The Nollywood Entertainment Company - Essay Example

? The Nollywood Entertainment Company Introduction Entertainment is a word that describes activities that that provide people with amusement, fun, laughter and even enjoyment during their leisure times. The entertainment industry referred to as show business is part of the tertiary sector of the economy (Kings 2010, pp20-30). The popularity of the show business has shifted view to include commercially performing arts. These arts include musical theatre, film, comedies and music. These varieties of entertainment are produced and distributed to the masses (Allen 2005, pp 30). Background of the Company All my focus will be shifted to the film industry and specifically Nollywood. Nollywood is a Nigerian cinema company largest in Africa that grew quickly in the 1990s and 2000s.It is one of the best film industries in the world. A British daily newspaper The Guardian has rated Nollywood as the third largest in the world in terms of earnings and estimated the industry to bring in 200 million US dollars per year. This success can be attributed to Ghanaian movies too. Nollywood is an African success story (Ukadike 2003, pp20-40). Nollywood is termed to be second to only India’s Bollywood in distribution. The Nigerian film industry is popular throughout Africa and the Diaspora. Production Line Unlike music, production of movies does not take place in the studio. Movie shooting takes place in hotels, homes, and offices rented by their owners and appearing in the credit. Most popular locations are major cities and towns like Lagos. However, distinct regional variation appears between different movies. Nollywood mainly produces African films stared by African actors. Actors from other countries and continents do appear though not very often in some movies. These films range from, soap operas, comedies and even action movies television programs. The production arena is majorly towns in Nigeria though some movies have been shot in other towns in Africa as well as other continents. Operations Nollywood provides visuals about Africa for the world to see. These features include weddings, birth ceremonies, colorful fabrics, visuals of a culturally vibrant continent .Nollywood movies have tackled topics on issues such as resource control, armed robberies, corruption, HIV/AIDS and other matters that have a far reaching impact on the continent (Jumoke 2012, pp60-70). Nollywood most prolific auteur is Chico Ejiro who has managed to direct 80 films in a period of eight years. He even brags to be capable of directing a movie that can be ready in three days. His brother is the best-known director of the films outside the country. Many other Nollywood talents include actors and designers of the films (Wasko 2003, pp 40). The scriptwriters are also not to be forgotten. The films are produced with interest of the consumer at heart. Supply chain While Nollywood is largely separate from global cultural industry networks of production inputs and distribution it is an industry that is still globally liked in a number of ways (Madichie 2013, pp 604). Nollywood industry is constantly evolving with innovations and ideas to suit and fit the market. Once movies are produced, they need a perfect channel of reaching the market. While majorities of Hollywood films are shown in theatres and cinemas around the country, Nollywood movies are released to the internet daily to be watched free. The most popular place to watch Nollywood movies in the internet is a popular video sharing site called You Tube. There exists a channel dedicated to Nollywood movies started by Jason Njoku called Nollywood Love. The channel has dedicated itself to providing links to the best and latest Nollywood movies for its users. Lately, the Nollywood market has shifted over to the Africans in the Diaspora. The challenge is to how to curb every customer in the west, which has turned out to be the largest Nollywood market. Today though a majority of Nollywood movies are still sold offline, in outdoor markets and street vendors. Still in the internet, the growing market is carefully being monitored such that in the future they plan to produce original content that is customized to the likes and dislikes of Nollywood global online customers (Nnamdi 2010, pp.640). The rising challenge in the distribution of Nollywood movies is piracy. Nollywood loses half of its film profits to piracy. Piracy has dealt a huge blow to the industry. Nollywood now relies on developments in technologies to help make more acute the problem of piracy. Consumption The absence of capital makes it possible for the consumption of images in a more orthodox space such as cinema space. Nollywood is