The
Nigerian movie industry may have developed over the years and even grown into a
multi-billion dollar industry, but one strong challenge still stands in its
way apart from the continuous and almost predictable and recycled story lines
and that is nothing but the titles we tend to choose for our movies
Oftentimes,
our choice of titles, give away most of our nollywood movies; they prepare the
audience for the plot and take away from them that innocent element of doubt
and suspense that is the magic of a good movie.
We often settle for phrases rather than one
powerful word as if we have this burning desire to let the world know that we
have just shot a movie and have this great urge to let them know what the movie
is about.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some phrasal
titles that are still very appropriate, powerful and unique to serve as a good title
for a movie, take Chimamanda´s novel taken into movie with the same title <Half
of a yellow sun> as an example, yes, it talks about the Nigerian civil war
and the title is somehow related to the outlawed Biafra flag…. But that is all
you will know until you see the movie and knows it’s real subject matter. This
may not be the same case for example in another Nigerian movie for example with
a title as explicit as “Kill the king”, “A wicked Mother inlaw” “The widow and
her son” etc
Now that an Oscar committee has been set up
in Nigeria, movie makers in Nigeria should step up their game because whether we
accept it or not Nollywood has gone beyond shooting movies only for our local
market. We must all take the advantage of the popularity we have garnered outside
our shores to take Nollywood even to higher heights, and the only way to do
this is by taking the issue of professionalism very seriously, even the world
most acclaimed and best movie makers always contract the best professionals in
other movie departments to handle the different professional units, from script
outline to writing through pre and post production.
A good
movie starts with a good story and then a good script. We must be very careful
with unnecessary time wastage, scenes that does not advance a story are unnecessary
in the narration of the story, in this case in the movie, there is really no
need staying in a marriage ceremony and having the invited musician play the
whole of his tracks and all other paraphernalia we are used to including in
nollywood movies just for the purpose of stretching the movie to meet with the intended
time.
There are so many things to say about
Nollywood but I think that the most important of all is that it is without any
atom of doubt one of the most developed human resource builder and enhancer in
the world in the last 3 decades or so. It would not be surprising that it might
end up being included as a case study in prestigious world universities someday
as it is a very good example of how people of different background with a
common passion can build a world acknowledged empire out of nothing.
As I congratulate
all Nigerian movie makers worldwide, I want to continue to implore us not to
rest on our oars but to continue to work effortfully and tirelessly because
there is always something new to be learnt and there is always room for
improvements.
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