EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE

I like watching movies a lot.

I also like watching comedians do their thing a lot, particularly the intelligent ones. I bet Trevor Noah is amongst the comedians you call intelligent when you hear intelligent comedians. Well, he should if he isn’t already there. Man is very intelligent.

Once when I was listening to him, he remarked that one of the best ways to be acclimatized with the cultural norms and ethics of others is to watch their movies and listen to their songs.

This brings me back to what I said at the beginning of this piece, I love watching movies a lot, not just from Nollywood, but from all over the world. Many Nigerians like me are familiar with cultural norms in Europe, Asia and the United States due to their exposure to films from these countries, even though many have never gotten a passport or seen an airport or seaport.

My father was familiar with Indian movies (Cinema of India), even though he never left the shores of this country, like many men who were his friends he had camaraderie with.

One thing I have taken my time to research and understand is that, movies are limited by a lot f factors that are not even close to budget or relating to it. A most prominent example of this is the story of how James Cameron dreamt about and wrote Avatar, but did not produce it until more than a decade later because he knew there were not enough advancement in science and technology to bring his dream to life.

The same thing goes for research. For the Lord of the Rings movies, renowned historians, linguists and philologists were employed to work directly with the cast, to aid them in making the blockbuster which is still relevant today.

In a nation like Nigeria, this can only be possible when you have credible qualitative research as the foundation that writers, directors and producers can build upon.

Everything is connected to everything else.

A properly conducted research by academics would ensure that the job of filmmakers is made better and swifter. Imagine how easy it would be for a British producer to create a series based on the life and time of Queen Victoria, knowing the plethora of information available on the era. Yet when you search for prominent Nigerians, many do not have a Wikipedia page, and those who have it are poorly written, and have not been edited, sometimes for many years.

Everything is connected to everything else.

Nollywood itself has grown a lot in the last decade, and despite the errors and mistakes that critics have always quickly lambasted the industry for, it is breaking boundaries, setting records and contributing to the economic growth of the giant of Africa.

Take a moment to think about how better we would be if we had better structures in place.