 Welcome back. It's time for us to take a look at a second hot topic. Today is a Technophile Tuesday and we take a look at technology critically and on this hot topic we want to take a look at access to technology and how it's broadening our imagination as we host an Hollywood film maker, film editor and director in the person of King Asu. Good morning King Asu. Good morning. I'm very happy to be here with you this morning. So happy to have you join us to take a look at the future of Nigerian cinema and the advancing technology behind it. Now you and your members are building startups to develop niche solutions for the second largest film industry in the world which is Nollywood. Nollywood is a big phenomenon. You contribute 2.3% to the GDP. Tell us how are you using technology to advance Nollywood from back in the days when we had living in bondage and the rest of them? Well to start with I appreciate you for choosing to talk about the Nollywood film industry today. When you do this you help in the advancement of the film industry in Nigeria. The film industry started actively about 30 years ago with living in bondage which was made by OK Ubundion 4. I think it started all like a joke because OK was selling movies in those days. He would go to China buy films and then come and sell, you know go travel all over the world to buy films and come and sell. And so he got to a point where he thought that why can't we just start telling our own stories. And so he went back to his business partners again in China and then asked cannot buy a camera what can I use to start making my films and that's okay you can buy a camera. So he started with the DHL cameras of those days. These were cameras that were capturing images on just 1K then. In fact it was I think it was less than 1K. The images was less than 1K at the time. Gradually technology started to come in and then improve to 2K as early 2000s, 2000s up to 2005 digitalization started to come in where the filmmakers graduated from 1K to 2K. And at that time it was a big deal to shoot your film on 2K. That is 1920 by 1080. It was a big deal. I remember the first time I edited a film that was shot on 2K. That was Leky Wives, the Leky Wives TV series. Then when we shot Leky Wives it was on 2K. And then editing was a big deal because you have to upgrade your digital edit system. I was using ADOS at the time with Windows Assistant. So we had to try and upgrade the system to meet up the standard. And I remember that when we finished editing and mastered the film and sent it to South Africa then, to Africa Magic at the time, we had this problem where it was returned to us because the format didn't match their broadcast format then. So a whole lot of things have evolved over time. That is how many years ago. Fast forward to today, 2K is also gradually beginning to become outdated. A lot of people are still shooting on 2K. Yes, but what is in vogue now is you hear a lot of filmmakers using 4K. Some shoot above 4K. Some go as far as 6K. A lot of digital cameras have come out that can do a whole lot. And so you begin to see very tremendous differences in the quality of picture quality of sound. Even in the area of sound recording, you see wonderful sound equipments that are coming up now. In those days, we used to use the AXDAN 42, but now even the company has improved so much that you get a whole lot of very beautiful grip sound, super beautiful sound. From 2 channels now, they go up to 6 channels, some 8 channels, some even 12 channels. So the sound man can control what he wants to hear. Some sound people can comfortably film with the generator around because they know how to shut down the generator noise and continue filming. We know all the challenges we have here in Africa, in the area of making films. You go to film in a particular place and there is so much noise, there is a whole lot of distractions now that will disturb your picture, sometimes dust in the environment, sometimes just a lot of things that disturb filming generally. But digitalization has helped a lot. And film makers trust me, they are doing great. We all have to salute them in that area. They are doing great right now. If you watch current movies, you will see that film makers are doing wonderfully well in that area. They have adapted to this digitalization stuff. Indeed, cinematographers now shoot in higher definition. And of course, you now have better management of your time because as you have alluded, instead of spending days shooting, you now have higher technology, better technology that makes it easier for you to work. That also impacts on the labour market. Nollywood is known to employ a large number of the youth, indeed, people into the industry. Talk to us about how this improvement in technology has boosted your resources and helped in taking people out of the labour market. Technology generally has done a lot. Let me talk to you about the area of distribution, how technology really helped. I've been in the industry for about 14 or 15 years or so. I have a senior colleague who has been there for 25 years, 30 years. I started from the very beginning. People like Chico Benson, Zepe Jiru and the rest of them. At the time, when we had what we used to call the marketer filmmakers then, we had marketer directors. When you finish making a film, the distribution was only done in DVDs at the time. Even before DVDs, we had the video cassettes then. Then we moved up to CDs later on DVDs. And of course, you know, the technology has moved now from DVDs to Blu-ray. And then it went for that. Now, if you go to houses, I'm very sure you will hardly see the blame DVDs because digitalisation has taken over. So distribution is now easier. There are a lot of distribution channels now. And so that has created a situation where there is increment in production activities all over the place. And of course, when there is increased production activities, you will also see that there is employment. A lot of people are involved in making their own films because you can actually pick your smartphone and you are able to tell a short story. You can see skid makers all over the place. There's YouTube. There is Amazon. A lot of channels where you can just make your film and put it there. It's no longer like it was in the days where if you finish making a film, you master it, put it into a tape, and then you go to Nira. We had a company in Nira at the time. Nira, I don't know if they are still there. You go to Nira. You talk of making the CD plates. After making the CD plates, you know, you put them in cartons and then you start looking at distribution. You have to physically look for people around Iweka, Ruru, Nicha, Panru, Raba, in Dumota, all the markets that had major distributors. You have to go to them and then you work out how to send your films around to market them. It was a very big problem at that time. People regularly, turning films regularly, was a bit more difficult because you have to wait until when your movies finish selling. When they sell them, you see what you have been able to make to be able to make your next film. But now distribution is easier. You finish your movie today. If there is no way to sell it, you just look at it. You create your YouTube channel. You dump it there. You monetize it. In fact, even Facebook, you can put your film on Facebook because Facebook too pays. If you have somebody who can manage your Facebook page from