Not yet Nollywood of their dream (2)

A scene from Redeemed

Nollywood practitioners continue to take stock of dwindling fortunes of the industry,CHUX OHAI writes

It was business, as usual, at Ubakason Plaza on Tuesday. Over the years, the plaza situated in the heart of the popular – or is it notorious? – Alaba International Market, Lagos has come to mean different things to stakeholders in the Nigerian film and music industries.

For different reasons, movie and music producers and artistes dread it. Marketers and distributors are forsworn enemies of its tenants, having carried out several raids with the aid of law enforcement agents in an attempt to fish out thieving copyright offenders in the past.

The tenants of Ubakason Plaza – most of them traders in recorded audio and visual CDs – ignored a heavy downpour that had laid siege to the market and its environs that afternoon and carried on with their normal business. In spite of the rain, buying and selling was fully in progress as visitors, some dripping wet and window-shopping like our correspondent or buying from the dozens of shops on both sides of the Plaza, filled the single wide passageway.

Our correspondent was suddenly attracted to a stack of colourful and freshly printed CD sleeves placed on a table in one of the nearest shops. Beside the sleeves, there were dozens of copies of Nollywood films. A young woman appeared from an inner room with a bundle of unused compact discs in her hands, put them near the sleeves and began the slow task of inserting the CDs in the sleeves.

At the mention of pirated films, a guide, who gave his name simply as Uchenna, gave our correspondent a long, curious glance and said, “Oga, I don’t think that films are still pirated here. They stopped doing that a long time ago due to constant raids by the police.”

But a few minutes later, Uchenna contradicted his previous statement when he asked our correspondent if he was interested in doing ‘business’ at the market.

“Yes, I am. I work for a movie production outfit. We have just finished producing a new film and I want to open up an avenue for distribution. You know what I mean,” was the reply.

Uchenna smiled and nodded. “Of course, I do understand you. Do you have a recorded copy of the film with you?” he asked. It was a question and a subtle invitation to be inducted into the faceless inner circle of copyright offenders feeding fat on other people’s labour.

Encouraged by our correspondent’s response, Uchenna offered to link him up with some movie pirates in the market. “But if you want to do it on your own, you can buy a duplicator from here and I will arrange to get the album sleeves printed at a reduced price,” he said, already anticipating his share from the ‘deal’.

Our correspondent gathered that a duplicator is a machine used in making copies of a CD. It is a very important tool in the hands of pirates. The machine comes in different sizes and categories. The largest of them can copy 11 CDs at once and it sells for N77,000 at the Alaba International Market.

Uchenna actually insinuated that the real copyright offenders – haunted by memories of past raids on their enclave – have gone underground. Hidden from the prying eyes of security agents, they are still actively pirating Nollywood films and music from different parts of Nigeria and beyond.

“Nowadays, they are very careful not to be caught by the police. So they are constantly on the look out for spies,” he had concluded.

Although these criminals are still inflicting huge financial losses on the owners of the copyrights of those products without being checked, further investigation shows that piracy is not the only challenge facing Nollywood practitioners.

Bad scriptwriters on the prowl

Tony Anih – former president of the Scriptwriters Guild of Nigeria – believes that the presence of bad scriptwriters is a major challenge that has been largely overlooked.

Recalling the ‘good, old days’ of the motion picture in Nigeria, he says, “When I started writing scripts for Nollywood films life was good. Most of the big names in the movie industry today started out as scriptwriters. But along the line, the fortunes of scriptwriters started declining. The industry became very exposed to charlatans. In the absence of strict regulations, it became an all-comers’ affair. People started coming in from different parts of the country and claiming to be scriptwriters.

“When they realised that scriptwriting was no longer as rewarding as it used to be, the big men in the business decided to stop writing and they turned to other things in order to make ends meet. For me, those were the good old days of scriptwriting in Nollywood. That was when we had good quality scripts and films. I always tell people that you cannot have good films without good scripts. It is not possible. Unfortunately most the scripts that we have in the movie industry today are not well grounded in research.”

Describing the process of selecting a good script for a film, Anih continues, “First, when you come up a story, you are required to throw it open for discussion. If it is deemed good enough to be adapted to film, you may go ahead and write the script. Research is compulsory. Then there is what we call a script conference in which other partners in the movie project, such as the director, marketers and producer, are invited to attend. Their job is to examine the script and make the necessary input. Sometimes it takes more than one script conference to come up with a final script for the movie. Then a director, who must be capable of turning the script into a suitable material for a movie, is hired.”

Anih says the quality of movie scripts began to decline around 2006 due to the influx of charlatans in this scriptwriting business.

“It was so bad that even those who could not string up a simple and correct sentence in English were parading themselves as scriptwriters. The presence of these people has done a lot of damage to Nollywood. Unfortunately they are still around. Such people would still have continued to undermine the achievements of the industry but for the arrival of the new cinema era

“Now people are beginning to talk about making good quality films, which is the first step towards capturing the local market for films. Nollywood got to where it is today because it was able to appeal to the local market at the outset. You must capture your local market before thinking of the international market. You must do this first, if you really want to build a solid foundation in the movie business.”

