The Nigerian Film industry has grown a lot in the last few years,Nollywood as it is popularly known all over the world became a turnaround for a struggling film industry in Nigeria which fought a long battle with high cost of production in the 1960s.
Late Herbert Ogunde and Ola Balogun who were film makers in the 1960s did not achieve much results as it were with the present Nollywood in terms of financial and global acceptance but their effort aided a very good foundation in what today is an industry worth at least US$250 million.
However the Kenneth Nnebue production of Living in Bondage movie in the 1990s became a recognisable foundation of the modern film industry in Nigeria otherwise known as Nollywood. The movie took the Nigerian film world by storm and created an audience away from regular television and theatre audiences.
At this stage the audience never really bordered about the quality of the film production, the whole euphoria of indigenous actors and actresses abilities to replicate what other celebrated actors and actresses do is just enough attraction to stay loyal to many films rolled out after Living in Bondage.
Again the introduction of English language in Nollywood blossomed the industry and expanded its fame across Africa and the rest of the world.
Gradually Nollywood began to replace and push the foreign films off the Nigerian shelves, notable the Hollywood and the Bollywood films.
Suffice me to say that in most areas then notable television soaps and highly rated films like James Bond still attracted a sizable number of admirers.
The release of Osufia in London brought another dimension to the film industry in Nigeria, a lot of film analyst and producers were taken aback with such a high quality production and other film makers in Nigeria followed suit and upgraded their films quality technically and otherwise.
Nigeria has a large resource of world class actors, actresses, film producers, directors, marketers and recently a lot of good camera men with lots of experience.
Film equipments all over the world have never been cheaply, they have always been expensive and may remain so for a long time to come.Everyday new technologies come on the scene and with every new film that comes out we expect to see improvements in editing, sound and picture qualities.
As digital video technology replaces Beta SP which was used hitherto in Nollywood, it is expected that film editing will automatically become easier and more flexible.
With the large numbers of films in Nollywood the industry has become the second largest film industry behind Bollywood followed by Hollwood in terms of numbers of films produced anually but some hurdles are still incredibly high for the Nigerian film makers to cross.
Some of these hard hurdles are film piracy and poor technical quality of the films.
I am particularly interested on the later as the first hurdle is seriously being tackled by the industry and the Government special forces where actually some results have been achieved.
Nollywood is the third largest film industry in the whole world,the pride of the Africa and every black man on this earth, it has created a lot of employment and brought fame and popularity not only to Nigerians but to many Africans who associate with the industry.
No amount of accolades that I will give to this industry that will be enough but it is imperative that they too listen to what the viewers concerns are. Not just listening but improve on the ability to listen and act.
Many in the industry are of the opinion that critics must continue say one thing or the order, "yes technical issue is a normal thing in any young industry, Nollywood is not an exception" said one of the notable Nigeria film makers who pleaded anonymity. To him technical issues will improve when film makers become more relaxed with budget,time,and better equipments.
Ok, let us just say we agree to a large but my worry is that the film makers are not themselves film critics and viewers because if they are they will change some common man -made technical issues that make most films unwatchable.
Most viewers have complained that Nollywwod films are full of noisy sound tracks that never allow them to listen to the conversations no matter how they tune up the volume.
Comparing with other films they argued that sound tracks play audibly when there are no conversation and become almost silent when the conversation fades away in many other films especially from Hollywood but wonders why in Nollywood the case is not the same, some believe that the film makers were actually more interested in the sound tracks than the movie itself.
Another film maker added that the fault was that of the sound Engineer during editing and that many producers because of lack of fund and the rush to quickly get the film into the market will not necessarily check all features of the film.
If it is indeed the fault of the Engineer while take it to him the next time,or better still why not tell him that you do not want the sound track to interfere with the actors voices the next time he edits your film.
As a very big fan of Nollywood, I beg the film makers in Nigeria on behalf of the millions of fans and viewers of Nollywood to visit the issue of sound quality of the films as a matter of urgency to enable viewers to at least hear the wordings of the film.
It will not be long, Nollywood will be challenged by other emerging African film industries. They may not pose as rivals yet but certainly they will and when they do it might be too late for Nollywood to put a strong resistance against them.
Now that Nollywood is on top, infact in the top three, the opportunity to consolidate or even move upwards may be thwarted if they do not listen and listen good to their viewers and fans world wide.
-Patrick Ebuzor
No comments:
Post a Comment