 The Nigerian film industry has continued to gain popularity across the continent and on the global stage. Even with its popularity and growth, it is due to be criticized on many fronts, one of which is that it is a quantity-driven industry as opposed to a quality one. Stakeholders have given certain factors for churning out substandard movies, some have said budget restrictions, weak plots, repetitive dialogue, and the overwhelming lack of public-private partnership, not leaving our government participation. Since 2010, some positive developments have changed the nature of Nollywood. They include an influx of professional filmmakers, the rise in international festival and cinema tours, international primaries, collaborations with multinational companies, pan-Africanism and distribution via multiplexers. In this time, a film's release on VCD DVD began to happen later in its life, effectively disenfranchising Nollywood's traditional mass-market consumer base. The question I am interested in answering are, are Nollywood's filmmakers becoming more specialized in their art? And would it gentrifying? I used the word metaphorically to explore whether Nollywood increased in grandeur, appeal and acceptance amongst Nigeria's upper class. Influences lead into fast-rise and features of skitmakers, brand influencers and basically anyone with a little bit of fame. And has this become the domino effect catapulting skitmakers and brand influencers into a whole lot of fame? Well the Nollywood structure has been of concern to many veterans and one of them is Saeed Balogun. I will appeal to the government to give us structure and the government don't have problem, it is we movie makers. They tend to do riots in the state, it is the national assembly that should give me a structure. Are they trying to make me powerless? Is it the dictatorship style of ruling? They don't know what to do. The question I ask myself at the time is, that honorable that is in charge of culture and code I can give me structure, does he know anything about movies? He's just looking for where to be, he doesn't even know. It is one we have a lot of us that can bring the revolution. About five or six of us in the assemblies we can scream, we tell them, God damn you, you know what I'm suffering, you know what I'm going through now, so speak my language. But if you tend to put one honorable man there who was elected, who was and probably a mechanical engineer or an economist or something who doesn't even know my pain, we can get it right. It is the structure. After the structure, yeah, the investors can now smile because if you invest in, they put money on my table, I mean, they want me to put food on my table, put in billions and I'll give you back millions or thousands, will you come back some other time? Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. When the government gets it right, the investors please, if they are coming, I always tell them, please invest in me, in what I can pay back. I am the president of the Golden Movie Ambassadors of Nigeria. We believe in restructuring, in repositioning and getting everything right. An ambassador means you can represent your country everywhere. That is where professionalism comes in. A lot of people are just coming in from everywhere. We have more than 50 associations, 31 performing, da, da, da, what are we looking for, why can't we be one? Professionalism can come in when you have a strong structure that can guide it. New talents are essential for growth and encourage new faces into the industry but proper training is vital for theatre and of course, funeral. Training is critical. We need to create a platform that gives everybody the opportunity to be trained and then also we need to look at also some means of internship on productions, take people on and guide them and show them how to do what you do. If we look at theatre, theatre itself is a massive training ground for talents that will end up even on screen. I think training is important. A lot of people learn on the job which is good but I think where we would get it right is if production happens, you know, all attempts to train, give basic training to people that are not necessarily trained, that are venturing into the industry. You have actors. There are people that are good, they are not trained actors but on their own, like you said, skit makers, they didn't go to anywhere but their skits are so involved that they have so many people looking forward to see what they are going to do and then you see they can hone their skills and use them but then again, it is a factor of the industry having that capacity to train, having the infrastructure to train. A lot of this we would want to, if the opportunity is there, gain more knowledge on how to do film, how to be better actors or producers or things like that but then we need to have that platform that gives them that opportunity, that's one. And two, production companies also should look at ways of, at times some training do not necessarily have to be formal, they could be informal through internships and things like that. And then skit makers also, at times when they've made so much film, they are popular, they feel they have arrived but no, there are certain basics you still need to learn. At times you should learn also to try and hone your skills so that it can be better, that you are popular now does not mean you cannot do better things, milking that popularity that you have gained now through the skits you do, which we notice a lot of people don't do. A lot of directors will just allow you to do your thing. I've heard of a set where the director will just say, okay, really learn, do your thing, do your thing. But at times you should be able to tell somebody, this is what I want you to do, this is the way I want it to be. That helps with equality. The next thing I will look at is casting. You know, people cast for the wrong reason. It is good to cast with the mind that this person is going to draw eyeballs or is popular, hopefully the person will help with publicity. It is good, but when you look at certain characters and you know that you need somebody to deliver top notch performance and