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Adim Williams is one of the most prominent movie directors in Nollywood, known for producing some of Nigeria’s block buster movies like ‘Abuja Connection2 &3’.
Adim is also a passionate actor, a passion he started with in the industry before delving into directing. He is back to full time acting again. He explains why in this exclusive interview with ORJI ONYEKWERE.
I saw some location pictures you posted online. Which project are you handling now?
I do more of acting now but I still direct and produce. I am preparing for a production but in between, I am still doing acting jobs. The pictures I posted on my Facebook wall were my July location pictures that I used to do my birthday on the 28th of July.
But they know and respect you more as a director that has carved a niche in the industry, why the shift to acting?
Well, I have not left directing, I am just expanding my scope, and moreover I started as an actor, so I am using this to add to my resume. I didn’t leave directing but I do a lot of acting these days. I am not the one featuring myself, its people that invite me to their movies and that shows the desire to see me. The three last jobs I did were with Zubby Michael, Patience Ozorkwo, the other one is Zubby and KOK and they’re high profile movies.
How does it feel taking orders from those you have directed before?
It’s fun because I have seen it all a as a director. It’s interesting taking instructions from other directors and very few of them are of my generation but 99 per cent of them are of younger generation. They respect me as a senior colleague; however, I do not conduct myself as a senior colleague but as an actor on set. Unless they seek for my advice, I don’t interfere in the director’s work. Anything I want to say, I say it before the job starts.
When you send the script, I go through the script, make my notes and discuss it with the director before we go on set. I don’t go on set to say, ‘ah no, it’s not like this, do you know who I am? I conduct myself as an actor on set and I recognize that someone is in charge and if my advice or input is requested for, I will give it gladly and it ends there.
What has changed between your contemporaries like: Andy Amanechi, Zeb Ejiro and Chico Ejiro among others and these new set of directors? Is there any innovation they’ve brought into movie directing?
Frankly, there is nothing new artistically and creatively. They’re not there yet but what has changed is technology because there are higher grade cameras from black magic to net dragon to Iris etc, but not in terms of creativity. They have not matched our standard the same way the actors of this generation may not be able to match the standard of the A- list stars we know like: Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade Ekehinde, Pete Edochie, KOK and Sam Loco Efe among many of them. It’s hard to match their standard in terms of professionalism, delivery and others.
So, where is the problem in terms of meeting up with the standard you guys set?
We know that generally the standard of everything is dropping in Nigeria and so the movie industry is no exception. The industry is not isolated from the larger society, but I do know that the music industry is growing higher because they’re about the only creative industry that’s better than the old.
For the movie industry, there are two major issues. First, the industry was unable to have proper legitimate structure and standard recognized by government that had legislative backing. We did everything we could to get that but it didn’t work.
In 2002, we shut down productions nationwide for four months to form new guilds and also see how we could talk to ourselves and establish proper structure. We had meetings and formed what was called the central working committee which was made up of people like KOK, Fred Amata, Zik Zulu Okafor, Ekenna Igwe, I and Franca Brown. We were about 25; top Nollywood personalities and we met for four months virtually every two days.
Then there were only three guilds, NAG, which is now AGN, Directors Guild of Nigeria and Movie Producers Association. We were the ones that formed the Cinematographers, the Screen Writers Guild and Editors Guild among many others. I was the secretary of the central working committee.
At the end of the day, we had a MoU on how we will be relating as industry practitioners. What we needed then was government’s endorsement which would have made it an internal law, a law that will not be gazetted but has the force of law.
So when we approached the Censors Board to back us up, Mrs. Roselyn Odeh was then recently appointed as the new DG Censors Board, unfortunately for us; she didn’t understand what we were talking about. She confessed that she does not watch Nollywood movies and that was how bad the situation was.
We went there with Rachael Oniga but she could not recognise her, she was saying, ‘my sister you too, you act? That move was a disaster; she said she didn’t understand what we were saying that it was a regional thing, Eastern region and what about the other regions. We told her this thing is not politics that there is no film making going on anywhere in Nigeria now because they’re waiting for us to come up with a blue print on the way forward. She said she will not sign and that closed that chapter, after that everybody started doing what they liked.
So in this industry we don’t have proper entry conditions that are enforceable. You cannot run a creative industry with porous entry points. Anybody can come shoot movies and put it in the same market where you are competing. In Hollywood, you can’t shoot anything and approach the cinemas; you have to belong to one of the big studios. They have categories over there. We don’t have such structure here. Anyone can shoot a movie and go to African Magic. Those days where the physical market was still working, anybody can shoot a movie and put it in the market.
The marketers tried to have some control which they later abused. Instead of having a working structure that includes everyone they thought of having a structure that makes them kings. They tried to control the industry from the market backwards. Around 2004, you must have heard about banning actors. That was the marketers responding to situation then, when they thought some actors were being over paid or two powerful. But it’s because there were no recognizable structures and standard because if people sign contracts abuse will be difficult.
Assuming it’s a piracy case and you go to court, the court will rely on 1960-something law on piracy to prosecute the person maybe a fine of ₦100 which is ridiculous. We have made so many moves to get government involved but government over the years failed us woefully. The only government that did something significant was the Jonathan government. He established the Project Act Nollywood and with the assistance of Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala the coordinating minister then, they pooled funds together which included foreign funds from countries and organizations that were ready to support the industry. Then ₦3b was a lot of money and that was in 2014. She channeled the money to Nollywood and they were smart not to work through the guilds because if they had done that people would have failed.
