The Road Map for the Nominations for the Annual Academy Awards for Nigerian Filmmakers

The Road Map for the Nominations for the Annual Academy Awards for Nigerian Filmmakers

There is a Road Map for the Nominations for the annual Academy Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the route is common knowledge to those who truly know the criteria for filmmaking of international standards in the quality of the content and context of filmmaking and the benchmarks of the most coveted international awards and prizes for filmmaking.

Making the nominations for the almighty Oscars from the long list to the short list is beyond the mere selections of the official entries for different countries in the competition for the Best International Feature Film Category of the Academy Awards which is the most competitive, because of the challenges of competing with the best filmmakers from other countries you may not know their works.

In my own opinion, any film that has not made the Official Selections for the annual Cannes Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival should not be the official selection of Nigeria for the Best International Feature Film Category of the Academy Awards. Because in the history of the Oscars,most of the nominees and winners were in the Official Selections of the most highly esteemed and highest ranking international film festivals as I have listed them above. And only the majority of them that won the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival, Golden Lion and Silver Lion of the Venice International Film Festival, Audience Award of the Toronto International Film Festival, Golden or Silver Bear of the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Feature Film at the Sundance Film Festival made the nominees and winners of the Oscars. 

Any Nigerian filmmaker who cannot or has not competed for the best international awards in the global film industry should not be considered for the representation of the Official Selection of the entry for the Best International Feature Film Category of the Oscars.

Only the best should represent Nigeria, because only the best is good enough for us.

Nigerian filmmakers have not even won the prizes for the Best Feature Film at the annual Durban International Film Festival of South Africa, the highest ranking international film festival in Africa and only one Nigerian filmmaker, Newton Aduaka has won the Étalon d'or de Yennenga" (Golden Stallion of Yennenga) at the Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival (FESPACO) for his critically acclaimed film, "Ezra" in 2007. 

The problem of Nigerian filmmakers is the fact that they don't like being told the truth and when you tell them the truth, they become upset and even stop communicating with you in their unprofessional and unintellectual attitudes. But the fact is majority of them don't even know that filmmaking is not for those who are intellectually challenged, because the Art of Filmmaking is beyond the mere craft of shooting a movie.

Majority of the filmmakers in Nigeria don't know what is Art Direction and many of them have not studied Production Design.

Many of them don't know what is the aspect ratio of a movie for the cinema and most of them don't know what is a shooting ratio.

They don't even know how to use lighting for storytelling; costume for storytelling; the nuances of

characterisation and music for storytelling in filmmaking.

I have advised the film schools in Nigeria to use nominees and winners of the Oscars for case studies in filmmaking to teach their students on how and why the nominees and winners got the nominations and won the Oscars.

The  Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC) for the Oscars  should know that to make the nominations for the Oscars is more than the mere selection of the official entry.

Is there a budget for the promotion of the selected film?

Promotion for reviews in the highly esteemed and rated international news media such as the New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, Indiewire, Screen International, CNN, BBC and Underurrents of the  International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI)

Read How Much Does It Cost To Win An Oscar? - BBC News

Just two of the most high-profile attempts to influence what must be the most select group of voters on the planet, the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Estimates for the total amount Hollywood spends on Oscar campaigns range from $100m right up to $500m in a single year.23 Feb 2016

https://www.bbc.com › news › ent...

How much does it cost to win an Oscar? - BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35613630

By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

The Publisher/Editor,

NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,

The first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.

Founder/CEO,

International Digital Post Network Limited,

Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema (SOOAC),

Affiliate Partner, Cinewav of Singapore

Content Development Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy for Film Production, Acquisition and Distribution for Nollywood

 

Content Development Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy for Film Production, Acquisition and Distribution for Nollywood

There is no film production without preproduction of which the most important components are research and development of the film project, script development and recce.

