PROFESSIONALISM AND ETHICS IN FILM PRODUCTION A CRITIQUE OF TECHNICAL AND AESTHETIC ELEMENTS IN SELECTED NOLLYWOOD FILMS

ABSTRACT

What  is generally  known  today as Nollywood  industry began around  1992  when  Kenneth Nnebue shot Living in Bondage. The industry has since passed through a series of revolution with recognisable growth in out put. Today it has grown to become the world’s second largest producer of films ahead of Hollywood, generating millions of Dollars to the Nation’s economy. There is however the claim that the growth of the industry is not qualitative but quantitative. The hijack of the industry by amateurs have been partly blamed for the poor quality out put of the movies. It is in this light that  Udomisor and Opara Anayo said that despite Nollywood’s success in home videos and across films produced in Africa, more has to be done in terms of production, film content, quality and originality (9). Poor finances have also been blamed for the low quality out put of movies made in Nigeria. It is in response to the general poor rating and the feeling that the Nollywood industry is about amateurish practice that this research is embarked  upon. The idea is to direct attention to the fact that in spite of these challenges, Nollywood filmmakers still produce quality films. Three Nollywood movies have been selected for analysis to prove this. The films are The Figurine (2009), Phone Swap (2012) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2013). The analysis is in the area of Camera manipulation, lighting and shadow, sound   recording,   continuity,   acting,   speech   and   costume   and   make-up.   The  research methodology relied on are the Historical research methodology, the Sociological methodology and  the  Artistic  methodology.  The  preference  for  these  research  methodologies  is  their suitability for theatre and media researches.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background

The process of film making can be cumbersome, the person who is involved not withstanding.  To a novice or a professional,  the complexities in film  production are always there from preproduction stage (the scripting of the story, identifying the talents, assembling the crew and scheduling the shoot), through the  production phase which entails camera and light manipulation, audio management and the actual shoot; to the post production stage of editing and special effects.

The process is all-absorbing and requires a good understanding of the workings of  the  different  elements  (technical  and  artistic)  that  overlap  in  the  process  of filmmaking. But it must be said that as cumbersome as this might be, the experience can be fascinating if the process is properly mastered.

Incidentally,  many  people  with  little  or  no  formal  training  in  the  art  and technique of filmmaking parade themselves as filmmakers. There is no doubt that some of them manage to produce a few movies here and there. And though they may be less- than-impressive in quality, the truth remains that many of such amateurs eventually quit for  lack  of creative  and  technical  skill required  to  remain  in  the  business  of  film production.

Filmmaking is arguably the most technical of all art forms. And as implicated earlier,  it  requires  a  broad  based  understanding  of  the  art  and  technique  of  film production. In what can be described as a corroboratory statement to the above claim, Bruce Mamer states that:

In   filmmaking,    those   who   truly   excel,   whether   as    directors, cinematographers,   editors,  or  other  skilled  crew  members  are  both technically expert and creatively engaged.  It…is  counterproductive  to separate these qualities in any discussion of filmmaking (xii)

The above assertion is apt because broadly speaking, the tendency has always been  to  divide  the  skills  of  filmmakers  into  two  –  ‘creative’  and  ‘technical’  and Mamer’s  position  is to the effect  that  filmmakers  who  want to  be successful  must necessarily be professionals and this implies that such person(s) must have gone to a formal  film  training  institution  or  have  acquired   enough  skill  through  sustained apprenticeship   over   a   period   of   time   under   a   professional   practitioner.   Also commenting on professionalism  as requisite  for  producing high quality film, Herbert Zettl posits that:

You can no longer rely solely on instinct when framing a shot or

adding music to your video track but must acquire the knowledge and the skill to select and apply on a regular basis those aesthetic elements that translate significant ideas into maximally effective messages (xxvii)

The import of Zettl’s comment to this study is tremendous. This is because there exists in Nollywood the challenge of activities of people merely driven by the desire to make quick money rather than professionalism. Since 1992 when Kenneth Nnebue shot what is generally agreed  to be the first Nollywood movie, Living in  Bondage many people, mostly amateurs have taken to film production in Nigeria. The result is that the industry is currently the world’s second largest producer of feature films, only behind

Bollywood of India, suggesting that it is ahead of America’s Hollywood. It must be the influx of these amateurs into the industry that is responsible for the churning out of movies at such astonishing rate. It may also be said that the activities of these invaders have  given  the  industry a not  too  impressive  rating  when  compared  to  other  film cultures across the globe.

