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Back in the days, to watch a movie meant you had to go to the rental store, make a selection from the wide range of options available, pay the rental fee, and head home.
But if it was a blockbuster that had been rented over and over before it got to your turn, then you’d also have to pray it doesn’t “crack” as you watch it.
That was the familiar “home video” era. And it was quite the experience. Fast forward to the mid 2020s and what we have is the YouTube takeover: your neighbour, her friend, her cousin who lives down the street, even your aunty who barely completed a polytechnic education, is now a producer—all thanks to YouTube. But thankfully, the quality has become much better now and you won’t have to sit through the disappointing freezing or stuttering. Or has it, really?
Call it the democratisation of Nollywood. Or say that “Nigerians understand the internet business so well” like DJ Pakorich. But the reality remains that YouTube is the new home for the majority of Nollywood movie releases in recent years.
The question of choice
Multiple choice is the first thing to consider when it comes to this burgeoning phenomenon. Viewers, despite the short attention span of the current generation, want options.
Media personality and film enthusiast, Moses Dickson (Velvet Sandpaper) remarks on this in a chat with Pulse Nigeria, insisting that no one can be forced to watch what they don’t want to. “We’re in the age of smartphones, smart TVs, and personal computers. No one has to watch what they don’t want to; if YouTube or any platform doesn’t meet their preferences, they can move on to another. I think audiences are spoiled for choice right now, so I don’t see how fatigue could set in. For viewers who rely primarily on YouTube, I’d still say the more options, the better.”
For actress Doris Okorie who also spoke with Pulse, because stories need to be told and people will never get tired of watching movies, it is better to view the options available as freedom of creative expression instead of oversaturation. “Choices can never be in abundance. It’s better to have abundance than to have slim pickings. Maybe YouTube is oversaturated but stories still need to be told and entertainment (the arts in any form) is always going to be useful and needed.”
To buttress her point, she cited the lockdown period during which people sought entertainment to help them manage the anxieties and overall situation. “The COVID pandemic showed us how important entertainment was, you’re locked in and can’t do anything but stream movies and probably pray.”
Actress and Host, Rachel Emem Isaac, also spoke with Pulse but shared a different perspective.
While the numerous options reminds her of way back when we used to visit rental shops to pick from what was available based on personal preferences, having so many choices can also be overwhelming. “It takes me back to the days when we could walk into a shop and there we have like a number of movies that dropped the previous week. And then we just say ‘oh I wan rent this film’, and then you can say ‘oh, this one has my favourite actor’, ‘this one does not have my favourite actor’ but the title is giving me a vibe that I think I want to watch yeah. So, it takes you back to that time where you have options that you can just pick from.”
“But then again, when there are too many things to watch, it can be overwhelming and you’re just like okay? What are we doing here? Because at the end of the day, unlike those days when we had different actors, we have YouTube actors now. If you look at five YouTube films, you’ll see the same set of actors in like three of those movies. So, it can be a little too much sometimes.”
Expansion and growth
Growth is another consideration. Professionals confident in their craft have been given a platform to overcome the bottlenecks and hindrances in the industry in order to bring their creative ideas to life. “With the use of YouTube as a platform for entertainment in Nollywood, it eliminates “godfatherism” and gatekeeping when it comes to creative output in the industry,” Okorie adds.
For DJ Pakorich, the money is a huge motivator and also a significant part of the growth. “If YouTube is paying them well enough, or the money they are making from YouTube is whooping enough to produce another movie, why should they not put the movies there? People were thinking that it’s an achievement to put your movies on Netflix—yes, it’s good; these are great streaming platforms, they’re elite and all that. But there are people who don’t have the fans to get on Netflix or Amazon Prime yet are very good actors, what do they do? They move these movies to YouTube. And they commit 100% to promoting these movies.”
“They go all out to promote these movies. Nigerian movies on YouTube now are gaining results. People these days would not want to go and pay for subscriptions on Netflix to watch a movie. They will rather get their data and watch their YouTube. And that is how Nigeria will conquer Africa. They are using it already. Nigeria has been very innovative on the sales and marketing of YouTube movies. If Netflix and Amazon Prime are not careful, before you know it, Nollywood has taken over YouTube and nobody will patronise them again. And the money comes back straight to them, they don’t need anybody to pay them. That’s how smart they are,” he continued.
Echoing a similar sentiment, actor Jidekene Achufusi in a chat with Arise TV explains that the dollar-naira exchange rate might be tempting for a number of filmmakers. “Something that has given strong wings to that YouTube market is what the dollar is doing against the naira. So, because YouTube pays in dollars, a lot of people have found it very easy to make films and put it there and let people watch. Now, we have a lot of people who watch Nollywood—people in the diaspora and countries that follow Nollywood."
"For example, Nollywood is first in the Philippines, it is first in Jamaica and all of those areas. So, a lot of those people are just at home. And also, the networks, we have YouTube free plans and night plans. So, there’s a lot of enabling.”
