Nigerian movie indusry is still developing but still number one in Africa. But not to mention, there are so many jokers in the scene.

afam4eva:
One man's food is another man's poison. A lot of people that have watched Figurine seem to like it but not me. It's too boring abeg. It just reminds me of those educative but not entertaining movies of Tunde kelani.

e.g Cos i'm yet to watch a Kelani movie that is not entertaining

Most Nigerians don't know a good movie. A good production, a good and educative story line and definitely a good directing makes a good movie

The movie industry is gradually dividing into 'artistic' movies that are first premiered in the theatres, and straight to DVD movies that feed the mass market.

What the movie industry requires to grow is a total clampdown on piracy in Nigeria. When the artistic directors are more certain of the returns, they will invest more in production and storytelling.

So...in summarry, what government should do is tackle piracy with the seriousness that Dora used in fighting drug counterfeiting. They can take like 10% of the market value of DVDs as tax. Piracy is a Federal crime in the USA...na FBI dey personally fight the thing.

This oil money is distracting our politicians.

ogbeche77: e.g Cos i'm yet to watch a Kelani movie that is not entertaining

Entertainment may mean different things to different people.

xwolverine:

I also saw the screen preview of phoneswap at the BFI, and as much as I agree with you on the cinematography (camera and audio), I felt a bit disaointed with the story.

So far so good, phone swap was a good movie, but it didn't meet Up with my valuation of what a great movie should be, the story line was a bit lightweight and lacks depth and insight. I felt much emphasis was place on the video quality while the story was a bit shallow. The film looked promising at the begining, with the office politics, the tailors shop and the general introduction of the characters. But I felt lost from the point where the phone was mixed Up at the airport, and the names of the assistants being the same. for me it doesn't look real. I felt the plot and scene could have been enacted differently. Having said that, I feel phone swap is a step in the right direction, but improving the general storyline would be perfect.

I've not seen the figurine so I can not really comment on it.

Hey xwolverine, Happy New Year to you. Good to know you're here too. Are you into filmmaking? Do holler, let's get a coffee sometime!

One thing they say in filmmaking is 'Story is King'. And that is so true. One thing we do a lot is compare Nollywood films to Hollywood films; it is hard not to but it's something I think really shouldn't be done - well they have got 80yrs or so on us, hence me also being far more lenient when it comes to Nollywood films.

I placed Phone Swap & Last Flight to Abuja on a pedestal because they are way ahead of the 'general' Nollywood product. Are they PERFECT films? No, absolutely not and both have got holes in them... however, they are at the very, very front of the direction all of Nollywood has to head in. That is one of the factors that makes me talk about them in a positive light, coupled with the fact that I've seen the offerings that were their immediate 'predecessors' and the difference IMHO is a huge chasm.

There are many things that come together to make a 'great' film. Yes the first is 'story'. An earlier post of mine went ' 'Good cinematography does not a good story make'. I think one of the biggest problems Nollywood has is not having GREAT scriptwriters... we have amazing writers but script-writing is a very different ball game. Luckily some people are taking all aspects of production to a higher level step by step.

Did you ever get to see 'Anchor Baby' by Lonzo Nzekwe?

When i finished reading this thread, i was like "Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles".
How can a very underdeveloped country like Nigeria dream of producing a Good movie?, how can Nollywood claim to be 3rd best movie industry when they continue producing the same movie over and over with different title. What a pity. America is an developed state they have the resources whether human,labour or capital to release good movies of various genres, not some fairly rehearsed secondary school drama my nigerians are wasting their meagre allowance to watch every blessed day.
2ndly, Nigerians don't know a good movie because we r 2 boring. Years and years of eating unpalatable dish has made it become palatable and favourite for us. I nvr watch nollywood, i admit some have good plot but u can hardly find one with good story. A plot is just the summary of the activities, but the story entails more, the character developments,character interactions make up the story. No matter how good the plot is, the film is poor without an outstanding story. And one question, Guys why are most Nollywood movie art cover contains scantly clothed ladies?,why must sexuality be a theme of every nollywood movie, is it to attract market?. Evn Hollywood and Bollywood romance movies have a decent art cover. Quite gross cos it further potrays actresses as sex symbols and ladies as sex objects.
Finally Nigerians are boring,very boring indeed. The only form of entertaiment they know is clubbing, partying,drinking, wasting days and nights under a shed to watch europe leagues matches. Guess what all these have in common. They r cheap and poorly educating. These what an average Nigerian term as entertaiment. For an average American, it is more. There are cartoons(yes,ones that beat nollywood movies),comic books,video games, cinemas, live football, basketball,wrestling matches to watch, lots of sports centres,beaches to go and have fun and lot more. These are interesting,educating and self comforting.