Drawing from the comments made by both Zettl and Mamer towards successful filming, it may be understood that practice in the Nollywood industry is not entirely professional, and that if the industry were to make any impact, something drastic has to be done. Care must be taken not to misconstrue this to mean that Nollywood is all about amateurism and instinctive shots. The point has to be made that there are Nollywood movies that are not so bad in their output in spite of the low budget for most film shoots in Nigeria.

Though the post 1992  influx of non professionals  into  the industry may  be partly responsible for some of the set backs that filmmaking in Nigeria have suffered today, the problem of the industry dates back to 1969 when the first documentary film, One Nigeria was produced by Ola Balogun, a pioneer filmmaker in Nigeria. According to records, his effort at making good films was encumbered by all sorts of challenges ranging from the pecuniary  to the technical.  Similarly,  it  is on record that Kongi’s Harvest, Nigeria’s first feature film suffered the same fate.

It is also said that Ola Balogun managed to continue producing films until after his production of Money Power (Owo l’agba) in 1982 when he bowed out as a result of what he termed ‘exasperation’ resulting from the challenges earlier mentioned.

The fact is that even though the first generation filmmakers in Nigeria belonged to the era of analogue technology, filmmakers were nonetheless required  to parade a

good understanding of the techniques required to manipulate and get good output from the analogue equipment. Unfortunately such technical know-how may not have been plenteous thereby leading to the kind of exasperation that Ola Balogun claimed to have forced him out of practice in 1982. But since Nnebue’s effort in 1992, the industry has passed  through  a  series  of  development.  For  instance  Nollywood  films  that  were initially shot, edited and released on CD and VCD are today released on DVD format for theatrical exhibition and home viewing. There is also a shift from the early period when Nollywood  films were solely sponsored  by Igbo traders with the Government setting up the Nollywood capacity building Fund called project ACT- Nollywood with a budget of N3billion. These and more has propelled the growth of the industry into a huge money making  venture  that  has employed  thousands  of people  and generates around $200 million gross to the nation’s economy.

As already pointed out, the industry is adjudged the second best producer  of films in the world. This growth is captured in Oladunjoye’s observation that in the past, as a Nigerian, if you travel abroad, people would ask if you had brought food and spices from home, but today they ask if you have brought any Nigerian film. In spite of all the attention that Nollywood has attracted to itself there are  those who believe that it is plagued with the problem of low quality production. This belief is expressed by Israel Udomisor  and Opara Anayo  who argued  that  ‘Despite Nollywood  success in home videos and across films produced in Africa, more has to be done in terms of production, film content, quality and originality’ (9)

On the other side of Udomisor and Opara Anayo’s thinking are those who are of the opinion that Nollywood ‘has arrived on the big stage’. Perhaps Nollywood can be said to have arrived on the big stage from the point of view of quantity and not quality of films that the industry produces, another group of thinkers would argue.

Biodun  Jeyifo,  in  an  article  titled’  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  with Nollywood?’  Wrote that ‘In terms of the technological  and economic  sources of its identity,  Nollywood  is  actually  a  cottage  industry  that  mistakes  itself  for  a  fully evolved, truly developed corporate or big business industry (11)

No matter the reservations that there might be to Jeyifo’s comment, it is weighty and suggests the need for attention to be turned to the creative, technical and aesthetic content of Nigerian made films. It also suggests the need to pay attention to pecuniary issues with a view to making it more competitive globally.  In addition to such fears being expressed by the likes of Jeyifo, consumers make condemnable comments about Nollywood movies. However these consumers’ little understanding of film production technique like camera manipulation,  lighting,  audio and other technical elements for film making. As a result, their opinions come to nothing. What they bring to the table are comments limited to issues like predictable plot arrangements, poor storylines and preponderance of diabolism, poor sub-titling and other commonly addressed issues.

It may be said that the poor standard of most Nollywood films is connected to poor finances and non professional (technical and creative)  handling of the  movies. And these have far reaching consequences for the industry which has the potential to become world class if professionally managed.

