GREED AND CORRUPTION

Source: Joy Della Ocloo for http://nigeriafilms.com
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Genevieve Nnaji

I am again going for an opinion poll here.

The website is little funky today and my article seems to have lost its edit button. But I have to clear my head and the article for the benefit of those who read the earlier incomplete one.!

Greed and corruption abounds in Africa and the same this is ruling our film industry. In the industry, a movie budget might be 30,000. To put Genevieve Nnaji in your film, you pay her $12,000. That leaves how much, help me with the math here, $18,000. After the crew and the other cast are paid measly fees, how much actually goes into the production?

I keep in touch with a number of producers and the lament right now is that there is no value in their movies because stars are charging exorbitant fees and by the time pirates rip the movies and put on the internet, you have no money at all.

A structure needs to be put in place. When a movie is being made at a certain budget, there should be a rate card for cast and crew. Take it or leave it. Producers need to develop courage to tell actors take it or leave it otherwise we the audience will fed with crap each day. If a ramsey Nouah makes 2 movies a month, why charge 10-12 thousand dollars for one film? Its greed. At the end of the day what do they do with the money? flaunt it on frequent trips abroad to return speaking warra warra.

No money goes into post production and we keep seeing spelling errors, which need to be fixed with patience and multiple times of viewing your film and tacky special effects. After all these years and how cheap programs like dreamweaver and Maya are, we still see terrible special effects, terrible make-up why? you'll rather feed Emeka Ike's greed and pay him 12,000 instead of pumping the money into production value.

The stars are so satisfied with their localized fame that they are not biting to chew on movies of quality. I am of the opinion that, since our actors make two movies a month and it is not something that will change anytime soon, why not charge moderately, so that others taking part in the movie can also be paid handsomely, what ever that means to them, and to also allow the filmmakers infuse quality into their work? Tinapa studio is now available for use, but the filmmakers cannot afford it because stars are charging an arm and a leg.

And please, no one should say don't Hollywood stars make more money. This is not Hollywood. We are not comparing them because there is nothing to compare. Not the industries, not the nations and not the continents.

that's my opinion, what's yours? or what names do you want to call Joy?


Holla!!