VillageBoi:

Hey xwolverine, Happy New Year to you. Good to know you're here too. Are you into filmmaking? Do holler, let's get a coffee sometime!

Villageboi how are you and where have you been?

afam4eva:
Entertainment may mean different things to different people.

Which then implies that you should have been more cautious in making an overbearing statement that Kelani'smovies are educating but less entertaining .

safarigirl: *peeks into the thread, reads comments* Is Nollywood trash? *one man's 50 Naira, is another man's 5k* *runs out immediately*

LWKMD

usermane:
How can a very underdeveloped country like Nigeria dream of producing a Good movie?, how can Nollywood claim to be 3rd best movie industry when they continue producing the same movie over and over with different title.

A couple of points for correction.

1) Nigeria CAN produce good movies
2) Nollywood has NEVER claimed to be the 3rd BEST industry - I did understand you meant the 3rd most prolific when it comes to number of films made. I hope you get the difference between the 'quantity vs quality' argument?

Good points made on the 'Plot vs Story'.

My problem wit naija movies is that dey don't edit it. 2day I was watching afmag nd a guy said "she is a marriage woman".

speedyboi:

Villageboi how are you and where have you been?

A very Happy New Year to you bro. I dey, how now?

Ms_Steph: My problem is naija movies is that dey don't edit it. 2day I was watching afmag nd a guy said "she is a marriage woman".

Eeeerrrrmmmmm they do edit.

Brand_new: A good movie for me must be built on 4 solid pillars in which picture quality is one of them.

It's common to use boring and sometimes unpleasant sound effect in Nollywood movies.

Directing also matters but that is relative depending on the quality of actors and roles they were casted for.

The post production and editing will fetch them a Zero rating from me. Nollywood is simply not up to date on movie editing and post production softwares.

Finally, i think they should take a cue and learn from Music video producers like Clarence Peters, Jude Okoye, Mr Month Musa, Sesan e.t.c. Maybe they might just be able to come up with a world class movie production.

Your last paragraph is my exact thought. The music industry in terms of quality pictures and creativity has taken leaps leaving nollywood behind

.

MOBBDEEP:

Which then implies that you should have been more cautious in making an overbearing statement that Kelani'smovies are educating but less entertaining .

That was my opinion not yours.

apocalypse:

Which food do you consider as garbage and which do you consider luxury or exquisite ? While you might consider caviar as luxury I would gladly give you my plate of caviar and a $100 bill for a plate of pounded yam and a plate of egusi soup made in a clay pot. If people find Jenifa a better movie than Figurine it is their own decision and you have no right to tell them otherwise.

What food is considered garbage? Okay my first instinct was to shout food from the bin but seeing as that's what I wrote in my post yet you are still asking...I am now at a loss on how to answer that.

That some people enjoy rotten banana from the garbage does not stop it from being rotten banana from the garbage. So someone calling it what it is..is not infringing on their right to eat rotten banana from the garbage.

VillageBoi:

I completely agree with you on how ridiculously bad the last part of the movie was. It jumped from something 'magical' to 'na lie, we're just carving it from chewing-sticks in our backroom' - boy was I so disappointed.

Having said that, like the good filmmaker he is, he has actually grown. We hope to see more and more 'positive' growth in Nollywood. It's funny because this has happenend twice that I've seen - two different filmmakers

1) Kunle Afolayan - Figurine was bad. His next film Phone Swap simply amazing.
2) Obi Emelonye - Mirror Boy was bad, Last Flight To Abuja seriously good.

I'm sure the trend of growth will continue in Nollywood, we live in a great era for filmmaking.

Last flight to abuja was not seriously good.

Happy new year

Enoquin:

Your last paragraph is my exact thought. The music industry in terms of quality pictures and creativity has taken leaps leaving nollywood behind

Yes. But shooting and editing a 3-5min music video is not the same as working on a 90-120min movie. Budget, production time, logistics etc vary by a great margin.

Tony Spike: What is a good movie? I'd like to take us through these points for easy understanding:

(1) SCRIPTING: Depending on the objective of the movie, whether comical, adventures, romance, sci-fi and biographical, a script must be good. A good script is illustrating, exciting, logical, captivating, analytical and realistic. Most Nollywood movies lack these qualities.

(2) ORIGINALITY: This is a very important factor. Infact, majority of Nigerian movies lack originality. They steal ideas from just anywhere, whether good or bad, without considering the end thereof. Copying ideas isn't bad in itself, but copying without common-sense and logic is simply being intellectually lazy. AVATAR, one of the most successful Hollywood movies was said to have incorporated stolen ideas from at least three movies. Originality means repackaging, exploration and innovation.

