LAMENTATION OF A TRUE NIGERIAN FILM PRODUCER! By: Saint Joseph Ovensehi
I operate in society where my works are always criticised by people who know nothing about how my craft is put together, they have no idea much pains I go through to bring one new film out,that no bank is ready to lend money to me, for film business because it's too risky, as if being and living in Nigeria itself is not a RISk,then I struggle on my own to raise some few millions of naria to make a film,half of the money goes into buying fuel,and more energy into begging neighbours to allow us put our generator near their houses trying to avoid it's noise get into our filming,but it sure will get into it,reason for most of the bad sound u hear when watching our films,which you also complain about,
It's hard for me to actually hire the real professionals because I cannot afford to pay their fees, the kind they will get filming a commercials, and incase you don't know the budget for a one minuteTvC in most cases surpasses the entire budget for a ten Nollywood budget,yes it's so true!...then finally when I manage to round the so called movie up, I try all I can muster to get it acceptable to play in the cinemas, where I must personally fund all the promotion, which in most cases, will amount to nothing compared to what you actually Will need to make a meaningful impact !,the cinemas, just about 20 plus cinemas to service 160 million people! Meanwhile it's same financial requirement to pull people to come into 29 cinemas that would be needed to equally fill up 1000 cinemas,then after two weeks in the cinemas, it's time up and to God be they glory if one million will be yours to have,VAT,Lagos state Entertainment tax,sharing to this and that,! And if your movie is so good ours friends from Alaba, and other great places around the country with connivance with some other Evil people to gets hold of the film and off to the express road and traffics around lagos,Pirates takes over! Flood everywhere with my sweat, not forgetting