In an article titled ‘The Context of Film Production in Nigeria: The  Colonial Heritage,’ Onokome Okome draws attention to the problems that beset filmmaking in Nigeria,  describing  it  as  ‘nebulous’.  He  quoted  Jonathan  Haynes  as  saying  that Nollywood film production is artisanal in output and very sporadic. Similarly Samyn Sophie talked about the problem of finance in Nollywood thus:

Film financing in Nollywood is mainly an independent venture. Budgets are small and largely derived from one’s own savings. But this is not the only way of financing  filmmaking  in Nollywood.  Often the marketer pays for a film, and he or she gets the final cut and then distributes. In this sense, it is best to say that Nollywood films are financed on an ad hoc basis, which makes it lack the institutional structure that many film cultures have in Europe, America and Asia (110).

It is instructive to draw attention to the fact that so far mention has been made of the film process, its challenges and what it requires to succeed. A careful look shows a recurring reference to the term ‘professional’  in relation to film  production which is used in contrast to ‘amateur’, another term that has found repetition in the study so far.

What this implies is that professionalism is core to film production. Unfortunately the film  industry  in Nigeria  is run by a  long  list  of amateurs  who  have  hijacked  the industry. This sad development has given birth to a filmmaking tradition that may be considered escapist and mediocre when tested against acceptable standard practice.

The art and technology of film was imported to Nigeria through  colonialism around 1903 with the underlying motive of aiding and perpetuating the ambition of the imperialists. As a result, the film images then were far from the socio-cultural realities of the people of Nigeria. The images were those of white people doing things in very unfamiliar environments,  removing the film world  from the local world leading to a situation  where  the  film  reality  is  considered  by the  indigenous  people  as unreal, different  and  distinct  from  life;  a  development  that  is dangerous  to  filmmaking  in

Nigeria. And this danger can be seen in the way that Nigerians, even of the 21st  century,

deal with the content of films produced in the country. To them, most film images that they see in Nollywood movies are not the same as the realities of their social life.

According to Asobele ‘Our colonial masters exhibited films that presented their culture, and their superiority. The colonial masters imported films to  propagate their interests, and give a make believe that portrays their rule and authority as the best (1)

It is instructive to say that ‘amateur’, as used in this study, is not limited to that person that is not knowledgeable in the art of filmmaking. The term is used to include those who  have  trained  in  theatre  awarding  institutions  but  cannot  lay  claim  to  being professionals  because  they  lack  the  practical  know-how  of  filmmaking  due  to  the design of their film studies curriculum in school. It also  includes those who may be knowledgeable in film production but due to constraints like that of finance decide to abandon professionalism for amateurism.

It may be said that the film has the way of telling its story and that it  takes trained professionals who are grounded in its technicality and creative requirement to produce good films. It will also not be wrong to infer that though these professionals may abound in Nigeria there are yet a large number of Nollywood movies makers who are faced with numerous challenges that have made it difficult for them to realise the optimum visual and aural qualities that come together in the film medium.

1.1       Statement of Problem

It  has  been  established  that  Nollywood  is  in  the  business  of  large  scale commercial film production. Looking back from when it all started in 1992, it will be observed that the industry is more than twenty years old. It has grown to become the second  to  India’s  Bollywood  with  respect  to  the  quantity  of  films  it  turns  out.

Unfortunately,  Nollywood  films  do  not  enjoy  good  rating,  both  here  at home  and abroad.

Similarly,   invasion  by  go-for-the-money  filmmakers  who  turn  the  art   of filmmaking  into  money  spinning  trade,  as well  as pecuniary  challenges  have  been identified  as  common  problems  faced  by the  Nollywood  industry.  The  point  must however be made that there are prominent filmmakers in the industry who have refused to be sucked in by the easy money the invaders are making. These professionals have ensured that quality is not totally lost in the industry.  According to Shimshenge and Agav,  these  professionals  include  Tunde  Kelani  (through  his Mainstream  film  and Television production outfit) Teco Benson, Lancelot Imasuen, Emem Isong and Fidelis Duker whom they describe as ‘those who never gave up on supplying quality works’. (108)  In spite of this truism, it has been observed that most research works carried out on Nollywood movies  mostly border on the negative aspects of the industry thereby confining it to  doom as it were. It is true that there are those aspects that need to be addressed  for the industry to find its professional height. But those ingenuities of the industry that are making the industry tick today, and that are peculiar to it must not be neglected. Researchers must be seen to highlight the strength of the industry as well.

