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What We
Do is Commerce, Not Business.
Interview with
Don Pedro Obaseki
By Nnorom Azuonye
Don Pedro Obaseki
(Photo ©2008 Nnorom
Azuonye)
You are one of the key
players in Nollywood trained as a theatre artist. How does
this training affect your film-making processes?
The truth of the matter
is that I always believe that as a trained artist, there is
the know-how; the technical know-how and the know-what. The
know-how is that which cannot be taught. What I think is
that my experience and tutelage as a theatre artist has done
is that it has given structure to the way I think as an
artist. Being used to ensemble play where if one person goes
out of tandem the whole structure of the production
crumbles. As a director, I am a disciplinarian. I have no
room for posers. If you want to pose, you go somewhere else.
I am not interested in the star, I am interested in the
artist. I am interested in the person who will do the job. I
don’t think people should want to buy my film just because
of the multiplex of names I put in the film, but because I
append my name to it. Also, I have come to a point where I
don’t see film-making as an assembly line. I don’t do
subsistence film-making which a lot of them in Nollywood do.
If I am privileged, I shoot a film a year, maybe a film in
two years. For instance I wrote “Igodo” in 1996, but did not
get to shoot it until 1998, and it was clearly not run of
the mill, or to use the lingo ‘kpa kpa kpa’ films you see
out there.
What do you consider
to be the purpose of film?
As someone now very much
in the business of film from the age of 10, it is a
different ball game. I see film as business. There is a
difference between Don Pedro the impresario and Don Pedro
Obaseki the person. Don Pedro Obaseki the person sees film
as an opinion moulder, a huge opinionator, an integral part
of the society that gives birth to it. I see film not art as
a mirror of the society. Art as a mirror of the society is
useless. I’d rather watch CNN or Sky.
Of course as a
10-year-old kid you presented “Children’s Time” for NTA
Benin in 1977. What else, together with that experience led
you to study theatre arts?
You know, sometime in
1979-1980, there was this essay competition for kids in
Secondary School. I wrote a story; “Days of Rage” which won
the National Essay Competition. It was later picked up by
Evans, Macmillan and Longman, and they took me to Togo where
I met Kalu Okpi. And by the time I was 14, I became the
youngest published Pacesetter writer with “Days of Rage”
which was later turned into a TV series. By the time “Tales
by Moonlight” started, I became a little story-teller will
Mrs Elizabeth Okaro. Later on, when “Things Fall Apart” was
being shot, I became the smallest and youngest member of the
crew. I actually fell from the helicopter when they were
shooting Amalinze the Cat climbing a palm tree. So, I knew
where I was going.
I had lunch with
friend in London, and mentioned to him that I was hoping to
meet you later that day to interview you. He spoke about you
as ‘that guy once obsessed with demolishing people’s homes
to build his big cinema houses’ That’s not true is it?
People are crazy! Crazy!
(Long pause) Without the cinemas, the truth of the matter;
the entire thing is a joke. So what I thought was try and
revive cinema culture, not the way Silverbird and New Metro
are doing, because what they are doing, I think, is what led
to the death of the old Nigerian film industry of the Hubert
Ogundes and the Ola Baloguns. What they do is screen
Hollywood blockbusters without a look-in on the local scene.
Yet everybody in Ajegunle, Idi Araba, Idi Oroko, Ariaria in
Aba, they are hooked on the Nigerian Home Video. I thought,
why don’t I get these videos to their neighbourhoods, create
the same uppity feeling you get when you walk into a
multiplex like the Odeon – create a community centre of
attraction in the neighbourhood, and people use the cinema
as a way peace. Let me give you an example. There were areas
in Ikeja in those days if you walked at 10pm somebody will
pull a gun on you. But when Lagbaja started his Open Air
Motherland people packed the streets and nobody till date
has ever reported that armed robbers came to motherland, and
it has been six to seven years now.
So I said where
there is entertainment, there is no room for that kind of
violence. I did not demolish people’s homes what I did was
get people to buy some of the old cinema structures which
had been converted into churches or eateries, or some that
were run-down. When we couldn’t get certain places in
Surulere, it was in Surulere that we tried to buy other
types of structures.
