Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Assisting the Second Largest Movie Industry

Canada is going to aid and abet a huge movie industry build more and better cartoons.

... The Canadian government has offered to sponsor the training of no fewer than 1,000 Nigerian film makers on animation films, the Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed disclosed on Wednesday.

The minister disclosed this at the opening of the French, Japanese and Nigerian animated films festival in Abuja.

Mohammed said that his ministry was also collaborating with the French government on capacity building for Nigerian film makers also in the area of animation and children films. ...

Nigeria, located on the west coast of sub-Saharan Africa, is a nation of 186 million people ... with a sprawling and inefficient movie industry nicknamed "Nollywood" (cute, huh?) By sheer volume of product, it's the second biggest in the world, but it has a few ... ahm ... small troubles.

... Pirating of Nollywood productions is a big problem in Nigeria and throughout Africa. Nigeria’s film regulatory agency now posts existing laws, enforcement actions, and arrest details for film copyright infringement online, but many in the industry, including Nollywood producer Kunle Afolayan, say that’s not enough. ...

Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics data also highlights Nollywood’s greatest shortcoming: severe revenue bleed. Of the industry’s $3 billion valuation less than 1 percent was tracked from official ticket sales and royalties. The rest came from pirated reproductions sold by unauthorized vendors for roughly $2 each. ...

The piracy drainage could be change over time as digital video on demand slowly takes hold and more revenue finds its way into filmmakers' hands. But internet delivery is still spotty and reliable band width is lacking, but this will likely change over time.

In the meanwhile, Canada and Europe is going to help Nigerians develop a local animation industry. Who knows? In ten or thirty years, the new cry from American cartoonists will be "Will everything be going to Nigeria?"

1 comments:

Mark Mayerson said...

I have always said that it was only a matter of time before the animation industry migrated to Africa, simply because it was poorer than anywhere else. From an employer standpoint, all that matters is cheap labor and enough political stability to protect their investment.

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