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Transcript

Hollywood

vs.

Nollywood

Changes in Film Financing

The Death of Hollywood

Exaggeration or Reality?

  • The average Hollywood film costs over $100 million
  • Before they were funded by banks and other financial institutions
  • Due to the economic meltdown it has become more difficult raising funds for films
  • “Other people's money”

by Janet Wasko

  • Media in general going through significant changes, primarily because of digital technologies
  • Explore some of the changes and challenges confronting the film industry
  • Drawing on the political economy analysis of film

Changes in Distribution and Independent Films

Changes in Film Production

Online distribution

  • Distribute films outside of Hollywood's control
  • Primarily three different models: advertising supported, rental or sell-through, and subscription
  • While major studios sell rights to these top distributors, price and timing continues to be an issue

Other new distribution outlets

  • Video game consoles, mobile phone apps

This process gives control to independent filmmakers, but with the continuing issues with funding and effective distribution remain

Changes in Film Marketing and Promotion

  • Transition from film to digital technology
  • Arguing that it gave more power or writers and actors
  • Production crew and laboratories have struggled with the transition
  • One of the advantages is low cost
  • “Films that once required a film lab, a team of special effects gurus..[can now be created by]...some dude with a $500 camcorder and a Mac.”
  • Francis Ford Coppola stated that this could result in film being viewed as an art form
  • Remains to be seen whether independent filmmakers can challenge the Hollywood hierarchy.
  • Websites were being used for many years
  • The introduction of social network to create a “viral word of mouth”.
  • New methods are being used but the older methods of big promotional campaigns are still in place
  • However, the “Twitter effect” can also work against a film. The instantaneous nature spreads both positive and negative reviews.

Changes in Film Exhibition

Changes in the Global Market

  • Copied DVDs and digital downloading or file sharing.
  • Torrent and peer to peer file sharing.
  • DVD counterfeiting is low priority for police but has a high profit margin
  • Historical there have been attempts to resist Hollywood's dominance
  • New formations and competitions such as Bollywood and Nollywood.

  • Technological innovations and new features added to the traditional theatre setting
  • Digital cinemas, 3D and IMAX
  • 3D has recently gone digital and an increased number of movies are now being released in 3D
  • Relying on these technological innovations to attract audiences away from their computers and home entertainment systems
  • Enhanced theatrical environment
  • Additional revenue through midnight movie premieres and opening night parties and broadcasting live events

Nollywood at Large & Behind the Scenes

by Ramon Lobato

&

Ikechukwu Obiaya

  • Nollywood's genesis is a result of niche consumer market that developed as Nigerians began to be exposed more and more to Hollywood and Bollywood during the 70's and 80's

  • Considered by UNESCO as the "second biggest film producer (sector), with many more copies circulating through pirate channels"

  • Although Nollywood is popular and ubiquitous in its native Nigeria and surrounding African regions, it has no true formal distribution method.

-Formal institutions do not trust film industry in Nollywood due to its capricious nature

- Increased formality would increase quality?

- Decentralization limit Nollywood's world influence

- Questions of censorship, regulation, and trade-laws become a complex issue

FORMALISING IMPERATIVE

- Small, private, movie guilds are developed to counter major violations or to aid in cooperation among studios and distributors

- Association of Movie Producers, Video Club Owners Association of Nigeria, etc...

- These, however, do not see eye-to-eye with the Censor Board

- Formalization is asked for by aristocracy so as to create a "more reliable" model

- Informality is increasingly being disfavored

- Anti-colonial movement

- Equalizing

- big-wigs are "urban

millionaires"

The Fomalising Imperative

during the 90s...

-Similar results appear in the South, Yoruba, Igbo, and English-language: pirates dominate distribution

- enough revenue is made despite monetary leakage

- Deals are reliant on speed of sales, not on staggering deals

- Very competitive market

- Social reliance on vhs and dvds for entertainment

- most movies cost around $3.5

- typically watched in large groups and shared in wide-swaths

-"Video clubs" = internet cafes of Nollywood

- entertainment attached to other trades (food, grooming, etc...)

- The industry would no survive without the speedy and informal way of video production, and the decentralized method of distribution

- Horizontal in its organization

- However, not everyone in the industry is happy with the model

- Many producers and big-wigs want a formal system to respect intellectual property; this will affect the model severely

"This is why we can't have nice things"

NOLLYWOOD HISTORY

-Pirates were also involved in the legitimate distribution of films

- Distribution model: Kano -->other northern cities -->smaller urban areas--> rural dealers who provide goods for itinerant peddlers.

- System is based on a "complex balance of credit and trust; though it depends on piracy, it is complicated...

WHY?

