The functionality of movie studios in Nollywood

Hollywood boasts a variety of large studios with high-tech facilities such as Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Walt Disney. Filming of movies can take place in studios or in locations (external or internal). Hollywood and Bollywood directors can choose to shoot their movies through any of the alternatives. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for its counterpart, Nollywood. Despite being ranked as the second largest film producing body in the world, it is ridiculous to note that filming in these modern times takes place primarily on location.

The filming on location is carried out in a real environment, devoid of studio equipment and accompaniments, stage constructions, and ranges from the use of people’s homes in urban and rural areas, restaurants, accessories / clothing stores, streets and beaches. On-site filming, especially outdoors, is not free from natural / man-made challenges such as bad weather / unfavorable weather, noise pollution from vehicles, passing planes, society wrongdoers (interference from area kids), unprecedented traffic , the need to obtain the necessary authorization to film from residents and local authorities, unwanted viewing by the public that simply stands and watches the scenes being filmed, and of course the transportation costs incurred for move all crew, crew, and cast throughout production. These anomalies can be easily prevented when the film is recorded in a standard and functional studio. Perhaps, capturing truly magnificent locations in their entirety, devoid of any artificial influences, and the saved cost of building various sets, still drives filmmakers to shoot on location.

In a studio, the filmmaker can control on-location filming anomalies as noted above, shoot comfortably underwater, and through chroma keying make adjustments that would have been impossible to capture. There are currently two studios in Nigeria (created to function with the international standard), which are the Tinapa (Calabar) studio and the Nigerian Film Corporation, Jos. However, not much has been heard about the productions coming out of their stables. However, it is not clear what could be the problem that has prevented the majority of directors / filmmakers from taking advantage of the use of studio facilities.

Ije (The Journey), an epic film by Chineze Anyaene, shot partly in (Nigeria and Los Angeles), made use of the facilities of the Nigerian film corporation Jos to shoot certain scenes in Nigeria. Studio Tinapa, having been commissioned years ago to provide filmmakers, directors, the opportunity to produce world-class documentaries, movies, and music videos, continued to fail. However, Hi Media Ltd, Hi TV’s parent company, is said to have partnered public-private with the Cross River state government. Hi Media owns 51% of the studio’s shares. The Tinapa studio would be changed to the Paradise studio. Are directors / filmmakers expected to film properly in the studio with such a development?

Perhaps the challenge they would face would be the financial aspect, if they would face the high fees that would obviously be charged for using the studios. One can only hope that over time more functional studios will emerge committed to providing excellent services to their clients. After all, there is nothing like good healthy competition that will invariably drive quality production in Nollywood.

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