Starting a Movie Industry. What Would be Your Advice?

[Yaro Thatcher]

With a lot of countries interested in Nollywood and wanting to develop their own industries. What would be your advice in starting and industry such as Nollywood/movie industry etc.?

[Sola]

Well, Yaro, I don't think it is something that can be consciously created. You can't just start a creative industry out of the air. You can do that with the technical professions, perhaps.

[D-Vince]

Originally Posted by Yaro Thatcher

With a lot of countries interested in Nollywood and wanting to develop their own industries. What would be your advice in starting and industry such as Nollywood/movie industry etc.?

Develop the marketing/distribution/exhibition side first and properly,before anything else.This is most important.Nollywood has not done this and as a result is still anchored in the first gear of developement for over a decade since it's inception,and is finding it difficult to move to the next level.
Hollywood has approx.36 thousand cinema screens(!) at it's disposal,and that can only mean very very serious business prospects!
The business aspects of any industry is soo significant and decisive in determining and deeply influencing the rest of the industry,especially the creative aspects of it.IMHO.

[Sola]

Vince, even if you could artificially start an industry, of what use would the marketing/distribution/exhibition end be if you have no content that has a big enough market to support it? Isn't Fancophone Africa still trying, decades after, to do this? You can't create an industry out of a vaccuum. People have to like what is being made first...and you can't just snap your fingers to make people like something. As long as you have no control over comsumerism, you have no industry...and you might as well be burning money in the name of distribution or whatever. How can you distribute what has no demand?

[TVwriter23]

Originally Posted by D-Vince

Hollywood has approx.36 thousand cinema screens(!) at it's disposal,and that can only mean very very serious business prospects!
The business aspects of any industry is soo significant and decisive in determining and deeply influencing the rest of the industry,especially the creative aspects of it.IMHO.

Yeah, but then again Hollywood has been able to do this because it's been around so long. It wasn't always like that. They had to create the theaters in order to show the movies that were coming out not the other way around. They also had another way of distributing movies, (state rights) until the guy who originally started Paramount started a new way of distributing movies which is what we are somewhat still with today.

[D-Vince]

Originally Posted by TVwriter23

Yeah, but then again Hollywood has been able to do this because it's been around so long. It wasn't always like that. They had to create the theaters in order to show the movies that were coming out not the other way around. They also had another way of distributing movies, (state rights) until the guy who originally started Paramount started a new way of distributing movies which is what we are somewhat still with today.

I know it was never like that at the start with hollywood,but nevertheless,i presume they still had an effective way of reaching the audience that already existed back then and it got better, as the earning potentials were recognized.That is what nollywood does not have even till now and that is what evry country that wants to start a new movie industry needs.That is if they do have a ready made audience like naija does.

[D-Vince]

Originally Posted by Sola

Vince, even if you could artificially start an industry, of what use would the marketing/distribution/exhibition end be if you have no content that has a big enough market to support it? Isn't Fancophone Africa still trying, decades after, to do this? You can't create an industry out of a vaccuum. People have to like what is being made first...and you can't just snap your fingers to make people like something. As long as you have no control over comsumerism, you have no industry...and you might as well be burning money in the name of distribution or whatever. How can you distribute what has no demand?

Well,i presumed that the threadstarter is from a country that does not have that problem.If there is a problem of lack of demand,then there is no point in starting a movie industry in the first place,is there.
Nollywood has a huge demand,but terrible distribution,not to talk of terribly bad contents.At the end of the day that amount almost to the same thing as not having dremand at all,earningswise,and that is bad for investment purposes.IMO.

[TVwriter23]

A good book to read on the old Hollywood studio stystem is The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Thomas Schatz