We don’t have government
support. Everything was via people buying equity in Filmex.
It is called Filmex. We were able to get Odeon, when Kene
Mkparu was still there, as Technical Partners, before we
moved to Israel. So the technical partnership is coming from
a firm in Israel. We are still not launched yet. We are
hoping to launch in middle of 2009. Filmex is a model we
hope to work, so if we can’t make money on the film, we will
from the popcorn.
That question was a blow!
You are a campaigner
for better earnings for workers in Nollywood, apparently you
see a correlation between that and better outputs. What are
the factors in your opinion limiting incomes in the Nigerian
film industry?
I am not one of those who
believe piracy is the first problem. Piracy is one of the
things that happen when you don’t have structures in place.
It is a global problem. But there are certain very very very
Nigerian problems affecting Nollywood. First a few of my
colleagues under-rated our brothers from the South East.
That was the end of the old Nollywood that seemed to have
high earnings. We used to release films that sold 300,000
copies or more. “Igodo” sold close to a million. By that
time, those of us involved in “Igodo”, we go buy car for
morning, by afternoon we dey ask, ‘this car fine so, or make
I change am’? The money was available. You can’t afford to
do that anymore. We were releasing five to ten films per
month and because they were successful, people turned the
thing from art into an assembly line. Simple economics. When
a product is supply-driven, the only place it can go is
down. But if it is demand-driven, you can up the price. So
in Nigeria where everything has gone up in price except pure
water, the only commodity the price has gone down a downward
spiral is the Home Video product. The wholesale price of a
film used to be 350 Naira. But now, it is about 80 Naira,
that is 75 cents.
The only way to
control this is to create an enabling environment for people
to invest, and I cannot invest in a situation where na
everybody dey. Although we have guilds that are very
functional, they are not looking at the market end.
Let me ask you
a question. Can you imagine what will happen if we released
just 5 films a month and those people at Dusting Road Market
have to queue for two weeks to get one copy. What do you
think they will do? What do you think will happen if we
asked for prepayment? You see, we must reduce the number of
people who have access to their films being censored.
In Hollywood and the
British Film Industry, movies premiere and run in cinemas
before appearing on DVD. Although this does not prevent
piracy, it does however mean that if the film is not a
turkey, it can generate huge box office returns and loads of
cash from film merchandise. Do you envisage Nollywood going
in that direction?
It is the only direction.
It is the ability to aggregate these global value chains, as
we cannot do anything in isolation, that’s when we will see
the tomorrow. However it has to be tweaked to suit our
peculiar economic circumstances. I do not believe that the
movie necessarily has to move from the can to the cinema to
pay-tv to DVD. Those structures do not exist in Nigeria. We
are a product of direct to home video which we turned into a
global phenomenon. We are a product of the digital age. We
Nigerians taught the world that digital film-making can
actually be mainstream.
The figure for a
‘successful’ Nollywood film of 50,000 copies or thereabouts
is not particularly near enough what it should be.
Fifty Thousand? I cannot
say that. What I can tell you is that most people suggest
these figures, I don’t. I own a shop in Alaba so I know. A
normal film now in the last one and half years, if it hits
20,000, I tell you the guy who made the film will go and
meet arusi. I am serious. So you really have to plan for it
to hit fifty.
How does your Video
Kiosk improve the distribution of Nigerian films?
I got sixty million Naira
from Diamond Bank and launched Video Kiosk which is a
door-to-door video rental service whereby you can place
orders for videos and we deliver to your doorstep. I got
tricycles equipped with DVD Players, Television sets and
huge loudspeakers mounted on them, so they are also mobile
advertising tools. I spread it all over Lagos and took 2 or
3 to Abuja. So there is no need for that big madam who hides
in the sanctuary of her home to watch our films to go to a
video club. I am your video club, don’t come to me, I come
to you. It has been hugely successful.
Before I
release a film on my network, I send text messages and tell
people, if you dial the video kiosk number you can pre-book.
You can pay me with your credit or debit card. So we have
created a new vista for this funny-looking, simple, for poor
people business, because if I can see the end of an
equation, it is easier for me to aggregate the processes to
get to that equation.