So, they established a commission who worked independently and some of the beneficiaries travelled abroad. Some went to Colorado, India, California and other places for training. It’s from that fund that I went to America for training in California. I was in California for two months for master class in film production. There were quite a number of some selected producers: I was there, Mike Nliam, Zik Zulu, Fred Amata, Ralph Nwadike and Victor Okhai too. It was wonderful though they almost scuttled it because it was during former President Buhari’s regime that we went.
We had to pay extra like ₦1m to go because the exchange rate immediately changed. It affected the cost of the programme and we have to augment on our own to be able to go. It was good because that fund was never exhausted. I understand that they still have about ₦1.9b of the fund when Buhari came nobody told us anything again about the fund. Some people tried to approach the former Information Minister Lai Muhammed, but I don’t think anything came out of it.
From that money they gave grants to some filmmakers who shot movies. They also gave to some people to improve their trade to support marketing. Some people used it to build cinemas in Onitsha, and some used theirs for other things, but the issue is that former President Jonathan instituted this and it worked.
Apart from Jonathan, no other government has shown interest in the industry and we were not asking for money, but for the government to assist us in establishing proper standard so that there will be proper entry requirements. No creative industry can survive as an all comers affair.
The industry went down at a point but it’s just coming up again in another direction. It was actually the market that died and the reason why it was so was because of piracy. If you release a movie before you can sell up to 50 copies, pirates have sold 200,000 copies and there’s nothing you can do about it because there’s no law to prosecute them. African Magic came in to help but they ended up making things worse in that generation because when they came, they started acquiring films they could pay for. 95 per cent of the movies they acquired in the first two years were not Nollywood movies that we were known for.
For instance, check you cannot see a movie like Igodo, Abuja Connection, Sharon Stone, Ijele or Evil Men because these are big budget movies. The producers of these movies were high profile producers and they couldn’t accept the small money Africa Magic was giving to them. So they just kept their movies. So they acquired most of these low budget movies and by that, they encourage people to shoot lower budget movies.
However, the industry has evolved and regenerated itself and in a new phase of social media. People shoot more films now than before like 100times more.
But they said the quality of our movies is improving because of organizations like Netflix that have a standard. So you have to take your time to produce a movie that will meet their approval.
That’s why I said the industry has evolved with the advent of social media, Africa Magic on one side, cinemas on the other side, Netflix and even Amazon. The business has been decentralized. So you now choose the market you want to shoot for. If you have ₦30m to shoot for cinema you go ahead, if you have between ₦10-₦20m to shoot for Netflix that’s okay. You go ahead and discuss with them and plan it like we do in those days, when we do rehearsals two weeks before shooting because everybody must master their lines and make corrections where necessary.
Going on set then was not for actors again but for technical; directors, DOP, lightening and others but all that changed totally over time. But when you are shooting for Netflix channels, you have to go back to that old style, do script conference and they will critique your script. If it’s good they will continue but if it’s not, you will be asked to re- write the script, they will look at it and do adjustment before giving you go ahead. But these days, some people even write as they are shooting. So because of several different markets the business has been decentralized.
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The largest market is the YouTube. It’s so large that it can swallow up everything they are shooting for Netflix, Cinemas. I called actress Destiny Etiko and told her I was preparing for a production, that I am producing and directing by 26th of this month .I told her I was informing her ahead of time so that I will not take her by surprise because we have worked on many sets. She respectfully told me that she doesn’t have time to work for people again because she is busy with her own work. That’s true because she runs a YouTube channel that’s giving her millions, so how much do you want to pay her?
The younger generation is making so much money because they’re the internet generation, we are the old schools. You will be shocked that a young boy of 19-20 years maybe your production assistant that just got into Nollywood, before you know it, he will buy Mercedes Benz and you will be imagining if he has joined internet fraud. No. Because he did something on YouTube and they paid him. These young people know internet and how to channel their products they put it on YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter and other social media platforms. They know what to do and by the time they are through, money will be coming in dollars. So there’s so much money on YouTube. There was information that was sent to us about new conditions for accepting movies by African Magic. When they read out those conditions most of the directors were laughing because they know that if you put your movie on YouTube, you will make your money.
Now Facebook is also now paying artistes and if you see what these artistes are doing in Asaba and the houses they are building.
So it was part of my life plan to slow down on directing and go back to acting and documentaries. I do a lot of documentaries which is my passion because I am spending my own money in doing some of these documentaries. I acted in Rattle Snake part 11, I featured in Betrayal, by Zeb Ejiro many years ago but when I went into directing, I became dominant there and that’s where people see it as my strength. Acting is an addition to me and you also have to understand that showbiz is a unique business. These teenagers today don’t know if you’re the best director, it’s the man who they see his face on screen that they know. Acting is convenient for me now, it pays me and I have a lot of fulfillment for it.
Have you asked why some of the big directors are no longer directing? When last did you see Andy Amanaechi or Zeb Ejiro’s movie, or Tchidi who is the most recent or Lancelot Imaseun, if not for Issakaba that Lancelot Imaseun is trying to resurrect. For two reasons, the standard and the payment no longer favours people of our generation. Those days you shoot one part film and you are paid ₦400,000. I was paid ₦500,000 to direct in 2003, 4, 5 that was a lot of money on just for a one part movie. The industry degenerated to a point that you have to shoot from season one to 12 and they will price you half of what you used to shoot one part film.
So you have to be wise and leave it for the younger ones that are still hustling. As an actor, I will not demand those kinds of big fees but it will come. I am enjoying being an actor and they are giving me my due respect and also respect the fact that I don’t impose my person. The beauty of films is that it has no age or time limit. As you are aging, you are also adjusting. As it’s, I am playing more of the role of a king in most of the movies I appear.
QUOTE:
I understand that they still have about ₦1.9bn of the fund when Buhari came, nobody told us anything again about the fund.
English (US) ·