The drawbacks: Quality concerns and perception
During an episode of It’s a Wrap, John Njamah highlights the lack of strict regulatory policies in the industry which gives way to a free-for-all situation: becoming a producer means you just need to create a YouTube channel. “The industry lacks checks and balances. And what that means is that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can just get on board and call themselves a producer without being checked. And of course, the Guild system is not particularly working, so you can’t check this person. And there are little or no criteria for judging who should be a director, who should be a producer, and who should be an executive and all of that. So, there’s no checks and balances. The system is just not working.”
His statement raises concerns about the quality of the output. Should freedom of creative expression supersede strict regulation to ensure that only the highest quality is released to the general audience?
Velvet Sandpaper insists that creators are free to explore in order to conquer new territories and possibly strike gold. “I’m not a fan of gatekeeping in any creative space. Let creators explore and create—that’s how new ground is broken and genius eventually emerges. It takes a lot to put together a quality film project, and free-to-air sites like YouTube give budding creatives an avenue to flex their creative muscles. I’m all for it. It’s also part of the times we live in; everyone should adapt to this new accessibility.”
Jidekene begs to differ as he likens the situation to a Ponzi scheme that is retrogressive. “I feel like it’s a Ponzi scheme. People may come for me. But I feel like it’s a dig-in-while-it’s-here. Like, make sure you 'don’t dull o'. 'Don’t sleep on this one'. Keep getting. But also, are we moving forward? I’d say in terms of injecting cash into the industry, yes we may be moving forward. But in terms of preaching quality or advocating for actual growth within our film industry, I think we are just retrogressive in that respect. We are very much retrogressive.”
“I mean, YouTube films take about four days, five days and it’s good money. Nobody would say no. But while we are doing that, I hope that we'll be able to understand that this is a free streaming platform: it’s not like we need any connection to get there. If we do ruin it by either dumping all the low-budget films or moving the talent over there, then definitely we are going to be shooting ourselves in the foot,” he emphasised.
Rachel Emem Isaac also concurs with this perspective, citing cases of actors who offer lukewarm performances because they know it’s just going straight to YouTube and people will watch it anyway. “Yes, it has watered down the craft. Trust me, there are YouTube actors who know that ‘ah, because this is just going to be on YouTube, I don’t have to do so much’. You see actors give the same character. It almost feels as though they don’t do their homework."
"You see an actor play different characters but you can tell that it’s the same person because they didn’t exactly get out of this character they played in this film to become the other character in the other movie. They don’t feel like they have to do so much.”
“Now, actors don’t want to work with anyone. They are just like ‘subscribe to my YouTube channel’, ‘I have new content coming up’ because of the money that they make (I don’t blame them anyway),” she continues.
The perception is another issue. Rachel tells this writer that even A-list actors don’t rate YouTube movies and it reflects in their performance. “I spoke with an actor who is like an A-lister who said something like ‘why is she putting so much effort into the movie if it’s just going to be on YouTube?’ So you can imagine that."
"There are some people who live abroad who don’t have access to all the movies produced in the country here and all they have access to is the YouTube movies. And they go on YouTube to watch like ‘oh, let me see what Nollywood is putting out now’. It’s not a good representation. I wouldn’t want my friends to consume the movies that are on YouTube these days.”
“Yet I agree that there are some good producers who believe that anything that is worth doing is worth doing well so they put in the work regardless of whether or not it’s going to be on YouTube. If we tell actors to start rejecting these scripts because they want to uphold their standards and preserve their legacy, what about the economy? People have to eat,” she adds.
The middle ground
In spite of the flaws of this new trend, people can agree that it helps to introduce fresh talents to a broader audience hungry for entertainment. Jidekene posits, “But guess what? I think every now and then, every industry resets itself. I feel like what it’s doing now is making sure that we have an injection of young talents, like a teen TV. It feels like what is going on there is clearly for adolescents."
"So, clearly, what we are going to get in terms of quality from such a surge is that we will have a lot of younger looking actors who would have screen time. Because in Nollywood, there is no actor for playing the roles that are in between: it’s either you’re old enough to play someone’s father or young enough to be someone’s fiancée.”
For Rachel, actors should find a balance. “I think actors should find a balance because it’s not only movies that go on YouTube that have terrible, horrible scripts. Some go to cinemas and video-on-demand streaming platforms yet you’re just looking at it like ‘who wrote this script’? When you look at the giants and names behind these productions, you’re like ‘how did this get approved?’ ‘How did this even go beyond pre-production into becoming a movie?’"
"Because there are some stories that you’ll see on YouTube that are so good but you can tell that they didn’t just pay attention to detail. Actors should just find a balance because if they are being selective by choosing scripts that will go to cinemas, those films might not end up being as good as the ones that go to YouTube.”