He notes that since cinema operators, who understand the cinema culture to a reasonable extent, will not accept any film that is substandard, filmmakers have had to think twice about the quality of films they churn out. The result is that a few works, which could pass for good quality movies, have started appearing in the market.

Like most Nollywood practitioners, Anih thinks that the Federal Government’s intervention in the film industry will yield positive results in due course.

He says, “The government is doing its best to remedy the current situation through its intervention. The intervention is not just about money because it is too small to meet the needs of practitioners. What it has done is to galvanise stakeholders in Nollywood into action. Also it has succeeded in making everybody to look inwards.

“Now the general thinking is that if government could intervene in the film industry, it means that our dream of a dynamic and viable Nollywood can be fulfilled in due course. More people have begun to show interest in Nollywood than ever. I know some people are prepared to invest in the industry now that the government intervention has created an enabling environment for filmmaking.”

Although many stakeholders yet believe that government’s intervention is still, at nest, superficial, Anih believes that the anticipated MOPICON Bill will encourage much-needed investments in the industry. “If finally passed into law, we will have the semblance of a structured movie industry in Nigeria. With the law in place, investors are guaranteed that they will get good value for their investments in Nollywood,” he says.

But the seasoned scriptwriter confesses that his personal aspirations as a Nollywood practitioner have yet to be fulfilled because of the lack of rules and regulations to keep charlatans out of the industry.

‘Marketers are not pirates’

But movie marketer, Paul Okoli, will not share Anih’s enthusiasm for the FG’s intervention in Nollywood.

Okoli and fellow marketers have played a major role in the evolution of Nollywood. They almost single-handedly created the industry, bankrolling filmmakers, building distribution channels that extend to other African countries and beyond, as well as providing jobs to thousands of unemployed Nigerians and contributing significantly to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product. Yet, he says, the going has not been smooth for movie marketers.

He says, “Some of us have delved into other businesses for the sake of our investments in Nollywood. I know a couple of colleagues of mine who are actively involved in the hospitality industry. They own some hotels in Lagos and other parts of the country. Personally I run a car mart. I have discovered that if you plough all your money into Nollywood you might wake up one morning and find that it is all gone.

“Most people believe that marketers make all the money in Nollywood. What they don’t know is that sometimes we incur huge losses. Some marketers have ended up losing all the money they invested in a particular film.

“I know that some people are saying that Nollywood has reached the stage where it should be making money like Hollywood. But I don’t agree with them because the environment is not suitable yet. During my last trip to the United States – which was just a few weeks ago – I discovered that there is no basis for comparison between Hollywood and Nollywood.

“In Nigeria, a lot of people look up to marketers. They believe that marketers are so powerful that they can depend on them to turn their investments in Nollywood into millions of Naira. But this is not entirely possible because of the activities of pirates and other copyright offenders.

“Also, some people will tell you that we, marketers, are the real pirates. I don’t think it makes sense. How can we invest our money in a product that we are killing? It is not done. Like other stakeholders in Nollywood, we are having a lot of challenges. The situation remains the same because there are no strong mechanisms to check piracy in the country.

“I agree with Fidelis Duker who said that the current legislation against piracy is not enforceable. My association, the Film and Video Producers and Marketers Association, has done so much to curb piracy; we have carried out several raids, in collaboration with the Nigeria Copyright Commission, to fish out pirates. But everything we have done seems to be in vain because the existing copyright laws are not sufficient to indict the offenders. The criminals manage to evade prosecution in the end.

“The problem with Nollywood is because the practitioners have been unable to collectively form a single organisation that will deal with its challenges and find a way out of the current situation. Although there are guilds, the government is not paying attention to them. For instance, about 95 percent of the members of my association do not know what is being done with the Federal Government’s grant to Nollywood practitioners. What we have heard is that a part of this money has been spent on training. None of us has benefitted from the grant.”

It appears that for every movie marketer in Nollywood, self-preservation is the norm nowadays. This attitude, Okoli explains, is due to the present situation in the industry. “The way things are going, nobody wants to invest his money in the movie industry right now because of the fear of losing everything in the end. Even the commercial banks are not willing to grant you loans.

“In terms of distribution, we are losing it all because we intend to make our money through the local markets. If we had up to 500 cinemas in the country and you spend about N100m on a movie, there is no way that you cannot make that amount of money at the cinema. In addition, the local market can give you the profit that you are looking for,” he says.

A house divided against itself

There is a general notion that there is much rancour and bickering, even witch-hunting, among Nollywood practitioners. While it is believed that some people don’t want others to succeed, there is evidence that some interest groups have sprung up in recent times, all of them desiring to outdo the other in the quest to gain the attention of the government first.

The recent altercation between the President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria, Ibinabo Fiberisima, and seasoned actress, Clarion Chukwura, as well as the preceding ‘war’ between two other leading actors over the leadership of the guild, best illustrate this point.

And the rancour is likely to continue since most of the practitioners now seek succour in the politics of the business rather than real film making, which is turning out to be an albatross for many.