But beyond the
Video Kiosk, I have tried to move film distribution along in
my own way. I tried for some time. I got the Igbo boys
together. But I could not settle the Idumota, Upper Iweka,
Pound Road, so I broke away and built a film market in
Surulere that caused them pulling out guns and all that. But
the Igbo guy will trust me because he does not trust the
Yorubas. Zeb Ejiro will want me to be leader because he
knows I can deal with the Igbos. You know my mum is Igbo. My
wife is Igbo. I speak Warri, and Urhobo. So I became a
confluence of sorts and decided to use that as platform for
either cementing the industry or scattering it and then
rebuild it. You know I am a student of Soyinka, so the
Ogunian essence always pervades. Things happen for things to
be built properly. Many people are going to be whisked away
as you know right now, many filmmakers in Nigeria are going
critically broke. But the few who have been able to work out
the arithmetic of the distribution process, they are not
going broke. Rather they are living large. Forget the
artist. Artist will come and artist will go depending on how
the man in the open market feels.
Is it just your own
films that Video Kiosk distributes?
No no no. You know, what
God has done now, because of the advent of Movistar, I am
now, maybe the largest single owner of entertainment content
in Nigeria. So what we have done is, four companies I have
interest in, we formed a consortium; The African
Entertainment Content Company, we sell everything from
Video CDs from anybody, to music CDs because I own a music
label. I won a lot of Igbo gospel. A lot. People like Nkem
Chijioke. You know that gospel is a lot more enduring in
terms of market value. An Igbo man travelling from Onitsha
to Lagos is not going to be playing ‘P Square’ in his car
stereo. I don’t see myself as mainstream. Video Kiosk cannot
be mainstream. We serve as an alternative marketing outlet.
We achieve high retail volumes because with 50 Video Kiosks
selling a hundred films a week, we sell five thousand.
The next step
we have taken. The government has a drive against piracy.
They are arresting those boys selling videos on the street.
The boy you are arresting, he is going to be a thief again.
So I put out an advert “You dey sell video for street, call
this number” and they call me. I register them with Censors
Board for five thousand naira. The guy does not have five
thousand Naira. So I thought, if I register one hundred
boys, it will cost me Five Hundred Thousand Naira. But to
take a shop at Adeniran Ogunsanya, it is going to cost me
Nine Hundred Thousand – for one shop. With that kind of
money, I can have 180 boys wearing Video Kiosk T-shirts
selling my products. By God’s grace, by the first week or
second week of January 2009, I will unleash them on Lagos. I
have a motto: Every door on every floor, a face in every
place.
What is the
relationship between Don Pedro Media and Movistar?
Don Pedro Media in the
real sense does not have any relationship with Movistar. Don
Pedro Media is contracted by DP and T Media Company Nigeria
Ltd, of which me Don Pedro, na me be the DP wey dey inside.
Five years ago we took the idea to Chief Dokpesi and
everybody thought I was a mad man. But when Daar
Communications decided to go PLC, he put aside some money
for some of my pet projects, of which Movistar was one.
Movistar is an independent channel owned over seventy
percent by Chief Dokpesi as a person not as Daar
Communications. AIT owns the satellite segment on Sky, DP
and T and Don Pedro Media own what you see on air and the
Movistar broadcast license. So what you actually have is,
AIT Movistar does not exist. AIT Movistar only exists as a
name Sky created on their decoder. Movistar Ltd is equity
owned by Daar Communications, DP&T, and Chief Raymond
Dokpesi with me as Chief Executive Officer.
Offer an assessment of
the Nigerian film industry today and how it can contribute
to substantial financial compensation for both artists and
the nation whilst yielding cultural profit for the people.
I think right now, the
culture quotient is a lot higher. The Nigerian home video
scene has turned into a mild culture colonialist tool for
the Nigerian nation. Because they have colonised the African
mindset. You see the Igbo sub-culture within the national
culture has been sacrificed by the Igbo filmmaker such that
in the last seven years, only three Igbo language films have
been shot, against 950 Yoruba films, because the Igbo
filmmaker and the Igbo actor has now become the generic face
of Nollywood. I think that film as a culture exporter, a
culture carrier has succeeded in serving as a major
attention getter for the Nigerian nation. I cannot forget
the Washington Post headline; “Step aside Hollywood,
Bollywood Here comes Nollywood” but in terms of economics,
all the economic benefits that have been coming to the
Nigerian filmmaker and the Nigerian filmscape has been
limited to a very tiny few.
