Taking abus in Ghana – be it Intercity STC, Metro MT, or a simple trotro – youmay be allowed to think for all of five minutes. Then one of a fewthings will happen:
1.the driver will turn on a radio station.Loudly.
2.a preacher will start preaching (to the already-converted. Ijust don’t get that).
3.the driver will start showing a series ofNollywood or Ghallywood (I hate that name) movies.
4.all or more thanone of the above.
I was trying to get some shut-eye on an STC tripfrom Cape Coast over the weekend. The driver was hurtling us towardsAccra at breakneck speed to make it on-time for the Black Stars gameagainst the US. I was just succumbing to sleep when… the buses twoscreens flickered on..
Sh*t.
For the rest of the ride, Iwas subjected to The Female Lion I, The Female Lion II (why not TheLioness?) and The Signs of End Times. Even by local standards, all threewere rubbish and won’t be winning any Academy Awards for acting,screenplay, soundtrack, special effects (that’s not what happens whenyou shoot people at close range…) or imagination. It got me thinkingthough: what would it take to transform a Hollywood film into aNollywood/Ghallywood one?
Based on these three films, here’s whatI came up with.
◦Change the actors and setting to Nigeria orGhana
◦Try and make the lead actor light-skinned
◦Divide the filminto two or three parts
◦If each film is not long enough, prolong itby reducing the amount of editing you do (e.g. spend two or three wholeminutes playing a song and focusing on the hero/heroine doing housework,to establish that they are hardworking)
◦In any scene withbackground music, replace the music with someone playing an electronicorgan
◦In any scene without any background music, replace the musicwith someone playing an electronic organ
◦You can never get enoughelectronic organ music
◦Replace any decent special effects with thesame special & sound effects that were used in 1960s TV shows likeStar Trek
◦If there’s no scene with shouting, insert one and makesure to distort the sound when the shouting hits high decibels
◦Getyour electronic organist to compose a song that tells you the theme ofthe movie and helps you to give away the ending
◦Option: someoneneeds to get bitch-slapped up in there. Tradition demands it.
Thatwas all the fun I could come up with before we got into Accra… where Ihad the sublime pleasure of watching the Black Stars change the name ofthe American soccer team from ‘the Stars and Stripes’ to ‘black andblue’..
I’d love to get into Nollywood and Ghanaian films. Iwould. And I applaud directors who do not conform to the above-mentionedstereotypes. But I was raised on internationally award-winning localfilms like Heritage Africa and Love Brewed in the African Pot. I’m notsaying don’t have romance or melodrama. I do however wish there was moreof a balance between commercial-driven films and art.
Back inschool, the release of a Ghanaian film was a major event, with studentsfrom all over Cape Coast meeting in Mfansipim to watch Kwaw Ansah’sclassics as they were projected onto the white wall of our assembly hallstage.
If I was a money-conscious movie director, I’d aim tomake a small, decent film that would win me international awards. In thelong run, this is more commercially sensible. Ask Alfonso Cuaron, theMexican who directed Y Tu Mama Tambien, got Oscar-nominated and went onto direct Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban. Or South AfricanGavin Hood who directed Tsotsi, won the first Oscar awarded to anAfrican film and went on to do Wolverine.
You may or may nothave liked either film but I’m guessing Azkaban and Wolverine both mademore money than the highest-earning Nollywood movie that year.
Whichdid wonders for their directors’ pockets.
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