Guardian

IN his lecture recently at Redeemers University entitled ‘What is Right and what is Wrong with Nollywood’, erudite scholar of comparative literature at Harvard University, United States, Prof. Biodun Jeyifo, gave useful insight into how Nigerian motion picture industry can be made better with the art of storytelling. Although he gave thumbs up to some practitioners, who he said have kept to the tradition of filmmaking, Jeyifo pointed out key areas that needed upgrade.

Specifically, he laid emphasis on screenplays, adding that a good movie starts from a good script.

“But many Nollywood screenplays are so trashy, so naïve, so bizarre and so reactionary that it simply takes the breath away that people, many of them university graduates of theatre and drama, actually append their names to these screenplays as authors,” the United States-based scholar said.

Jeyifo frowned at many Nollywood storylines, which he said, defy logic and structure, especially in the resolution of their conflicts. However, the professor testified that he had seen a good number of Nollywood screenplays in which the quality of the writing either completely escaped the logic of the production process that maximizes quantity over quality or were not in fact structured by this logic. In that group are cinematographer Tunde Kelani (TK), Prof. Akinwunmi Ishola in collaboration with Adebayo Faleti. Tchidi Chikere was also mentioned by the Harvard teacher as one of those whose films, sometimes rose above the level of the normative trashiness and mediocrity.

In a chat with Tchidi Chikere, the prolific screenwriter/director informed that it took strong visual and mental imagination to create a good story, adding, “I generate stories out of my imagination combined with real life situations I have experienced or heard about. It’s basically what I can imagine and to what extent I can imagine it, together with realities that I live with everyday both physical, social, religious, psychological and even spiritual realities”.

Chikere’s simple creation process involves, “shutting my eyes and imagining myself in that situation, and asking, ‘being character A what will I do, put myself in character B situation, what will I do and so on?’. I had to be everybody and react outside of myself to certain situations that I have created in my story. That way I’m dealing with real life people and real life characters; maybe that’s why I live a very intricate life, very different from the usual at the same time not sliding into eccentricity.

Chikere has a fertile imagination, which makes it easy for him to be a ‘god’ in small era, creating people and situations. He noted, “I put them in that situation, work with them and watch them conquer or get conquered by the situation depending on the theme”.

To write a good script, Chikere is of the opinion that the writer has to be foresighted and equally develop a strong passion for looking inwards, employing sound, visual and mental imagination.

“You have to see your story inside of you; you have to see it very clear before your eyes. You also have to believe it and ask yourself, ‘if I were among the viewers in the cinema watching this movie, will I believe it?”

For the scriptwriter and director, it takes a deep sense of solitude, commitment and discipline to be creative, and as he added, “It takes the presence of a story in you because, if it’s not there and you have all I have mentioned, you can’t create anything”.

Although Chikere had formal training in creative writing, he is of the view that one must be naturally endowed with creativity before such person could create effectively.

“Education will only shape what is already in you,” he concluded.