  • Well known directors: Hubert Ogunde and Oda Balogun - primarily associated on local films

  • Very little production participation during the 70s and 80s of film in Nigeria (35mm and 16mm productions)

  • An era when Hollywood, Bollywood, and Hong Kong Films were the entertainment staples...

A Short History of the Nigerian Video Boom

Pirates!

Why is Nollywood thriving? Because...

- Many pirates in Europe (i.e. Amsterdam)

- USA, however, proposes greater protection undert the influence of Film-makers Association of Nigeria (FAN).

- Raids carried out against pirates in the US

- i.e. Flatbush: pirates undercutting producers by $2/video

-Nollywood stretches outwards only through "diasporic" populations

- Nollywood struggles to position itself on the world-stage though not without help

- L.A.'s Nollywood Foundation, and the Afro Hollywood Awards in the UK, as well as private supporters such as Danny Glover support and promote Nollywood.

- Similar to national distribution, Nollywood's international distribution is very informal.

- Piracy reigns supreme; though satellite TV is "catching up"

  • The Dawn of Video Cassette

  • Direct-to-home video industry

  • The industry was based on celluloid video oriented to home TV forced a different film paradigm on the producers and workers

A History Continued

"A New Hope" ?

Continued again...

  • Nollywood has various different entities: Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, etc...

  • Hausa films are more conservative in content, and favor Bollywood-esque romances, due to Islamic influence

  • Igbo and English films which have bigger budgets are more action oriented.

  • Nollywood contains transnational and subnational dimensions... it has created a mini-hegemony in Africa

and again Continued...

  • Distribution is driven by locals, and rights to distributed films are either bought cheaply or not at all

  • Brian Larkin, media anthropologist, connected the rise of Nollywood to the explosion of Hollywood and Bollywood bootlegging

  • Bootlegging became a legitimized trade

- Satellite TV

- Online streaming

- Izogn Movies: 3rd world streamer

- Youtube: copyright wars

-No solution to a pirate-originated industry at the global scale?

Questions

SECURITY & RIGHTS

Problems...

-Though Nollywood is built on piracy, this attitude is changing

- STRAP initiative: Strategic Action Against Piracy (STAAP it!)

Looking into the Future...

- Last few years are characterized by overproduction

- Sequelism and low-quality films are annoying consumers

- "Urban millionaires" do not give back to society

- Central government only gains $ based on taxes on CDs

On the other hand...

- Indirect contributions to local areas by repairing roads, establishing some kind of structure or investment to the benefit of the locals and the shoot.

Nollywood mentality = more money for me!

Formal or Informal?

- The measures taken have cracked down on pirates, and elevated the number or registered distributor stores from 500 to 30,000 retailers; more government influence

- These aren't perfect however, as the government soon ran out of license stickers and the licensing scheme generated a huge backlash among exhibitors

- Again, formal v. informal, what is best for Nigeria? what is more appealing to Nigerians ?

(producers...)

- Overall, producers appear to be "more or less happy" with the state of affairs

- Local market is still large enough with enough demand; quality is secondary

- bottom-enders want a better state of affairs but recognize that there is still revenue made

PARADIGM SHIFT

-Paradigm shift from nontheatrics to theatrics

- This was first attempted in '97 with Domitilla screened in Lagos cinemas in conjunction with African Independent Television Channel.

- Big-screen releases are becoming popular; some premiere abroad before at home

- Theatric release appears to deter or slow down piracy of the films in question

-New African Hegemon: Nollywood

- Other African nations (Ghana, Tanzania, etc...) cannot compete at the same scale with Nollywood, thus their film industries do not succeed.

- Counter-counter-colinzation

Are new forms of distribution essential to the success of Hollywood films (peer to peer, online streaming, etc)?

Do you think that there is a future for the Nigerian film industry outside of Africa despite its reliance on piracy?

Behind the Scenes... the bad

- Due to ignorance, poor to no training, and, zero-professionalism, blame on poor production quality has been generally laid out on crew-members

-Insufficient remuneration, delayed payment, discriminatory treatment, and poor working conditions in long-hour shifts are a common thing for film-workers in Nollywood.

-make-up artists and designers, for examples, being kept for long hours without rest in order to get as much as possible done

...The good...

-Guilds established to promote the respect of film-industry workers and to help establish a repertoire between film-workers and authorities

-Guilds do little to defend the rights of workers or create substantial change

- Guilds have no official policy-making status

...The Better?

-Motion Picture Council of Nigeria; monitors guild activities

- Not only measures quality and validity of production, but also helps arbitrate disputes between parties in the industry.

-Nigerian House of Assembly is presenting acc. to article a bill to give legal backing to MOPICON

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