Culture, Film And The Nigerian Video Producer: Some Production Implications

Abstract

At the very heart of Africa's entertainment ambience is a huge and thriving audio-visual culture popularly referred to as the video films. These are “dramatic features shot on video and marketed on cassettes (and even Cds), and some times also exhibited publicly with video projectors or TV monitors”. In Nigeria, this bourgeoning art has become a platform for social debate, a carrier of culture, a means of evangelizing and a veritable means of social entertainment. But this new audio-visual art form suffers from intense critical knocks especially from the academia and the media. Central to the debate about the video is how it misrepresents the people's culture and worldview. Producers/ directors are at the very center of these accusations. This paper examines these debates, casting it against a global canvas of film as a strong means of cultural showcasing. In the process, it provides a panacea for the Nigerian video producer/director as a way of improving his art. KEY WORDS: Culture, Video Film, Production, Producers, implications. Global Journal of Humanities Vol.3(1&2) 2004: 63-67