Dr. SID: The Story of The Order of Things

Inside Nollywood hosts Dr Sid on twitter space

By O’star Eze

You already know that the Nigerian Music Sensation, Dr Sid is the son of Nollywood legend of blessed memory, Justus Esiri. What you might not know is that Dr Sid is a man of many talents; singer, music director, movie maker, and has since veered into Nollywood, following after the footsteps of his late dad.

Inside Nollywood hosted Dr Sid recently in a twitter space where he discussed his latest Movie Production titled “The Order of Things” alongside other related issues. The twitter space was captioned, “How it started; the story of The Order of Things.”

Our creative director, Musa Sunusi Ahmad and our head of podcast and video production, Anene Chioma anchored the programme.

Interestingly, Dr Sid, Sidney Onoriode Esiri, singer turned movie director, was frying plantain while he participated in the twitterspace. He described his passion for films and filmmaking as a genetic thing.

He considered it important to talk about changing lanes and trying something new.

How he got into film

Being a musician and having a successful music career, he, at some point, started wondering what’s next for him. He recalled that from his childhood, he had always had a love for watching movies and while at it, he would wonder how the movies were made. He used to write stories and created comics and always interested in entertaining people. Why he went to school to study dentistry and ended up a singer. In 2015, he was a strong part of a film production and then thought of being the director. He knew he needed training and therefore enrolled into a film academy.

Afterwards, he joined Mavin Films and after some time, he started thinking of making his own movie. He was introduced to Simply Scripts and that was where, with the help of a friend, Lekun Afolabi sent him a script The Order of Things.

On studying the script, he discovered that the script was written for American audience. So, he reached out to the script writer, Mark Shelton who gave him heads up to go ahead to modify the film for Nigerian audience. He got friends to help develop and modify the story to give the narrative that is relatable in Nigeria.

By 2019, he pitched the idea of the movie to some online TV platforms who were not ready for it.

When Covid hit, everything got stalled. In 2021, one of the film studios indicated interest in the movie and the production set off.

What inspired The Order of Things

Dr Sid said the idea behind it was to show that while there are conventional order of things, you can still change the order of things and still get things done right.

Challenges with casting

Budget and availability of a lot of the actors he had in mind served as challenges but they worked around it and were able to come up with a decent act that gave an overall great production.

He said he would have loved to have featured his father in one of his movies.

“The Esiri family has a legacy in the film making. I featured in the movie The Trade, alongside my daughter and it was a thing of pride.”

Nollywood Industry Insights

People are upping their production game in Nollywood because of the raise in Production Value in the movie industry because of the wider audience it has now garnered just as it did in the music industry.

Work ethic in Hollywood is better than Nollywood. The Director doesn’t need to be told what to do. They are very aware and in tune with the production. Helps to move things along smoothly. People take their time to study and improve consciously in Hollywood than in Nollywood. Preproduction; we rush our productions in Nollywood and don’t spend enough time to plan.

Lighting

Our lighting is a lot better now than before and the reason we did not have good cinematic effect. We did not know how to play with shadows.

How long it took to make the film

He said the script development took a while. Preproduction lasted for about 4 months; Production proper lasted for about 7 weeks. The budget question influence the length of production.

Movie Going Culture In Nigeria

Movie watching culture in Nigeria is not as broad as it used to be. The cinema going culture is not yet encouraging. It is usually difficult to recover the amount of money spent on production.

What he would differently with the movie

He would put in more money and he would probably not put in on the cinema but would go for streaming immediately after production.

What next

He is working on an animated series called Moji, a character who is working hard to achieve peace and unity in the society. He is working on a biopic for a prominent Nigerian designer, etc.

Financing

It was a co production with Film One and then he put in his own money and also got some persons to invest in the movie. He would not say the exact budget for the film but only said it was less than a hundred million naira and above 50 million naira.

Where he sees Nollywood in the next 5 years

It would keep growing as there are lots of room for growth in the movie industry.

Save for some network glitches during the twitter space, it was a very educative interaction and you can check out the twitter space recording on Twitter Spaces.