The problem  emanating  from  this will be  that  though  Nollywood  has  done ingeniously  well to  come this far,  there  is the  feeling  that  it has  remained  largely trapped in uninspiring filmmaking techniques and that if stakeholders do not find ways of making the industry more attuned to globally acceptable  standards of filmmaking, the industry will collapse. It is with this kind of mindset that Abiodun Olayiwola said that:

The film industry in Nigeria is left in the thick wilderness  of survival as it battles with the difficulty of maintaining its own in a world that is gradually shrinking into McLuhan’s global village (319)

It is as a consequence  therefore  that  this  research,  bordering  on technique  and artistry,  is  embarked  on  to  help  direct  attention  to  the  true  state  and  quality  of Nollywood films.

1.2  Research Question

Each research concern poses its own question(s), the one(s) that the researcher sets out to answer. The following are the questions that this research work is looking to deal with:

    What are the technical, aesthetic and artistic states of Nollywood Movies?

    How  has  the  invasion  of  the  industry  by  non  professionals  affected  the

Nollywood industry?

    How professional and ethical are Nollywood filmmakers?

      To what extent do Nollywood filmmakers adhere to ethical prescriptions by the films and video censors board?

There is also the question of whether or not films produced in Nigeria (Nollywood) can favourably compete with the more developed film traditions of America, Europe and Asia.

1.3       Objectives of the Study

It is a known fact that the western action adventures and Bollywood musicals do not provide enough film content that is relevant to the worldview of Africans generally

and Nigerians particularly. And since Nollywood has grown to become the largest, and by implication the most far-reaching  film industry in Africa, it is being relied on to provide an alternative film image tradition that Africans can relate with directly. But as it is today, there are doubts being expressed  by people of  Nollywood’s  capacity to achieve  this.  This  doubt  is  premised  on  the   industry’s  amateurish  approach  to filmmaking,  a  trend  feared  to  be  capable  of  entrenching  itself  as  a  film  tradition different from what obtains in other film traditions.

Nollywood may parade familiar settings and plot that Africans understand and confront daily but its critics think that there is the question of audio-visual quality that engenders sustainability of interest and continuous acceptability by consumers. For this reason, they claim that the appetite of Africans and Nigerians  for foreign movies is beginning to return again thereby threatening the  continued  existence of Nollywood movies.

As a consequence,  the objective of this research  is to explore the  technical, creative  and  aesthetic  components  of  select  Nollywood  movies  with  the  ultimate intention of knowing the strength and weaknesses of the industry. The idea is to draw the attention of film scholars and filmmakers in Nigeria to the growth and development of the industry. This will be achieved by leveraging on theories and practices that are known to drive the film industry globally.

Consequently, it is the hope of this researcher that the community of filmmakers in Nigeria, including the academics whose job is to train the filmmakers, will not only be pointed to areas where there are rooms for improvement but will also leverage on the content of the research work to take the  movie industry in Nigeria to another level, thereby making it a global competitor.

The point must be made that, except for those who had the privilege to study abroad,   most  Nollywood   filmmakers   are  products   of  theatre   Arts  and   related departments in Nigerian institutions of higher learning. The Departments of theatre Arts are hardly equipped with enough resources to teach film in most of our institutions. As a consequence, what graduates of these institutions end up with is usually not sufficient for them to practice in the field. It is therefore one of the  objectives of this work to challenge these Departments to key into best global training traditions by restructuring their curricula for the purpose of enhancing the performance of their graduates in this very challenging vocation of filmmaking.

This researcher believes that the proper training of theatre graduates will be a big step towards correcting most of the problems faced by the film industry in Nigeria, the truth being that the amateurs  will be forced to vacate the scene  if  well trained professionals begin to produce quality movies. The competitiveness of the market will naturally put them out of business. This work therefore seeks to explore ways of calling attention to the problems of the Nollywood, using three selected movies as case study.

By the end of this research, the following objectives will hopefully be achieved:

     That  there  will  be  a  reconsideration  of  the  notion  that  the  Nollywood industry is only associated with low quality products.