(3)CINEMATOGRAPHY: A good movie can impress with stunning cinema shots. We can use examples of how MATRIX and LORD OF THE RINGS revolutionalised the cinematography industry. A good camera direction tells us better stories than the thousand words uttered by the actors/actresses. A standard movie with good cinematography can tell us the movie story successfully even if the voices are muted. This particular area is very lacking in Nigerian movies. But for very few directors like Tunde Kelani (a trained cinematographer himself), Naija is nowhere in the league of its foreign counterpart. Poor camera direction and lighting effects, handled by amateur cameramen are very popular in our movies. This particular reason, coupled with, lack of originality make me dislike Nollywood movie.

(4)REALISTIC LOCATIONS: This is a very big problem in Nigeria. Because we aren't ready to invest in serious movie production, everything goes cheap. Wrong locations, poor settings ruin a lot of our movies. I won't go into this location problem too much because it very glaring. Use of wrong costumes also go hand-in-hand with wrong locations.

There are other reasons, but I feel the above ones are much more important than others.

Location
Make up
Costume

It's only in Nigerian movies that someone who sits at home all day is dressed very well and wears heels

Make up? I don't think we have that...the make-up in nollywood is pancake, lipstick, eyeliners, charcoal and chalk (for herbalists)

Location...how I wish nollywood knew the importance of location...and not just limit themselves...this one is a whole topic on its own

dabossman:

Yes. But shooting and editing a 3-5min music video is not the same as working on a 90-120min movie. Budget, production time, logistics etc vary by a great margin.

I agree...my emphasis though was on pictures and creativity from the music industry...

sholay2011: Over the years, there has been clamour for Nollywood to improve on her film production quality. But my worry is that a quick survey would tell you what many Nigerians think as a definition of a 'good' movie- a movie with clearly unbelievable special effects where bullets fly around amidst oppositions not minding if the plot is weak, character development is zero and directing and acting is at subpar.

Out of interest, is your username inspired by the the Bollywood movie of the same name?

Re Nigerian movies, I love them for what they are. But I often find myself reeling about an unaddressed element of the movie. This is my "outside" perspective on Nollywood. Example: recently saw a movie with Mercy Johnson where she played this dumb village girl. While searching for her baby she left in a taxi, she got lost and was raped as she slept overnight. Yeah ha ha ha she's so dumb she was raped while she slept . But after that scene, the rape is not addressed. Like wtf. Was she just buying a bag of yam or something so inane it didn't require elaboration?

Nollywood film makers are a dime a dozen. Most of them have regular 9 to 5 jobs and it takes them quite a while to save enough money to produce a movie. For this reason we should not expect too much in terms of quality of visuals, audio and locations. The producers that invest heavily into production....heavily relative to Nigeria....produce much better movies in terms of visuals, audio , wardrobe and locations. Despite all this....I believe a good story, cast and director make a better movie than one lacking these but having the best of visuals and audio. Around 2004 I was involved in promoting "African Movies" in NY. They were red hot then especially among Caribbean people but not Black Americans ... not only because they had no interest but because they generally find it difficult to understand foreign accents. To induce them into watching, I would make a deal with them to buy a particular movie and if they don't like it they can return it and get a refund.They never failed to return....to get more movies. That very low budget, vhs consumer video camcorder shot movie is still the #1 Nollywood movie in the US period...."Blood Sisters"

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Sisi_Kill: Dude what kind of question is this?

What next. ..asking someone who has never eaten anything but trash from the bin if he knows what good food tastes like. Of course he's not going to know and when he does taste good food, it's only natural for him to reject it...not because it's not good but because his garbage food battered palate is not familiar with luxury.

How can Nollywood lovers enjoy a cerebral movie when they are used shoutfests where every single thing is spelled out.

How do you expect them to immediately get that a guy reaching for a door knob plans to open the door if he hasn't given them a blow by blow of what he is doing while he is doing it. ..

I will now touch this door knob, twist it to one side and open the door. ..this door oh, the one I am touching not the one on the other side of the room oh.

You are talking about a movie like FIGURINE to a group of people who almost peed on themselves in excitement over Jennifer and her many returns?