For example, I spent four years on the location for the script development of "Naked Beauty". I have completed the research and development during the recce on Bonny Island in Rivers State before the accomplished multiple awards winning Nollywood filmmaker and film studies scholar, Dr. Chika Christian Onu came to visit me where I was staying in the Residential Area 1 of the Nigeria LNG Limited. And we coauthored the screenplay which I published the book as a case study for screenwriting for film production in Nigeria. It was printed in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.

The content development included development of the principal characters in the drama based on the people in Agaja village on Bonny Island.

Naked Beauty is available on 

https://www.lulu.com/fr/shop/michael-chima-ekenyerengozi-and-christian-chika-onu/naked-beauty/paperback/product-453339.html

Research and development of the screenplay comes first in preproduction of a film for television or the cinema.

What is Content Development Strategy?

Research on the kind of content you want to produce; the genre and the target audience.

Whether it is a movie, documentary or music video.

What kind of content will attract your target audience.

Your target audience should decide the kind of content you want to produce.

Do surveys for the needs assessment of your target audience.

What kind of entertainment they want.

Your content must connect with the target audience.

You cannot communicate with someone you cannot connect to or with.

There is no communication without connection.

You have to speak to the target audience in their own means of communication; in their most common language.

This is when you have to use content localization for the best interests of your target audience wherever they are located.

The details of the rest are common knowledge of the culture and haute couture of the target audience.

Beware of tribal and religious taboos.

Appreciate and respect the peculiarities of the personalities of the target audience.

Don't provoke them with what you have written in the screenplay as shown on the screen.

Common sense is enough to know that you don't show people eating pork with relish to Muslims.

Avoid heresy. 

You have to produce what appeals to them.

Your story and the characters must have characteristics they are familiar with; people they can relate with in their society.

Your content must resonate with them on their lives and lifestyles in the events and incidents in the story.

A good filmmaker should be a good storyteller.

The success of storytelling depends on planning.

You must have a plan.

What's the subject on?

What is the purpose?

The conclusion and resolution of conflict in your story.

Planning is like weaving in cloth making. 

You must know how to spin your yarn so that you don't spin your wheels in the long run.

Content Marketing Strategy

You must have a content marketing strategy.

The most successful filmmaker in Nollywood, Funke Akindele is the best case study in both content development strategy and content marketing strategy in the Nigerian film industry.

Funke Akindele

Funke's comic character of "Jenifa" was based on research and development of the personality of the semi literate Yoruba village girl who speaks her own peculiar form of Pidgin English in both coherent and incoherent speech. She is an impressionable and vulnerable naive young woman who is desperate to improve her life no matter the odds against her in the boisterous city of Lagos in order to get a proper education to fulfill her ambition in the highly competitive Nigerian society.

From the making of the iconic comic character of "Jenifa" for the cinema to the TV series of "Jenifa's Diary" and to the making of her Nollywood Blockbuster, "A Tribe Called Judah" (partly based on the true life experiences of her mother), Funke Akindele has shown the successful route of content development strategy and content marketing strategy. 

She is currently the highest grossing filmmaker in the Nigerian film industry with a total Gross of over ₦2.9 billion from the box office.

I told my younger sister who is one of the millions of her fans, that I can commission Funke Akindele to produce my proposed romantic comedy, "Omo Naija in London" and be rest assured of the box office success. 

- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

The Publisher/Editor,

NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,

The first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.

Nigerian Filmmakers: Beyond Nollywood, Beyond Netflix

Nigerian Filmmakers: Beyond Nollywood, Beyond Netflix

TV is not Cinema and Cinema is not TV.

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Nigerian filmmakers must capture the big picture of the future of Nollywood.

Majority of the filmmakers in Nigeria should know and understand the importance and significance of Art Direction and Production Design in filmmaking. 

Many of them don't even know the definition of Art Direction.

There is no filmmaking without Art Direction.

Netflix in Nigeria: It is No Longer Nollywood As Usual

The filmmakers in both Nollywood and Kennywood must now be more adventurous and ambitious in the content and context of filmmaking beyond mere narrative storytelling.

Any dummy can play guitar. 