     It  is  expected  that  in  spite  of  the  amateurish  approach  to  most  films produced     in    the     industry,     the    research     shall     establish     that Nollywood is an emerging force in the global film industry.

     It is the hope of the researcher that the challenges of the industry thrown up by  the  research  will  encourage  professional  filmmakers  in  Nigeria  to reclaim  their  professional  space from  amateurs whose  penchant  to make

brisk money is responsible  for the poor quality and rating of  Nollywood films.

     At the end it is hoped that Nollywood filmmakers will come to terms with film’s  potential  to  shape  the culture  of its people  and  therefore  see  the constant need to respect the ethical prescriptions by the Nigerian Films and Videos Censors Board (NFVCB).

1.4 Significance of the Study

It is true that since Living in Bondage was produced by Kenneth Nnebue in

1992 the film industry in Nigeria has come under criticism by both professionals and non professionals alike. It is also true that most of the issues this work seeks to tackle have been mentioned one way or the other by some of these critics. But the one thing that this study seeks to approach differently is that unlike the usual concentration on plot arrangement, storyline, socio-cultural relevance and the pecuniary challenges, the work looks to  concern  itself  with technical  and  creative components  of filming  in Nollywood. This involves a study of deeper technical issues like camera angle shots, lighting and audio qualities, as well as other elements that overlap in the Nollywood film production process.

It is pertinent to say that a look at the more technical components of the art of filmmaking is very imperative, especially as we are in the 21st century, an age when all media of communication are in dire contest for relevance.

It is from the above that the study derives its significance. The study brings to the fore important aspects of filmmaking which hitherto receive little or no attention. By directing attention to these important aspects of filmmaking,  stakeholders  in the

Nigerian film industry will be encouraged  to work towards improving the  technical, artistic and aesthetic quality of their movies to meet international standards.

More than anything else, and as implicated in the research question, issues of technique, artistry and aesthetic are core to the challenges faced by the movie industry in Nigeria.  They are  largely  responsible  for  the  low  rating  of  Nollywood  movies. Because this research study borders on the technical and aesthetic component Nigerian made films, it will go a long way in helping to address the different issues attendant on such technical and creative fields in the industry.

1.5       Scope of the Study

The study is not a comparative work and so does not dabble into  comparing particular film cultures like the American Hollywood or India’s Bollywood to films that are produced  in Nigerian.  Instead,  it explores  the film  production  techniques  (both creative  and  technical)  of films made  in Nigeria  in  the  light  of standards  that are considered professional globally. And though there are films made in Nigeria that can be said to be good enough, especially those shot in celluloid by the like of Ola Balogun in the years preceding the Nollywood  tradition, such films are not of interest to this work. The target is those films  produced in the Nollywood tradition of digital video production. What this means is that films produced earlier than 1992, especially those shot on celluloid by the arguably more-trained old brigade of Nigerian filmmakers are not within the purview of this study.

Of course it must be understood that the film industry in Nigeria can be broadly studied along two lines of divide – the one is of the era preceding 1992,  which was principally driven by analogue film technology and the other belong to the period from

1992 to date, which has come to be known as Nollywood and driven by the  digital video technology.

The work covers the Nollywood movies alone. The three films that are to  be studied and analysed are strictly those produced and directed by Nigerian filmmakers. By this token the three selected movies for analysis  in this study –  Phone Swap as directed by Kunle Afolayan ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ as directed by Biyi Bandele and The Figurine as directed by Kunle Afolayan are treated as made  in Nigeria films. These movies tell Nigerian stories and are produced  and  directed by professional Nigerian filmmakers in the Nollywood film tradition. Broadly, the study covers professionalism in film production in Nigeria. Closely related to professionalism is the issue of ethics and censorship in Nollywood film production.

The following films are examined:

1. The Figurine (2009) as directed by Kunle Afolayan

2. Half of a Yellow Sun (2013) as directed by Biyi Bandele

3. Phone Swap (2012) as directed by Kunle Afolayan

1.6     Limitation of the Study

Though materials abound in film and film related topics, it must be said  that materials on professionalism  in filmmaking and those on ethics are not  common on library shelves. As a result, the internet provided an option which was explored but to very little effect. Book sites that were visited with the aim to download related books turned out to be of little help as well. Different search engines were also leveraged on for anything that might be of help. A few help  came from there but not as much as required to deal with the research interest in the manner intended. The other problem

that  is  associated  with  internet  sources  happens  to  be  their  reliability.  Not  many scholars consider internet sources reliable enough for serious academic research.

