Creating a market out of the void, the Nollywood exampleBy Okoh Aihe
Published: November 19, 2006
Print But what are the ingredients of Nollywood that are so strong that they arrest the attention of the world. The answer looks quite predictable and simple. The ingredients include: a local story for local folks, local financing by what is usually described by experts as the informal sector, and very simple technology which began with ordinary video camera but has since progressed to digital video cameras. This was what that businessman saw at the beginning and it is the idea that still works today. The essence is to make the production simple and make more money.
We are making some little progress in the country by not only attracting the attention of the world but also of the Nigerian government which for a long time turned its back on the industry. This year alone two big fora were held for the industry; one was organised by a private organisation but attracted the participation of highly placed government officials including the Finance Minister, while the second one was called by the government itself looking for a way to participate in the sector and further open it up to make it yield the expected projections and returns.
There is saying in Nigeria that your foreign content is another man’s local content. What we have done in Nigeria is to mass produce enough local content which by now is serving as some other people’s foreign content. But the trick is that content can only be king as long as you love your local content. Nigeria has created the biggest video market in the world and the world is beginning to accept the country as that. The market survives in the main on the essential need of the people to see their own selves on screen, identify with characters and play societal heroes and villains. If you look at the successful major film markets of the world, the foregoing remains an essential ingredient.
Now we come to the heart of the matter which is funding. They say Nigerian films are so cheap that they cost next to nothing. With less than $40, 000 or about N5million you make a great movie that the world can see. They say that is no budget but at over 2000 films a year down from the 3000 it used to be, the industry is valued at about $500million dollars annually. Mind you, most of these monies come from the informal sector!
The cliché says "it is not all that glitter that is gold." Don’t mind what they say. I have been to many film festivals; most of the films that come for screening hardly have a full budget. Some are made with the sacrifice of the cast and crew who agree to take nothing but the glory that comes with exposure of the film. And some of these people criticise our modest efforts in Nigeria.
They criticised former British Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher that the modest amount of less than 30 million British Pound Sterling she set aside as an atonement for the damage she caused the British Film industry could not sponsor a full budget film in the US. Yet that was the money that produced Oscar winning films like the Piano and Four Weddings and a Funeral, among others, some of the films that created some real glorious moments for the British Film industry.
Remember the Blair Witch Project. This was a student’s project that cost only about $50, 000 but earned an amazing $50million; this for the part one only. Evil Dead cost less $50, 000 but earned about $60million. It is not the size of the money really but the creativity behind the money. Are you still wondering why Nigerian films are making money?
They also criticise the technology. They say the video medium is low and cannot be compared to the celluloid. Apostles of celluloid who made that mistake in Nigeria by refusing to look ahead are still biting their nails. The progress in technology which is now bringing prominence to digital video that have recently been deployed in some major US productions, is a testimony that Nigerian film makers were probably clairvoyant in choosing the medium of their production.
This is a true life story. In the mid 90s I had problems trying to convince the organisers of the defunct All Africa Movie Awards to create a category for Video. They scorned the idea but in the last edition for the programme in Cape Town in the year 2000 when a Video Category was created, John Badenhorst, head of the team admitted regretfully; "perhaps the Nigerians were right from the beginning, and we were wrong."
Just like the forum here is discussing the Video idea, some of Africa’s best directors are getting more positively disposed towards Video technology. Fanta Regina Nacro, award winning Burkinabe film maker is producing some great works using Video technology. And one of my best African films is Blues for a Diva by Moussa Sene Absa, a Senegalese. That film was shot on Video.
I fancy the opportunity to speak here today, and thanks to the French Cultural Centre, not to regale you with the exploits of Nigerian movie makers but to inform you that what has started in Nigeria can be domesticated by other African countries in order for us to have a legitimate but affordable medium to tell our story.
Apart from the unit video cassettes being sold, what are the other channels available for us to earn some more money from our creative efforts? What relationship should exist between movie makers and broadcasters?
When I said there are about 285 broadcast stations in Nigeria, some of you must have whistled: what a great opportunity to make money! Let me disappoint that the market indeed for Nigerian programmers is indeed miniscule because of the reluctance of most of our broadcasters to pay for quality programming.
They don’t want to buy. That is the reason they scrounge for cheap foreign programmes in the first place. Some are given out free. I hope you know the implications of that? For instance, our major stations with heavy government support hardly buys any programme, and when you make your own programme, they expect you to find sponsors or buy your airtime and pay. The result is that the robustness of the local programme sector is hardly reflected on the TV screen. I know your situation here might not be different. But this should not discourage you because creative content can always endure until it finds the means to express itself.
Delivering a paper at MIPTV, Cannes on the Vision for Digital Media in the 21st Century, in the year 2000, one top official of Bertelsmann, a company based in Germany counseled that in the 21st century, programme makers should not only think in terms of content but also of the context. He hinged his entire paper on the following keywords: Connectivity, Communication, Creativity, Convenience, Communities, Customization, Commerce and Convergence.
Everyday I find these words more useful for our programme makers who by all means should actually try to find a location under any of the aforementioned umbrellas to find relevance by creating acceptable content for a market that will continue to grow and to open up.
We have to force that market open with our creativity. One of the biggest events at MIPTV 2000 was a group of young men who brought the original tapes of the South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The tapes were genuine and the broadcast world ran after them like shaft after blood.
We can create a bigger market by building bridges across languages and other barriers. This is why one of the biggest achievements by our own filmmaker, Mr. Tunde Kelani, whose film incidentally will be showing here is the subtitling of his films in French. I am also mindful here of the role the French Cultural Centre has played to ensure that there are knowledgeable communities in the West African sub region that can undertake this subtitling endeavour.
But more than anything what we should do is to continue to produce films in the language we can understand and with the technology we can manage. We shouldn’t allow the world to intimidate us with what they believe is the global format. We can create our format and impose it on the whole world. We must explore every medium that will enable us tell our own story. And we must be bold in telling this story. We shouldn’t allow the world to tell our story. The American actor, Danny Glover once told me that when he acts in Hollywood in a film telling the story of Africa, he is not acting in an African movie but in a Hollywood story about Africa.
Let’s do what is right so that we can leave a good legacy for those coming after us. Let us be bold in telling our stories so that when we die, in the words of Moussa Sene Absa, we shall be happy to meet God.
Being a paper presented by Vanguard' Communications Editor, Okoh Aihe, at the TV Video Workshop in Cotonou, Republic of Benin
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