Delivering a world-class show
THIS is just like the past when we produced events. Now, it’s not just Nigerians that will see what we do. AMAA is a continent-wide event that even goes to Europe, America and the Caribbean. AMAA is an organisation that is well recognised and formidable. AMAA, I mean Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, came up to us to say, ‘look, we’re so big and we want an award that is of the American Idol, American Oscars, Grammy level; that AMAA is Africa, Nigeria thing and we want it to go beyond these borders to outside where Nollywood has huge audience’. She wants the award made in Nigeria but by Nigerians.
At first I was hesitant but I eventually said, ‘yeah, we can do it’. It occurred to me that that was the challenge that drove me in the past in everything I was doing. It will offer me a chance to raise the stakes in the industry yet again. This is our own AMAA and somehow it can be done in Nigeria by a Nigerian; that is, delivering a world-class show to the rest of the world. It was the same drive that made us do such box office hits like Across the Niger and Osuofia in London.
We have just brought in the facilities from the U.S. and we have been running rehearsals with them in the past week with the facilities here in Yenagoa, venue of the show. That is how it is done internationally; we’re running the facilities with cast and crew to ensure hitch-free operations. We are doing it with high-end, professional standard, state-of-the-art equipment that we ordered specifically for the show. This time AMAA is all out for the best; that is why they called me in.
No challenges for me until now
I’VE been somewhat quiet because I’m more of a creative businessman. I have my background in advertising and corporate world; I got into filmmaking because there was a gat that needed to be filled up; and that is what usually inspires me, the need to take up challenge in anything I set out to do. So, it’s not about the money, but money comes out of it at the end of the day. My main quests were that I’d be the first to premiere my movie at a major cinema and that the president of my country be present. It happened, Across the Niger, which is about creating peace for the country was successfully premiered. Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo through Information Minister, Chukwuemeka Chikelu, got interested and came for the premiere in Abuja. The only thing he felt was missing was the Nigerian flag.
He amazed at the movie and adopted it for the Heart of Africa Project campaign. It got the AMAA Heart of Africa Movie Project ever award. After the premiere of Across the Niger, I got a call for its premiere in London because the organisers said it was the only movie that met international standards. It was premiered in Leicester Square in London. It was a great success; it attracted a huge crowd.
Apart from that God also added a greater value to my moviemaking efforts. I shot a movie that I took for granted, Osuofia in London. I just shot the movie for the fun of it, and it became the highest selling movie ever in the country.
So, after these had gone through there were no more challenges to surmount in the industry; I became a yardstick for which my colleagues measured their moviemaking craft. Now, we’re on a different scale; the challenge is not for too much of movies to be shot. But training people to shoot movies; not just taking them to school to learn about movies. We’re bringing experts from abroad on retainership, who will be part of our team as hands-on persons to train these young people.
Those we will train will be made to work with us on productions; they will work on the scripts and produce them with our supervision and support in terms of funding and everything else it takes. So, Klinks Studio will shoot movies but that will be through our young ones. It’s not about Kingsley Ogoro going on location, no. I will go to location, but not as before with me as the driving force. But it will be done by passing on the baton to younger ones. I’ve gone past that stage; I’ve won every available award in the industry. So, producing is a not my motivation right now.
So, the challenge is not about winning awards, but helping with the wealth God has given me to impact on younger filmmakers in the country. The challenge today is how to give back to society through the medium in which I have been successful. And that is why I took on the AMAA job because it’s about showing what stuff we’re made of. The AMAA job is not about the money. The woman in charge of AMAA, Peace has set a standard, which is that she wants Nigeria to be the greatest country in the world in terms of entertainment, and she said to me, ‘Kingsley, I want this award to be one of the best and I want you to deliver it’. And I saw in her somebody who wants to make Nigeria proud and I bought into her vision.
Film academy
MOST of the people in Nollywood today are my products; they came from me. Now, I’m setting up a training studio to train more people in the technical area where Nollywood is lacking in manpower as part of leaving a legacy in the industry. With our new studio, we want to start training young artistes for the industry who can take over from us. I’ve been the one pioneering all the digital editing in use today in the country. Today, I want to impart my knowledge onto younger ones coming up in the industry by setting up an academy to train younger ones and use them as production fronts.
We’ll recruit young people, train them, fund them to produce technically sound productions so they can have income from start. At the production, we’ll guide them with the experience we have. The academy is at 50, Tafawa Balewa Crecent, Surulere, Lagos complete with everything needed to make technically sound movies.
You know how I entered the industry; I didn’t enter because I wanted to make money. I entered because I wanted to up the standards for everybody to follow; but we’ve got to that level again when we need to move to another level in the industry to set standards again in the technical aspect of filmmaking and handing over properly. There are a lot of young people who are interested in filmmaking but they don’t know how to go about it. We need to tap onto them because they will be the ones to carry on from us.
So, we’ll use our equipment, our wealth and our experience to empower them because they are our people; that way they can stand on their own.
We’re simply magicians in Nollywood
WHEN you say other countries are overtaking us in filmmaking in Africa, it means we have not been as technically and creatively good as filmmaking countries like Britain, U.S., France, China and the rest. Nollywood became number two because of our unique storytelling style, our content. Everybody is applauding Nollywood because out of nothing it created something; that is what makes us. There are a hundred better movies from Canada or China or France, but it is the idea that it is in Nollywood that you can compare a movie shot with $10,000 with one shot with $200 million from America.
In fact, there’s no basis for comparison; but that is the reality. So, there’s no comparison; we do achieve things here with nothing. We’re simply magicians! Now, we simply have to move to the next level by improving on the technical input. That’s why somebody like Kingsley Ogoro is saying, ‘we’re going technical; we’re going professional in the areas where we’re lacking such as editing, sound and lighting’.
Content has been the only driving force for Nollywood. Even when the pictures are not good, people still strain to watch our films because of the content we have – the ability to get the whole of Latin America, America and everywhere to sit down and watch our movies no matter what the quality is.
But we must begin to raise the technical standards; that is where I’m coming in this time around. Even with South Africa’s better technical quality, they are not number two in the world. Now consider this: If we have half the technical quality that America has, America film industry will be in trouble!
Sources: NGRGUARDIANNEWS
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