mainly consumed in the context of the domestic sphere. This renders it appropriation, as it is combination with the fiction of Nollywood. However, the uncontrolled sites of consumption in the streets account for the democratization of narratives and the purpose of Nollywood (Okome 2007, pp40-50). Street audiences are commonly found in cities and are essentially defined by the desire to enjoy the retelling of the social and cultural existence of members in the temporality of these meeting places (Subhash, 2005). Street corner audiences convert these places to spaces for the consumption of the visual images from video performances. Standing all the way through screening they literally suffer through the experience of watching the same way the poor character of the video tales suffer in the rough and tumble of their unpredictable lives in the city. While the arrival of the popular video films street corner theatres have become part of the visual topography of the city ,through which motorists must navigate to access roadways back home of or other destinations at the end of a working day (Haynes 2007b, pp 107). Another kind of consumption is though video house. A video house is a simple location where one pays some fee to see video films with other members of the community. This screening room is fitted with a television set and a video recorder. The screening room is often untidy an uncomfortable .it is not a cinema hall and does not have equipment of a modern cinema hall. Video theatre like the improvisation of theatre stage is patterned along the mode and design of this theatre practice. Like the local cinemas, video houses are almost gender specific (Marston, Woodward & Jones, 2007, pp57). Women may be admitted but cannot work as patrons in video houses. The social space of the Nigeria video space is masculine biased. Women who venture in masculine activities in African cultures are referred to as free women. Production Costs Nollywood movies are made through simple but a tight budget. Average production takes just ten days and the cost of is approximately 15000 dollars. Yet in 13 year, it has grown to be a multimillion-dollar industry that employs thousands of people (Guibert, Laganier & Michel, 2000). This is made possible by two major ingredients; the Nigerian entrepreneurs and the digital technology. In earlier years, African cities faced a growing epidemic of crimes and insecurity (Haynes 2007a, pp 134). Conclusion Nollywood is one of the leading film production houses in the world. It is second only to Hollywood (Prasad 2008, pp 130). Its main challenge in production and marketing is piracy. Movie theatres closed due to these and people became reluctant to be out in the streets in the dark watching imported movies. Experts’ credit the birth of Nollywood to a businessperson who helped set up the first Nollywood movie living in bondage .Currently 300 producers churn out movies at an surprising rate. Nollywood main opposition on the African continent is the Ghanaian film industry. Nigerian filmmakers regularly work together with those from Ghana. Nollywood also faces completion from Hollywood and India’s Bollywood (Gulzar, Govind & Saibal, 2003, pp136). As state earlier increase in technology will enable Nollywood competently, deal with the crisis of piracy. Technology will also widen the online market for Nollywood films and in that manner; Nollywood will end up maximizing its profits. Increase in technology will also reduce the cost of production and improve the quality of the product. Bibliography Akpabio, E. 2007. Attitude of audience members to Nollywood films. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 16(1), 90-100. Allen J. S. 2005, On Hollywood: The Place The Industry, Princeton: Princeton University Press Bose, M. 2008, Bollywood. A History, New Delhi, Roli Books,. Guibert, B., Laganier J. & Michel V., 2000, An Essay on Industrial Classifications, Economie et statistique n° 20, Gulzar; N., Govind; C. & Saibal, D., 2003. Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema. Encyclopaedia Britannica (India) Pvt Ltd. pp. 136–137. Haynes, J. (2007). Nollywood in Lagos, Lagos in Nollywood Films. Africa Today, 54(2), 131-150. Haynes, J. 2007. Nollywood: what's in a name?. Film International, 5(4), 106-108. Kings, S. S., 2010. Entertainment and Society. s.l.:books.google.com. Madichie, N. O., 2010. The Nigerian movie Industry. In: Marketing Intelligence and Planning. Sharjah: Emerand Group Publishing Limited, pp. 625-649. Marston, S. A., Woodward, K., & Jones, J. P. 2007. Flattening ontologies of globalization: The Nollywood case. Globalizations, 4(1), 45-63. Nnamdi O. M. 2010. 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