But any dummy cannot be Carlos Santana or Sir Victor Uwaifo.

Nigerian filmmakers are still using having their movies on Netflix for bragging rights when none of them has made the official selections of the most competitive and prestigious international film festivals in the world after decades of making movies.

We are still waiting for them to be in the official selections for the Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and compete with the best filmmakers in the world and not competing against themselves in Nigeria.

They have been making movies even before C.J Obasi got his GCE and he has gone ahead of them to win coveted awards at the Sundance Film Festival, FESPACO and other esteemed international film festivals where they have failed to make the official selections or failed to win any prize.

The future of Nollywood is bigger than Netflix.

Beauty is more than having a pretty face.

99.99 percent of the biracial actresses in Nollywood can't act.

Three of them are annoyingly amateurish.

They have been featured in movies just for having a pretty face by intellectually challenged filmmakers in Nollywood who think having white looking Bimbos in their movies will attract more viewers and moviegoers.

Having a pretty face and being photogenic can attract filmmakers, but acting begins with learning how to act and not pretending to act when you don't know how to act.

We are two years to the epoch of 100 years of filmmaking in Nigeria. But I doubt if the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy had a clue until I have mentioned it.

How much have we achieved in a century of Nigerian Cinema?

What are milestones in the history of filmmaking in Nigeria since the production of the first feature film, "Palaver" in 1926 by the Academy Award winning English filmmaker, Geoffrey Barkas?

The making of "Palaver" was published in the second edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series in 2014.

- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

The Publisher/Editor,

NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,

The first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.

The Cinematographer

In the beginning The Cinematographer came to us in the cloak of black and white and we gazed spellbound in awe of the cinematic universe.

The Cinematographer 

- by  Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, an NFT art to be up for exhibition and auction on Opensea and Artprice before Christmas.

This is the final part of The Cinematographer in total abstract of the same image.

The Cinematographer is going to attract many bidders when it is up for exhibition and auction. Because, it really an awesome of genius. A unique masterpiece of artwork in celebration of the cinematographer that has never been done before in such magnificence in the history of Fine Arts and NFTs. 

Please, if you have seen a better artwork celebrating the cinematographer before this one, let me know.

To me, it is priceless like my "Signature of God" on. the Algorand blockchain.

This is a special artwork in honour of cinematographers in film and TV productions. 

They are the painters on whose painters on whose palette the art of storytelling in motion picture is made. 

You cannot capture any image in motion picture without a cinematographer. 

Imagine a painting without colours.

Imagine a cart moving without a donkey or horse.

Imagine car without an engine.

Imagine a life without a soul.

Then imagine a film or TV production without the  cinematographer.

There is no creation without the creator. 

The Cinematographer is the painter of the painting on the canvas.

A director without a cinematographer is like driver driving a car without engine.

- By EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima.

© All rights reserved. No copying, duplication and reproduction of any part of this content in any format of media without the authorization and permission of Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima and International Digital Post Network Limited.

#cinematographer

#cinematography

#cinema

#motionpicture

#director

#filmmaking

#filmmakers

#filmproduction

#tv

#art

#nft

#auction

#exhibition

#celebration

#masterpiece

#artwork

#artform

#finearts

#history

#bidders

#genius

#painting

#canvas

#pallete

#car

#engine

#donkey

#horse

#creation

#imagination

#opensea

#artprice

#algorand

When the So Called Masterclass is not a Masterclass

When the So Called Masterclass is Not a Masterclass

"What makes a work of art a masterpiece is not the craft.
But the Imagination of the artist."
- Ekenyerengozi MichaeI Chima.

Some years ago, I was invited to participate in a Masterclass on  Documentary Filmmaking by the Public Affairs Section of the Consulate of the United States of America in Lagos in the Documentary Showcase Program with American documentary filmmakers. Prominent Nigerian filmmakers in Nollywood were also invited. But the workshop was rushed by the American filmmaker teaching what was nothing new or different, but documentary filmmaking for beginners and what the Nigerian filmmakers already knew. He was teaching us what students in high school were taught in America.

