Africa's video alternative

UNESCO Courier, Nov, 1998 by Ola Balogun

Movie-makers in English-speaking Africa who cannot afford 'to produce classic celluloid films are winning popular acclaim with low-cost video productions

In the Third World and among urban ghetto dwellers in advanced countries, some technological inventions are used in ways that were never imagined or intended by their originators. They open up new areas of endeavour that can be independently pursued by the underprivileged. To take one example, the availability of low-cost samplers and four-track sound recording equipment has triggered a formidable explosion of ghetto-based rap music in the United States by making it possible for relatively unsophisticated young people with very little money to record high-quality music tracks in their own homes.

In the same vein, the emergence and proliferation of inexpensive VHS video tape recorders have led to the growth of video-based movie production in several African countries, especially Nigeria and Ghana. To understand the importance of this phenomenon, it must be borne in mind that film production in most African countries originated primarily as a result of external assistance, rather than truly indigenous efforts. It was essentially because of the availability of technical and financial assistance from the French Co-operation Ministry that countries of francophone Africa such as Senegal and Burkina Faso made considerable progress in film production.

Prohibitive production costs

In the English-speaking countries, on the other hand, where assistance of this kind was not readily available, film production generally lagged behind in the absence of meaningful cultural policies designed to support indigenous film-makers. Non-subsidized film production was possible for a time in the 1970s and 1980s because the economy was buoyant enough to recoup the high costs of using rented equipment from overseas and paying for processing and printing in European laboratories.

In the late 1980s, the local economy virtually collapsed, robbing the middle classes and the population at large of the means to pay consistently for leisure entertainment. The cost of film production became prohibitive. Even a low-budget film costing only $50,000 could not pay for itself on the local market. As a result no one ventured into film production. Hence the drought of Nigerian-made films, a seemingly incomprehensible paradox in view of the growing number of films made in relatively small and economically less well endowed countries of francophone Africa.

Another major obstacle to film production in most African countries has been that there are no true television stations. In most cases, African television stations are shells which serve as relay posts for films produced elsewhere. They have little or no production capability, and have no funds with which to purchase or co-produce feature films or television series.

Story-telling with panache

However, the proliferation of VHS video tape recorders in private homes in countries like Nigeria and Ghana has created a radically new situation which has led to the emergence of a legion of independent indigenous movie directors and television producers. They have emerged because of their ability to solve two key problems: first, pegging movie production costs at a level that can be easily recovered on the local market, and second, creating distribution mechanisms that bypass the lack of indigenous television stations and the limitations of a feeble network of cinema houses.

Most of these productions are low-budget films which are shot principally in U-matic or even VHS format, although a few are shot on Betacam or on the new generation of consumer-level digital cameras. The technical quality is often below par, because most of the production staff, especially the directors of photography, generally lack formal training. However, what these productions lack in technical quality and finesse they make up for in astonishingly colourful [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] story-telling and popular appeal. As a result of successful mass marketing techniques reminiscent of the early days of Hollywood, Nigeria has been inundated with these productions. According to the Nigerian Film Censorship Board, no fewer than 858 full-length video films were released between December 1994 and May 1998.

Because this production is entirely market-driven, the films are closer to the tastes of African audiences than the vast majority of foreign-assisted films made in francophone African countries. The reasons for this are clear: Who pays the piper calls the tune.

The content and style of foreign-assisted films are often dictated by Western movie critics or civil servants in the French Cooperation Ministry. The success of the films depends on the reception they receive in festivals and art house circuits in Europe, rather than on their popularity with African audiences. The contents and style of video movies, on the other hand, are necessarily dependent on mass audience tastes in Africa and are totally unsuitable for film festivals and art house audiences. Hopefully, however, there will be a meeting point some day between the need for quality and depth and the quest for mass market appeal.