then that character is unique in that way. You know, it's not something you can just cast anybody because of your numbers and you overlook that fact and you just put someone that cannot deliver on the character because you think the person has got numbers, then that drags the quality of the production. It is not acceptable for popular faces to just go on and start filming without necessary kinds of training. For us in Actors Guild of Nigeria, it's something we totally have wore and we condemn. So you find that sometimes before you catch them, they are finished making the film. So we are gradually working with the censors board in Nigeria to see that some of these things are put to a stop. You must have a certain level of qualification. Even if you have graduated from school and you have not done this business before, you still need some kind of an elementary approach where you will be giving some ideas, instructions and what to do before joining the Norwood industry. It's not all about, I can act, I cannot act. Sometimes you see these popular people, when they come to set to act, they don't know terminologies of the industry. When you tell somebody who is acting and you say the director says, caught, he doesn't know or she doesn't know what caught means, you understand. All of these things are the rudiments of the industry that they needed to go through. But because we are in a country where everything goes, people don't seem to follow rules and regulations, but we are gradually closing on them. With the advent of internet, social media and instant entertainment platforms, many reality TV stars and skit makers have reason to fame. In this part of the world, becoming a top celebrity is either by ad work, persistence or through reality shows. As we know that the road to fame is a tough one around here, a few of our top Nigerian celebrities credit their prominence to reality shows which have given them the opportunity. One of them is She'i Awu Law, who didn't see it as a challenge for the Norwood to cast popular faces in movies as long as the directors have a sense of direction and vision they hope to achieve in the movie. Well, I don't see why not. Everybody is entitled to be able to do what it is that they want to do. The only thing is when it becomes constant and if there's a regulatory body involved, if it's a constant thing where they've literally become a constant film, they need to be registered, okay, then they can go and do that. But I believe everybody should have... I don't see a reason why I would not put who I want to put in my own production when I want to put them in my production. I mean, I see that person to fit the role accordingly, to fit the character, Bible properly. So why not I'll bring the person on board? So I don't see anything wrong with it. As such, it just depends on who's creating the movie and who's moving it is. Sometimes you want a particular kind of thing, but you're not willing to give what you take or take what you give how to speak. If you're going to be professional, be professional to the tee, follow your... I don't know how long the line I want to start using. If you really have the bone in your chest here or... Is that sentiment of, ah, now help us to make it known. If you start a particular kind of way, go all the way down to the end. Professionalism in the industry, I can't say varies from, from what I say, companies to companies or from different organizations to organizations, how professional they are, or they are mortal, or they are modus or perandum of how they want to handle things. So, you know, that's the thing. My, you know, for me now, I can just have a laid back working environment where I want everybody wearing shorts and t-shirt and being more laid back as to probably the song that wants everybody in a tie and... So it just depends on, you know, the modus or perandum of that particular organization that is handling the production of whatever movie or, you know, that's handling that particular production for the time being while you are working. You know, you should give what I'm saying. There are regulatory bodies, but do they really carry out their duties? How do they manage professionalism in the Norwood industry? For us, we have a constitution that we're working with, but we are trying to come up with the memorandum of understanding in the industry, whereby even if you are involved in any show or something where you have been elected as maybe highest winner and all of that, you would need to still pass through one or two trainings and then belong through a group, either as a producer or as an actor before you are practicing in the industry. Yeah, professionalism would have been political here. Every industry needs professionalism. For us in Norwood, we are grappling with that because the Norwood industry is an industry that started without entry point and without exit point and it continued to grow without anybody checking it. Now it has grown beyond bounds that wherever you are coming with discipline, it becomes like it's too difficult to instill discipline among practitioners because there were no laid down rules from beginning. There were no laid down rules from beginning. There were a lot of illiterates. There were a lot of people who didn't go to school. There were a lot of people who didn't have, didn't see the four walls of any school, but because they are talented, they have made it big and they are now in the industry. So it is a haggling task at this point. So we are calling on people who have been here before in the industry to so come back and say, look, this is getting out of hand. We have to come back to the basis. Let's see where we structure. Every actor, every producer, every director, you must belong to where your people are. Let us begin to see places. We need professionalism. So I don't just do things out of proportion. The Nollywood industry is a growing work in progress and the Nigerian Film Sciences Board needs to enforce the parameters that positively influence the creative processes from writing a screen to post-production. Is this body officially empowered to ensure professionalism in Nollywood? Well, hope we find answers.