Then the workshop ended abruptly without the completion of the most important sessions.

The American filmmaker started  the presentation of Masterclass  certificates to all the participants. But I refused to accept my own certificate with my name already written on it.

"We never had any masterclass on documentary filmmaking," I said.

The others were compelling me to accept it. I reluctantly collected it. But I dumped it later in the drawer of my desk in the office of Supple Communications Limited.

Finis.

#art

#artist

#masterpice

#craft

#masterclass

#workshop

#filmmaking

#filmmakers

#Nollywood

#America

#Nigeria

#documentary

#documentaryfilm

#showcase

#unitedstates

#consulate

#Lagos

#presentation

#certificate

#office

RECOMMENDED BOOKS BY EKENYERENGOZI MICHAEI CHIMA

Available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.

ZENITH 2024 Inaugural International Film Festival

 

ZENITH 2024

Zenith International Film Festival: Coming Soon!

Zenith International Film Festival is an annual independent film festival for the promotion of the best in motion picture, from script to screen; where the most ambitious filmmakers will meet the most ambitious film distributors from all over the world.

Participation is strictly by application and competition is only by official selection. 

Only 20 films will be selected by the international jury.

The inaugural annual Zenith International Film Festival will be launched in Lagos before the end of 2024. 

 We may not be the first and we may not be the biggest, but our mission is to be among the best international film festivals in the world.

More details will be announced later.

#zenith
#filmfestivals
#officialselection
#nominees
#nominations
#awards
#prizes
#filmmaking
#movies
#actors
#nigeria
#filmmakers
#jury
#filmdistribution
#acquisition

#ZENITH2024

Lighting Techniques That Film Schools Cannot Teach

Lighting Techniques That Film Schools Cannot Teach

GET CREATIVE

There’s a certain subset of lighting techniques that film schools can’t teach. Cinematographer Owen McPolin ISC sheds some light on the creative thinking and resulting methods used when illuminating spaces.

Even the highest-end shows will eventually present a camera team with problems which require a solution nobody has ever used before. Owen McPolin ISC has been shooting mainly for television since the late ‘90s, with recent credits including episodes of Penny Dreadful, Ripper Street and Shadow and Bone. He tells us that even the best-prepared production might occasionally provoke desperate measures."

 

Read it on 

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/supplement_posts/get-creative/

NEW ARTWORKS AND NFTS

See the gallery on 

https://nigeriansreportng.blogspot.com/2023/10/new-original-artworks-and-nfts-for-sale.html

The Most Popular Film Stills From A Nigerian Film and TV Production

The most popular stills in circulation from a Nigerian film or TV  production are from the second phase of the principal photography of my documentary film, "Lagos in Motion" in 2016.

I published the photo book of the stills.currently distributed by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.

View the NFTs exclusively on the Algorand blockchain

https://nftmyimage.com/@nigeriadaily
NFTs last longer than photos, videos and films that are not on the blockchain. 

The NFTs will be in the decentralized InterPlanetary File System.

The pictures show beautiful #Nollywood actress, model and beauty pageant Queen, Celina Ideh and other people in "Lagos in Motion" in the Toyota SUV as I was recording whilst the vehicle was moving us to another location in Lagos, Africa's largest megacity; on the Lekki- Ikoyi Link Bridge, Elegushi Beach, new Tejuosho Market and Onike in Yaba.

Film stills are very important in film studies.

Stills are essentially photographs taken on the set or during the production of a movie. They serve as a visual representation of the film, capturing key moments, characters, and set designs. These images are commonly used for promotional purposes, including posters, press kits, and marketing materials. And they are also used by scholars and students of film studies. 

#filmmaking

#filmproduction

#filmmakers

#filmstill

#screenshot

#documentary

#documentaryfilm

#movies

#series

#filmstudies

#students

#scholars

#Lagos

#Africa

#megacity

#photography

#book

#photobook

#Amazon

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima.