The Nollywood Industry: Quantity vs Quality (Causes).

In the previous post, we basically saw a feature of the Nigerian movie industry and the struggle between quality movies which are few, and low-quality movies which are very many in the Nigerian movie market. Today, we look at the reasons for this discrepancy in production rate amongst these two kinds of movies.

• Cost:

Cost is a major factor that causes movie makers to scale down on the quality of their production. We see a lot of movie makers try to cut cost so they either employ unprofessional staff or use low-quality cameras which result in low-quality imagery. The cast in movies often has a huge influence on the movie quality, as getting certain top actors would cost a lot, hence, some movie makers settle on getting actors that fit into their production budget. Money is always used in the production of any commodity and movies are not an exception. Some people either don’t have enough money to make quality movies or are just nonchalant because they assume their faithful viewers barely care about the quality. The considerations made as regarding cost are endless and this is a major reason why some movie makers make not so great movies. Basically, it’s either there isn’t enough money or they are confident that they would make sales regardless of the quality given to the viewers.

• The Need to Constantly Generate Income:

Making a movie can be very time-consuming. Imagine a popular movie like Game of Thrones and how much time it must take to make such type of movies. The last season ended in July and we are going to have to wait till 2019 to watch the next which is season 8. This is a lot of time that would be spent working on the movie. Great movies take time and that would not only cost maybe 10 times more, but it would also mean that for the time period that the movie makers are working on the movie, there would be no income (assuming that movie making is their only income source). All of these and more are considerations made by the movie makers that makes most of them opt for cheaper and faster movies, which can be made easily and would provide them with enough time and funds to make a lot of different ones with similar quality.

• Passion and Vision of Movie Makers:

Making movies is more than a money-making venture for some and for others, it’s just about the money. Movie makers should have a vision, and the passion to render their vision flawlessly should drive them. It shouldn’t only be about the money to be made but it should rather be about the proper representation of the initial idea that made them come to work together. When they sit down to make a movie, from the scriptwriter to the director, and the crew members should have a vision of the movie they want to make and work towards it. Sadly, for many movie makers in Nollywood, they simply go into the industry as a money-making venture, sometimes as a cure for unemployment instead of as a passion driven act towards the art. This results in making movies based on the factors that would only bring in income and forget to focus on the quality of the movie. For every actor, I’m sure they’d rather make a quality movie than a lot of scrappy movies but most of the times, they are not in control of what sort of movie it turns out to be. But that’s a story for another day.  

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This article was first published on 1st October 2017

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