When you sat down to look at a special Benin video drama, you had unmistakably shaken your head and said, ‘why didn’t they produce this in English?” If it had been in English, it would have had a nation-wide coverage.
Your remark is quite in order. The film producers are not oblivious of this. But some how they are restrained due to financial factor.
One person who is very much conscious of the constraints is Monday Ezekiel, the proprietor of Soul-2 Soul music and video production outfit who although a Bini man, but people love referring to him as an Ibo man because of his acute business acumen.
There is usually no ambiguity in most of his business undertakings. So, if you send a script to him to produce in English, being the biggest executive producer and marketer in Edo State, he does not bother to look at your script as he declines off—hand.
Most other potential sponsors/Executive producers in Edo State who knows the terrain properly also keep a generous distance away from English home videos because of the huge outlay involved.
How does the great expenditure come in when they are essentially producing the same thing as that done in Edo language? The difference is that while in local indigenous production, you can afford to use an ma500 camera and VHS cassette and your viewers will not mind because that is the prevailing standard. You simply cannot afford that for an English film which is intended to be marketed nation wide.
To rent a VHS camera (ma 500 for instance), in Benin City each of the approximately ten days it would take complete shooting for a film would cost between 14900 and 142,500. This is a maximum of 1425,000 plus about five 3 hours VHS cassettes of N250 each. This amounts to about N1,500.
Alternatively, if you were to use a super VHS modal which would entail the use of a super VHS cassette, you would be spending almost 1420,000 for five cassettes, each being almost 142,500 since they are mot easily available.
To be candid, only Soul 2—Soul now stocks super VHS cassettes in Benin City. Otherwise you would have to travel to Lagos to purchase the products.
What’s more, even after recording on super VHS which is closest to U—matic camera and cassettes in terms of sharpness and longivity of pictures (U—matic is the minimum standard for English films), For nationwide sales, there are extremely few outfits in Benin who possess the facilities to edit them. That again would mean travelling to Lagos to edit.
This would mean lodging two or three members of the crew who will do the edit in a hotel for the three or more days it will take to consummate the editing.
However, super VHS is comparatively cheap if you have to use something close to the minimum required standard of camera U—matic. T0 hire a U—matic camera is between ten and fifteen thousand naira a day. That translates to about N150,000 for just the camera if recording takes ten days.
U-Matic cassette are particularly expensive. They are in 20—30 or 60 minutes with those in 20 minutes being more available. Each 20 minutes U—matic is close to if not more than N1,500. If for the sake of the cost you economise very well and get only 15 hours of shooting in the ten days, you might spend about 35,000 on cassettes alone.
In addition, you will have to travel to Lagos for editing as I was made to understand though not verified.
These days only Church of God Mission and few individual organisations have U—matic editing suites.
Piracy by video club owners is becoming a source of concern to artists and well meaning individuals in the community. The Producer of Edibuohien, Omo—Osagie was said to have lashed out at the operators of video rental outfits describing them as thieves.
He alleged that they are thieves because they infringed on producers copyrights by renting out copies of works for which they did not obtain the copyright owners consent while others secure rental rights for just a few copies of a work and then go on to produce more unauthorised copies.
A respondent actor, Mr. Ogiefo said that the Edo State Video Club Owners Association misinformed the Ministry of Information, Youth, Sports and Culture to register it by claiming things that they were not competent of doing.
In some years back, the Association was presented with a certificate of registration by a representative of the Director of Cu1ture who urged them to keep faith with the criteria for their registration and help to eschew reprehensively characteristics from Nigeria—made—home video dramas.
But the veteran producer and actor believes the Association misled the ministry into thinking the video club owners have a way or means of controlling What goes into a recorded play.
1f video club owners are sincere, they know that they cannot influence what goes into a film. It is all untrue that they control films, he asserted.
“Their Articles of association misinformed the ministry as to what they can do and what they cannot do”.
In any case, he pointed out, the certificate given to them by the Edo State Government was merely to recognise them as a club much like the progressive unions.
“1f they want to be really registered, let them pass through the Corporate Affairs commission”.
“If they get registered, then we will know that government has given them authority to steal our films”, he asserted.
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