The GHOLLYWOOD and the NOLLYWOOD movie industries are the most known African movie industry in both Ghana and Nigeria. Both African countries have become very diverse in their profession and now work and act together to produce movies.
For some time now, it has opened more opportunities for the up and coming African actors and actresses. They travel to each other’s countries and produce quality and interesting movies. This collaboration has taken them further in business.
However, I think the African movie industries have come a long way, but we still have a lot to learn. Some of our African movie Producers need to understand that movie making is not all about the money. I mean, obviously, the bottom line of producing movies is about the money involved, the returns and revenues and all that. But then, that is not how the movies are going to sell. The movie industry is not a ”buy and sell” sort of business. It is more about loving the art, what you can do and what you can actually portray at your best to the public, because the movie industry changes from time to time.
Once the producers understand that, then they can achieve what is expected in a movie in terms of quality pictures, good story lines, exceptional dialogues, classic sounds and all that makes movies sell.
Moreover, GHOLLYWOOD have learnt a lot from the NOLLYWOOD due to the diversity of the latter’s story lines and excellent production. NOLLYWOOD have a high frequency touch” in their movies and also even in their music. It will be justifiably right to say Ghanaian Movie Industry has learnt a lot from the Nigerian Movie Industry.
NOLLYWOOD invests more time and money and their filming technique is superior to GHOLLYWOOD. That is not to say that the GHOLLYWOOD Industry is not making good movies, of course, they are also improving on their film techniques excellently and are producing better and classic movies now. The GHOLLYWOOD industry has improved successfully in their growth over the years.
Over the recent years however, there have been a maximum change in the appreciation of the Ghanaian movies in the industry.
Before that happened, some Ghanaians used to love more of the Nigerian movies than their own movies. The usual saying among some Ghanaians at that time was, ”WE ALWAYS GET TO KNOW HOW THE STORY IS GOING TO END ONCE THE MOVIE BEGINS”. That was quite sad because the Ghanaian producers, actors and actresses put in a lot of effort but felt they were not appreciated by the public.
Now, the industry has developed some growth and a rapid improvement in their production. The story lines have improved. The actors and actresses are now top rates. The settings, the dialogue and the picture quality have been upgraded. The Ghanaian movie actors and actresses are now being more appreciated more now than ever. They are being honoured with awards every year in Ghana. They have been recognized in Nigeria and other African countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is a great change and we are happy to see that vast improvement in the Ghanaian movie industry.
The Ghanaian Movie Industry has developed an obvious vast change which has opened a lot of opportunities for more people in the business. The actors have worked with several African countries like ”Gambia” which is known as ”The Smiling Coast of Africa”, South Africa, Liberia, Tanzania, Malawi and many other countries as well.
Overall, African movies have become more diverse over the years but we still have a long way to go and a lot to learn from the ”HOLLYWOOD INDUSTRY”.
HOLLYWOOD movie producers use every trick in the book to make the best movies. They are very particular about their scripts, the settings and even how the actors and actresses portray their characters in the movies. The producers put more emphasis on how classic the movie is supposed to look like in terms of picture quality, creativity and of course, they also invest tons of money for advertisements.
Unlike the African movies, HOLLYWOOD movies seldom ran beyond the standard of 90 minutes. They don’t necessarily make long stories with unnecessary plots. African movies have been known to run like television series with some movies having 5 parts with each part running as long as two and half hours, making one story almost 12 hours long. Editing I believe is some of African movies’ deficiency. Most people do not have the time to sit through 12 hour movies, so the directors must emphasize on crisp scripts and refrain from these marathon movies. Wholly speaking, African movies are getting better and some of our actors have already impacted HOLLYWOOD.
Our biggest dream is to reach our highest aim in the African movie industry in order to even get into collaboration with the HOLLYWOOD movie industry, as we progress our growth in the movie industry.
I believe that is one of the biggest dreams of every African actor and actress!
By Afia Serwaah/GhanaGist.Com