Similarly, the books readily available are those written by foreign authors. As helpful   as   such   works   were   to   the   research,   they   hardly   make   comments contemporaneous to professionalism, aesthetics and ethics in the Nollywood industry. As a consequence, Journal articles written by Nigerian scholars on the Nollywood were mostly relied on for the review of related literature.

1.7       Research Methodology

Every  research  involves  the  collation  of  necessary  data  for  the  purpose  of analysis in order to arrive at answer(s) to the questions raised by the  researcher  and attend  to  the  problem  statement  of  the  study.  To  this  end,  many  theatre  research methods are available for the researcher  to explore. For  this work, the researcher  is relying on the tools of the following theatre arts research techniques for collation of its data: the Historical, Sociological and Artistic methodologies.

1.8.1 The Historical Research Methodology

According  to  Sam  Ukala  the  historical  research  methodology  ‘entails  the investigation of documented sources such as books, journals, reports, films, video and audio tapes, archival material, archaeological  excavations,  artefacts…as  well as oral sources’ (12).

He  goes  on to  describe  the  function  of the  Historical  methodology  of  data collation in theatre arts as helping to trace the beginning and development of people, institutions and things. Because this research, in part entails establishing historical facts about the film industry in Nigeria and accounting for the beginning and development of the Nollywood tradition, both of which can be collated from documented sources, the researcher found the Historical method useful.

The study is interested not only in the historical past of Nollywood but also in generating ideas on the present state of the industry and the films it produces.  As a result the researcher finds the historical methodology indispensable. The usefulness of this technique to the research study is better be appreciated  considering Nwabueze’s claim  that  the  technique  ‘…investigates,  experiments,  evaluates,  discovers,  recalls, analyze  and  reconstructs  past  trends,  attitudes,  achievements  and  facts  in  order  to refresh  the  memory,  proffer  new  dimension  to  an  issue,  clarify  current  problems, discover  new  knowledge  or interpret  existing ones in fresh perspective.  To a large extent this study also explores historical documents on film (particularly Nollywood), and through the evaluation of such historical documents, discover current developments in  Nollywwood   with  a   view  to  suggesting  perspectives  that  will  help  improve filmmaking  practice  in  Nigeria.  Materials  on  film  generally  and  film  in  Nigeria, particularly movies of the Nollywood tradition are sourced from documented sources like books and journals of theatre arts extracted from libraries and the internet for the study.

1.8.2 The Sociological Research Methodology

According  to  Sam  Ukala  one  of  the  techniques  of  gathering  data  in  the Sociological  research  methodology  is interaction  with recording  on video  or  audio tapes. This makes it suitable for research studies that are media related. Of course this research  study titled  Professionalism  and  Ethics  in  Film  production:  a  critique  of technical and aesthetic elements in selected Nollywood Films is without doubt media

oriented. And since it requires watching and analysing a number of Nollywood movies, the researcher finds the Sociological research methodology suitable for the study.

The function of the Sociological research methodology is to describe,  expose and establish the causes and effects of existing facts or situation with a view to making suggestions  towards  its  maintenance,  improvement  or  discouragement.  This  aptly captures the process of the research being embarked upon.

1.8.3 The Artistic Research Methodology

The Artistic research methodology allows for reliance on intuition,  inspiration and imagination which theatre artists and scholars are known to be involved with most of the times. It is a method for artistic creation and interpretation which includes, but not limited to, developing a model for writing for the screen, designing and building costume, designing and executing light or sound plot, directing for the screen etc.

According  to  Sam  Ukala  this  methodology  is  subjective  and  may even  be speculative. Therefore the thesis to be produced with the Artistic methodology must have  sufficient  support  of existing  theories  and  practice  for  it to be  recognised  or accepted.  And  this  aligns  perfectly  with  the  researcher’s  intention  to  interpret  and identify the problems that the Nollywood films have and to  suggest ways of making them better.

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