Guardian

IT was about this time five years ago that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), according to figures of a survey conducted by its Institute of Statistics, declared that Nollywood has in terms of volume of titles, raced past two of the global cinema heavy weights-Hollywood and China, to emerge the second most prolific movie culture in the world. UNESCO in the report released in May 2008 confirmed that Nollywood, whose offerings are mainly produced in video format, was only a few steps away from India, another of the cinema heavy weights which produced 1,091 feature films in 2006 as against Nigeria’s 872 movie productions. One of the keys to Nollywood’s triumph as the report showed was its reliance on the video format and more so about 56 percent of the movies are produced in local languages. UNESCO thinks that this will help in the effort to get Nigerian films across its borders.

Practitioners broke into cheers that year till date and and drooled in self-congratulations even though a few others did not allow themselves to be misled by the superficial “feel good” effect of being labelled the third or second largest producer of films in the world. One of such people is foremost first Nigerian indigenous filmmaker Ola Balogun who then felt and still thinks that rather than drool for too long in self-congratulation, Nollywood and its practitioners should spend some more time solving their paradoxes. Balogun thinks that there is so much to learn from India, which recently marked 100 years of its existence and more too from China, which curiously took a back position on the UNESCO survey list

SINCE I was privileged to visit China several years ago as a guest of the Chinese Government, I happen to have observed at first hand that there are several major film studios in different parts of China, and that they collectively produce several films a year for both domestic and international consumption. And we are talking of mainland China alone! We additionally have to bear in mind that Hong Kong (which gave the world the kung fu genre), is almost as prolific as mainland China in terms of output! That being the case, how can anyone reasonably say that Nigeria is ahead of China in film industry terms? I really wonder!

My purpose in pointing all this out is definitely not to diminish or to blindly criticize Nigeria’s home video industry, as some have unfairly accused me of doing. It’s simply that I don’t believe we should indulge in unjustified self-congratulation that is based on false statistics. For genuine statistics based on figures computed from tax revenue to the Chinese government let me quote the following figures and their sources. An article in Time magazine of Jan 31st 2011 has the following to say: “China rolled out 526 pictures last year, up 15% from 2009, making it the third largest maker of movies after Bollywood and Hollywood. The standard for Chinese blockbusters has also shot up; this month “Let the Bullets fly” became, with a haul of over $100million, the most profitable home grown film in the nation’s history”

For its part, “Hollywood Reporter”, the highly informative international film industry source, reported the following: “according to a report jointly released by the Motion Picture Association and a Chinese film body, the country’s screen industry also supports 909,000 domestic jobs. The big economic numbers from the Chinese entertainment sector just keep getting bigger. While the Chinese box office experienced booming growth in 2011, the country’s film and television industries directly contributed an overall $15.5 billion (100 billion yuan) to the domestic economy, according to a new report jointly released by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the China Film Distributors and Exhibitors Association (CFDEA).”

This latest study — “The Economic Contribution of the Film and Television Industries in China” — was prepared by Oxford Economics and presented to a bevy of senior Chinese government officials and industry veterans at the Crown Plaza Hotel Beijing on Monday, as part of the 3rd Beijing International Film Festival (April 16th-23rd 2013). “The film and television industry in China has witnessed considerable growth over the past five years,” said Yang Buting, Chairman of CFDEA, at the event. “This has been driven by the Chinese audiences’ desire to experience new films and television shows on multiple platforms, matched with incredible business innovation and development on the part of the industry. More people are enjoying films and television shows at brand new digital cinemas and on the latest hand-held devices than could ever have been imagined five years ago.”

According to the study, the Chinese screen industries supported 909,000 screen entertainment-related jobs in 2011 and generated tax revenues of $3.4 billion (22 billion yuan). In 2011, the country’s box office expanded by about 30 percent to reach $2.06 billion, making it the third largest movie market in the world at the time, behind only North America and Japan, respectively. Last year, China eclipsed Japan and landed at number two, with box office revenues growing by 37 percent to hit $2.7 billion. Many analysts predict the Chinese movie market will become the world’s largest in less than ten years.”

Now, what is the source of the voodoo statistics that proclaim that Nigeria’s Nollywood is generating yearly income worth several billion dollars? Is it the tax paid by the totality of home video producers? Are the figures based on dividends that are being paid to investors? It is a complete mystery!  The other fascinating thing about the Chinese film industry that the Nigerian public deserves to be informed about concerns the existence of the world’s largest outdoor film studio, the Hengdian Studio complex located at Jinhua in China’s Zhejiang province, not too far from Shanghai (five hours’ drive by road). This is a comparatively recent development that came about when a famous Chinese Director named Xie Jin was seeking locations in 1996 to film a major historical film named ‘Opium War’. He toured the whole country without success until a private entrepreneur named Xu Wenrong solved the problem by successfully building the required sets on a giant scale within four months.

After ‘Opium War’ was shot, many other film production crews came to Hengdian to film. Accordingly, the brains behind the undertaking invested massively to expand the original sets and devised a strategy to allow film makers to use the facilities virtually free of charge by focusing on transforming Hengdian studios into a major tourist attraction, copying from the example of Hollywood studios in Los Angeles. However, since it occupies more than 2,500 acres, Hengdian World studios, as it is now officially known, is actually larger than Universal and Paramount Studios combined, and has already surpassed Hollywood in volume! Within only ten years, what was originally a remote town has seen its population grow from less than 20,000 to 70,000. In addition to the film sets, the Hengdian World studio complex has subsidiaries that include marketing groups, hotels and construction companies. Hengdian functions as a complete industry chain that also provides actors, costumes, props and post-production services.

Given this background, it has hardly surprising to learn that to date, Hengdian has welcomed over 400 film crews and provided facilities for filming more than 10,000 films and television series. The tourism aspect has also been booming. In 2007 alone, it received almost five million visitors, with many staying over for several days (Hengdian boasts of several high quality hotels with a combined capacity of 8,000 beds).

From the Nigerian viewpoint, the irony is that a somewhat similar approach was originally envisaged when the National Film Corporation was originally set up (The brochure that was published by the NFC shortly after its was launched during the late Adamu Halilu’s tenure as General Manager states that 300 acres was to have been set aside for building the nucleus of a film village). Unfortunately however, the next set of NFC top officials abandoned this praiseworthy goal and embarked instead on the quizotic and patently meaningless quest to build a film laboratory. Interestingly enough, part of the underlying concept of the Tinapa resort in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, was that it was to include a film studio. Most unfortunately however, the Cross River State Government failed to seek expert input and advice from knowledgeable Nigerian or foreign-based film makers, and so ended up making the mistake of needlessly investing vast sums of money in an expensive indoor studio (which is NOT what is required in a Third World country like Nigeria), instead of following the Chinese example...

Fortunately, the situation is not yet irretrievable If the Federal Government’s recent offer to devote a considerable budget to helping to establish and develop a Nigerian film industry is genuine, part of the envisaged funding can be usefully employed as part of the proposed plan to build a new concept city in the region of Abuja within the context of the announced 1914 amalgamation celebration project in order to provide for a Hengdian Studio type development. However, this will only work if there is a satisfactory and properly structured blueprint for the whole exercise, so as to provide simultaneously for funding to be made available for production on the basis of judiciously conceived criteria.  Otherwise (as the Tinapa precedent has revealed!), to build a film studio or a film village without at the same time providing access to funding for production will land government with another white elephant project....

* Dr. Ola Balogun directed some of Nigeria’s first feature films on celluloid