In your opinion, who
are the people making positive contributions to the
development of Nollywood?
She might not know it,
but I think Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, the Chief Executive of AMAA
– the African Movie Academy Awards, is doing a great deal.
Without the weight of politics, and she is involved in it
directly or indirectly, Amaka Igwe. In terms of structure,
not the art of film, Chief Raymond Dokpesi who is building a
huge film village right now. Also Toyin Subai, Emeka Mba who
has been demonised and called names. I think he is doing a
fantastic job. He may not be the Apostle Paul, but I think
he can be John the Baptist. Also there is this woman in
Akure, Biodun Ibitola of Remdel Productions. She maybe owns
the largest network for Yoruba films. Then this guy of O.J
Productions; Ojiofor Ezeanyaeche. That man, if you are
working on his film and he says he will pay you two Naira,
if he dies, your two Naira will be there for you. Then of
course Kingsley Ogoro and Tade Ogidan.
What is your favourite
Don Pedro Obaseki film?
Eziza. Without a doubt.
Eziza.
Is there one film you
have made that you wish you hadn’t made?
Yes. Definitely “Love”.
Have you seen it? I no know wetin enter my head. The film
made a lot of noise for the wrong reasons. That’s not what
film-making is about.
Is there one movie in
the world today that you did not, but wish that you had
made?
Pink Panther. Inspector
Clouseau. My father got it in the old Betamax format. I
watched it so much the tape cut, I carry cellotape join am.
Finally, Don, kindly
summarise your take on Nollywood: what is wrong, what is
good, what needs to change, and how that change can happen.
What is wrong is very
clear. First the structures are either decadent or
non-existent. Structures in terms of the art of film and
structures in terms of the business of film. I believe that
if we can get the business of film right with enough returns
on investment, the average Nigerian film will be a better
product and everybody involved will get adequate
remuneration. But as long as it continues to be a garbage in
garbage out kpa kpa kpa phenomenon, it won’t work.
Another thing I
think is crucial is that there are little or no training
facilities put in place that enables them, filmmakers, to
progress in terms of know-how, and skills acquisition.
Because it is terrible when you think you know, and then you
don’t want to learn more. Many filmmakers in Nigeria are
intellectually lazy. I mean, for instance you are making a
film about the Nigerian Army and you don’t realise that in
the Nigerian Army, except for medical reasons, you don’t
wear a beard. Even the police. You see Pete Edochie and he
has not shaved and he is playing a Policeman. I cannot see
the policeman in him.
Also we want to
go international and we have not got the paradigms right.
There has to be a seismic paradigm shift in the way we do
the film for it to be international. For instance our themes
must leave the mundane. Our themes continue to be regional,
but they need to be as universal as possible. But if you
look at up to 90 percent of the basic Nigerian film, they
are strictly Nigerian and perhaps to a lesser extent,
African. But you see, the basic sensibility of the modern
day African is closer to the basic sensibility of the
Caucasian than it is to the rural African, to the extent
that we now demonise things that were normal and everyday to
our fathers.
Finally, unless
we create structures, right processes, it won’t work. Until
that happens, we won’t get the respect of financial
institutions. We need that for the business to become
business. As it is we are making out of pocket expenses. We
are trading. That is mere commerce, but business. We are
selling, not marketing. The average Nigerian filmmaker is so
popular, yet he has no branding. He has no brand equity and
no brand value. It is only when we translate our popularity
into brand equities that what we are doing will go from a
multimillion Naira business to a Multimillion Dollar
business. We need to think in that currency to aggregate our
real value.
Thank you for your
time, Don.
Thank you Nnorom. I have
to confess. I am having fun.
Don Pedro Obaseki and
Nnorom Azuonye
(Photo ©2008
Nnorom Azuonye)
©2008-2009 Nnorom Azuonye
nollywoodfocus@easternlightepm.com All rights reserved.
This interview was first
published in
Sentinel
Literary Quarterly in April, 2009
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