Really

Sometimes there arejust some questions that needn't be asked because it makes peoplequestion the asker's intelligence. ..No offense.

i find your comment really silly, i think colonial mentality has affected all u oyibo wannabes. I am very selective of the movies i watch be it nolly, holly or bolly or whatever wood it may b though i must admit that holly seem to tickle my fancy the most but they make sick film as well like that highlt praised black swan tht made little sense just like figurine. When i decide to watch a movie, it should b entertaining, educative n it has to make sense. How does one relate to the movie figurine, its quite unbelievable (eg day silly shed constructed at the beach wich they called house. The interior looks nothing like a real home. It just keeps reminding that you are watchin a movie and not experiencing reality). Someone praised the portrayal of nysc camp. Even if according to him/her it is d best so far in noll, that doesnt mean it was good enof. I can watch jenifa 4 times over bt i wil neva watch figurine again. Jenifa is believable and i can relate wit it. I knew exactly wat i was going into wen i settled to watch it. Comedy of a local girl. It was believable, realistic even if it may hav bn over the top lik mr. Bones and even home alone bt its forgivable;its comedy and comedi is not supposed to mak abcolute sense just like horror e.t.c; figurine was not.Why does afolayan think he has to appear in his movies,he didnt play his character well,he is better at the other side of the glass.simple!
When peopl tell me there r no nolly movies worth watching i smile, afterall these r d ones who av lost their own identities and would do anything to b like the oyibo who to them is perfection. Most of the nolly movies today r substandard but there r a few that stand out(very few). Giv them access to funds and they wil perform wonders.
To those who enjoyed figurine,congratz! Bt i dont think that the movie should b rated high just becos some people think it is their idea of perfection which is hollywood. Jenifa is beta than figurine;it was realistic and believable(dont forget it is comedy), figurine was not!
I however understand if u av hardly or never lived in nigeria and you didnt enjoy jenifa, it was not made for ur kind, u may av found it hard to relate to and i seriously doubt dat but it is possible.

VillageBoi:

A very Happy New Year to you bro. I dey, how now?

I've been good Bro. How's new year treating you?





@everyone....seems people are still viewing Nollywood from the perspective of past productions.
The game has really changed now. Meanwhile if you buy from the street guys or watch on africa magic, you are on your own. Do you really think if I'm a renowned producer, I will giveout my movies to africa magic for some few coins?

@villageboi.....contrary to your view, I really enjoyed the figurine. I love the fact that I'm left to make conclusions on the movie. is it the figurine that caused all the problems? Or it was the love drama? And it just coincided with the presence of figurine?
About phoneswap, you are on point! Its actually my best african movie last year; followed by south Africa's otelo burning.

apocalypse:

The fact that you compare luxury to garbage makes it seem metaphoric and not literal which makes your analogy faulty. A normal person wouldn't eat from the bin but normal people would prefer Jenifa to Figurine ( unless of course if you are suggesting they are mad to do so ).

thank u joor, i dont understand how anyone would question people's sanity just cos they av different preferences.to me, Figurine is simply boring. It just like reading engineering maths for leisure. When i want to study, i know i want to study.but wen i want to read for relaxation would i not grab half a yellow sun or sometin by john grisham or even ebony mag etc (all of which are educative yet entertaining).watchin figurine was a chore. In fact a punishment

God bless you o shorlay. most people nowadays would rather watch a movie that is so senseless, you can't follow its plot so far it's an action film, it's the same way most people will rather listen to a Terry G or reminisce, rather than a Bez or Asa. My belief is that a vast majority of youths nowadays are not deep thinkers.

@afam4eva, i beg to disagree with you. Figurine is one of the best Nigerian movies ever made. So far so good,it's waaaaaaaayyyyy better than 99% of all other Nigerian movies. Content-wise or should i say script-wise. The acting is of good quality. the video wonderful, production nice. Most people say they don't like figurine because it doesn't have the ending they were expecting.

Looks like nollywood (English movies division) is going beserk and short of ideas. It's total business with no thought on quality, morale, or anything worth mentioning. The Yoruba version still hold some SWAG. I think its even more entertaining with beter morals.

Enoquin:

Last flight to abuja was not seriously good.

Happy new year

Hey Enoquin, a very Happy New Year to you too.

Hmmmmmm let me explain my reason for calling the film seriously good. Generally we have the habit of knocking Nollywood, most times, rightfully so but; and this is my big BUT... I have stopped comparing Nollywood films to anything other than other Nollywood films. At least that sort of levels the bar of expectations.

As of the time I saw 'LFTA' I consider what is actually out from Nollywood at the same time and what have I previously watched, from the Nollywood stables, that is what I use as my influencing factor.
Also credit has to be given to anyone that actually makes a film - even if it is rubbish. Credit for the effort because it is so difficult to make a feature film.

Many do compare our offerings to Hollywood films but even Hollywood seriously makes some shytty films. Are we 'there' yet? No. Will Nollywood get much, much better (in ALL aspects)? I think so.