterization to name a few disasters such films leave in their wake. Unless
Nollywood begin to get it right by hiring professional scriptwriters for its
movies, adapt their films from bestselling novels and/or start to write better
scripts with story themes that will engage the mind after viewing the movie,
then it won’t leave this death path in a hurry.
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| A Nollywood Movie |
7.
Poor acting and directing. I mentioned above that poor scripting is one of the
reasons Nollywood is dying as an industry. But then the bulk of the matter
doesn’t rest there alone. A poor script can be remedied by great acting as well
as great directing. Scripting is only one aspect of the film triangle – the
other two been acting and directing (all other parts are dully acknowledged.
But for relevance and convenience in my discussion here, I’ll use this triad –
scripting, acting and directing – since they are very basic to the movie form).
Now, it is all too easy to applaud the acting prowess of an Nkem Owoh, an Olu
Jacob, a Joke Silva, or a Genevieve Nnaji, an Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde or a Majid
Michel. Or the directing prowess of a Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, a Desmond Elliot
or Kunle Afolayan. But in truth, these people put a lot of work into their
acting and directing. They do it for the love of the profession and not just
for the cash (though money can be a great motivation). The point here is this:
most upcoming talents in the industry (actors/actresses and directors alike)
have nothing to offer to improve the standard of the industry. They only get
into the business for the fame and bragging rights. As a result, we get a lot
of amateurish and substandard productions that can make a wise man weep. This
is worrisome. Very worrisome indeed.
There you have it – the
first part of the 21 Reasons Nollywood is Dying. Watch out for the remaining
parts – Parts 2 & 3 of the series. My objective is to inspire and rekindle
a fire as well as reawaken the desire to make quality movies that would become
the prides of Nollywood and African filmmaking in general at the global stage,
such that we aspire for world dominance in few years to come – even now. But first
things first: Without knowledge of the problem, solution becomes difficult to
correctly apply.
Therefore, if you’ve
enjoyed this write-up and have learnt from and been informed by it, feel free
to make your observations known by contributing in the comments section below. You
may also call me on 08137337618 or
email me at chidielebenedict@gmail.com
for constructive deliberation on how to move our darling Nollywood industry
forward. It is our pride. We mustn’t let it die.
Stay blessed.
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