'HOW I DISCOVERED AKI AND PAWPAW'
Talking about star makers in Nollywood, the name of prolific director, Amayo Uzo Phillips would be a recurring decimal. Though, always at the background, the filmmaker would take the credit for discovering popular actors like Chinedu Ikedieze aka Aki, Osita Iheme aka Pawpaw, Nonso Diobi, and Charles Awurum among others.
Right now, Amayo is set to make more stars with his pet project of 10 movies featuring 10 comic characters that he discovered in his talent hunt show that held across the federation recently. He speaks candidly about his foray into moviedom, how he discovered Aki and Pawpaw, and why he is relocating to his home state, Imo after 11 years sojourn in Enugu. Excerpts:
Beginning
I read Theatre Arts and I specialise in directing, acting and choreography. Most of the time, what you read in the university is not what actually happens on the field. After my graduation in 1984, I went straight into movies. I left in 1987 when the job wasn't paying. I had to leave for 10 years. I went into farming, fishery and poultry business. I developed the business well but I had to abandon it and go back to the movie industry because I couldn't hold the bug of the theatre. I went back to Lagos to join Nollywood properly. My first script was in 1978. It was called, The Weight of Life. That was before I got into the university.
My break
I did my first production in 1997. In 1998, I was involved in King Jaja of Opobo as a second assistant director. I worked with Ndubuisi Okoh partly and Emma Ogu who is now a lecturer in University of Port Harcourt. Then I got stuck in Enugu. Something told me to stay back in Enugu even though things were not happening then. From time to time, a filmmaker would come in and he would be told to look for Amayo, that he's the man on the ground in the East. That was how I stayed back in Enugu. I started working with New Masquerade, doing scripts and acting with them. I now did Aki Na Ukwa. First of all, I did the script of The Last Burial and Conspiracy part 2, I wrote The Coming of the Anti-Christ, and was part of the crew as an assistant director with Simi Opeoluwa. Aki Na Ukwa was actually my break as a director. Since then, I have done over 100 movies, writing, producing and directing them all.
What I look for in actors
First, I look at your person. There are adept things in comedy like the facial appearance. People who are very handsome are not good for comedy. Somebody like John Okafor, Victor Osuagwu and the rest have their funny looks. There is something you see in them. I look at your presentation, then your delivery. Most of the time, I talk to people, they don't know that I am auditioning them. Sometimes, I see you and there is something I am seeing and you are not seeing. I may then say I need this guy to bring out exactly what is inside of him. Once I see you, I look at your personality, carriage and delivery.
Specialisation
I do some other genres of movies. I can do traditional, comedy and glamour movies. The thing is that I am not challenged by glamour movies – that is contemporary glamour movies. They are straight stories but comedy and traditional movies are the ones that challenge me. It is not every director that directs comedy and traditional movies. One, they are scared of the crowd. A lot of directors do not know how to manage crowd. Once you give them a traditional story and there is crowd, they begin to run away from that but that is where I enjoy working. I like the traditional movie because it is African. I love the environment of Africa, the people, and the folklores especially now that I am going back to folklores. The new thing I have done with traditional movie is that I have added songs to it. If you know the song, Dinta, I wrote it into sacred tradition, which is a traditional thing and it came out fine. I have done about five of that. The one I am going to shoot now has songs in it.
Comedy
Comedy is a very strong genre. It is not everybody that can handle it. A lot of people would put jokes together and call it comedy. No, comedy, like other stories, must have a beginning, middle and end. It must have a story running through it. In comedy, you must bring every action to the viewer. If an actor twitches his hands, you must bring it, if an actor moves his lips anyhow, you must bring it so that people will see. So, these two genres challenge me a lot and that is why I am there. That is why it looks like that is what I do but what I don't do is gun totting. I don't do movies where they tot gun and I don't do ritual movies. My reason is that I believe Nigeria has not got to that level of gun totting. In Nigeria, you don't settle a score with a gun. If I do it, it means I am telling a lie and I am misrepresenting our culture. I don't also do cultism.
Discovering talents
I was the one who discovered Aki and Pawpaw. I was the one that brought back Ada Ameh. I also encouraged Charles Awurum to come into movies. Asuquo from Akwa Ibom is my latest discovery. Once I see talents I follow them up, I don t allow them to go. Right now, I have four midgets; three boys and one girl that I want to make stars. Three of them are in Port Harcourt and one is in Benin. Already, I have used one in the movie, Short Gun. We don't have kiddies' stories any more. There is one I am going to do that would run in series. I am going to be involved with school kids and they are going to have something like Spiderman and all that.
How I discovered Aki and Pawpaw
Before I did Aki Na Ukwa, the industry was doing rituals and blood money movies, that was the trend and I was looking for a way to divert the industry, and I wanted people to laugh. I then wrote some scripts, which I sent to marketers but each time I gave them scripts they rejected them, saying comedy cannot sell. I gave them about three scripts, which they threw back at me. I then waited until KASVID movies came and met me in Enugu, and asked me if I could do a story like Home Alone. I said 'yes'. So, I decided to relieve my childhood experiences in Aki Na Ukwa. The film was all about me when I was growing up as a child. I wrote the story and instead of doing it with one actor as in Home Alone, I looked for Chinedu, who was already in the movie industry but was not getting kiddies' roles. The biggest kiddies' role he played then was in Last Burial Part 2. When I was writing the movie, he came begging for a role, so I had to give him one. When I finished writing Aki Na Ukwa, I started looking for Chinedu all over Enugu but he was nowhere to be found. I continued dropping messages for him and after two weeks, I found him. Osita was in Aba and was not doing anything actually. So, I sent my associate producer to go to Aba and look for him. That was how I brought the two of them together and we started shooting. I didn't take the movie serious; KASVID did not take it serious either because it was a new thing for him. The original budget was N950, 000 but I shot it with N750, 000. I shot Aki Na Ukwa for two and half days and if you look at the movie, there was no single star. I just created all the characters -Aki and Pawpaw, Dorcas, and Miss Koikoi. Today, they are all popular names. Recently, I shot The Return of Aki and Pawpaw's Sisters and I had to use Dorcas and I paid dearly for using that name. You cannot get Osita and Chinedu now for less than N700, 000 even if it is memaking use of them.
What I saw in Aki & Pawpaw
I saw them as kids. I didn't know their ages when I made use of them. Even today they still look like kiddies. I saw the kids who run around in the village in them. When we started shooting the film, Chinedu found it very difficult to cope. Outside, they look small but inside they look big. At a point, Chinedu would tell me 'Oga Amayo, this thing wey you say make I do, you know say I be big man o'. And I would tell him, 'I'm not seeing the big man inside of you. All what I'm seeing is the small kid outside of you and its that small kid that I want to use'. That was how we were able to shoot Aki Na Ukwa.
Back to base
I have come home to roost in Imo State because I believe that charity begins at home. We are star makers and I believe that if I come back home, I would be able to help some of our people discover their talents. One of the things I plan to do apart from setting up an academy where I can train people is developing a network that would take movie distribution to the next level.
Secondly, I want to do a comedy talent hunt. We want to throw the talents into the industry and give them jobs. We won't leave them after the hunt. We have scheduled to shoot about 10 movies with the best 10. The first person gets about N200.000. The rest would shoot consecutively 10 movies and would receive artiste fees from those movies. As we polish them, we would put them into the industry. We want to give them these opportunities most especially comedians because I like to make people laugh. In one of my latest movies, Our World, I made use of Uche Ogbuagu as an imbecile, Stephanie Okereke as an Imbecile, and also Uche Jombo as an imbecile. That is the kind of movie I want and the characters have it.