overseas, if you're in Nira here, because I think they have no open ability for us to be able to deal with directly using our Facebook pages here to monetize. Before you are able to monetize a Facebook page in Nira, you must have to have a manager who is based abroad. So digitalization has helped in creating more distribution avenues where you can finish your product and you put it there and you begin to make your money. So you can keep filming. And because of that, so many avenues where you can be supporting your films, it has made people to begin to, you can film as many times as possible. You don't have to wait for returns because production processes now for those who do skips is cheaper. You can pick your phone and record one or two short stories and then you put it out there. And that is it. So it has helped. I can tell you that because of digitalization, you have increased production and that, of course, has resulted in increased revenue. Tell me about the quality of your budget now. I mean, we saw lots of low budget movies in the past. All that is changing with the people like Moe, Abu Dhu, and so many others who have joined Nollywood in making films really, really interesting and captivating. What sort of high budget movies? Hello. Oh, we're having a bit of technology problem right now and I hope that is resolved. I've been talking with Nollywood movie producer and actor, King Asu, on the future of Nigerian cinema and the advancing technology behind it. And he's been giving us some very useful information on how they started and how they've managed to use technology to advance the quality of movies that they make and increased output and production and King Asu. I lost a bit there. Can you please repeat that question? Definitely. You were talking about budgeting? Yes. I was talking about budgeting. Back then, we had lots of, we saw lots of low budget movies, but now with people like Moe, Abu Dhu, people, a whole lot of people have come into the fray and have increased the quality and the budget of the movies that we now see. Talk to us about this. Yes. When we started to have the return of Nigerian cinemas, we had Netflix coming in. We had a lot of other distribution networks coming in. Naturally, the quality of film had to improve. And of course, the budget because quality comes with budget, big budget. The budget has to get bigger for you to get a certain level of quality. If you are filming, for example, on 2K and 4K, that may affect your budget. If you're going to the cinema where they're moving now and the cinema is outputting to the audience on 4K, of course, you have to look for a 4K camera. The cost generally is not the same. If you're renting a 2K camera, it is cheaper than the cost of a 4K camera. So those are the things that naturally increased the cost of production. And of course, if you look at big players like Moe, Abu Dhu, you look at big players like in most of the production companies you see around now, you will see that they are making films for very big distributors. If you go to the cinemas and you're going to Netflix, for example, Netflix, you can't give them any movie that is less than 2K. That is less than 4K. All Netflix movies, the standard is that it must be 4K. So the cost of cameras, the cost of equipment, the cost of hiring a cast and crew has improved because people are also seeing, the cast and crew are also seeing that the producers are making a huge turnover from their work. And so if you hear that the box office has 200 million, 300 million, 400 million, when next that producer comes to you, of course, the actors too will increase their cost and their fee and order. So generally, to make a good film, it costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of money to make a good film because you will want technology when we did 10 vegans, a blessing egg based, 10 vegans, big concept production. There was a particular scene where we needed like 1,000 persons to appear. But of course we couldn't cast 1,000 persons here in Lagos. That movie was shot somewhere around Agia and we were able to get 34 extras. And we wanted those 34 extras to appear on screen as 1,000. And so you need CGI to be able to do that. And that cost a lot of money. So what do you do? You get a CGI person who got a guy close to broke, who came in from Abuja. The guy was, he's very good with CGI. He came in. And I think the entire length of that particular scene was a combination of all the CGI scenes was about six minutes. And that cost a lot of money. I don't want to mention the figure here. But you know, technology costs a lot. If you're going to make a quality film, it will have to cost a lot of money because to be able to get those softwares that are original, because some of the times when you look, when you watch Nigerian movies, you can watch an action movie where you see policemen or exchange of gunfire. And you see shooting that happens. They will shoot a vehicle and then the glass will not break. They will shoot a vehicle. There will be no preparation of the vehicle. You'll see the vehicle in the next scene. All clean, no holes, nothing, no bullet, scratches and all that. You know, go on those days, whoever does kind of mistakes there. It wasn't really a mistake. It was poor budgeting. You know, the technology wasn't there. But now, if you watch some Nigerian movies, you will see these things happening live. You will see that if there is a fire, you will see the fire to look real. If there's gunshot, you will see it to look real. If there is a cut, it will look very real. Because you touched on employing very solid technology and it costs a lot of money. These are the things that have pushed up the budget of production to the high heavens. Yes, I'm glad you touched on that film trick aspect because I was also going to ask you, when you watch some foreign movies and I give a lot of credit to Nollywood movie producers and directors, you're doing an amazing job. But sometimes when we watch some foreign movies and compare them with some action movies that Nollywood produces, you find yourself asking some questions and you wish you could see more of the kind of technology you see deployed in Hollywood movies in Nollywood movies. Do you still have that challenge? Because we still seem to see some of that. There is. The challenge is still there. Because apart from having the technology, the softwares, most of these things are made easier by softwares, post production softwares. So sometimes when you have the software, the second thing that will be required is the user. Can the film editor, can the CDR a person apply this software properly? Can they be used? So that takes us to training. Film makers will need to train. If you are interested in CDR, you have to go and train and understand how to use these things properly. Because they are primary CDR softwares, where you go and you just know how to bring out, for example, fire from the mouth of a gun, smoke after firing a gun and all that. But it doesn't stop there. Can you make the vehicle look well-prepared? If the pony vehicle, can you make it look real? Can the fire look real? Not make the fire look plastic? You see fire and it's looking plastic. You see the Bombay building and the building goes off in flame and you see the flame looking white. It looks fake. So it depends on how in terms, original the technology is and of course the supplier, the person, the editor, the person who uses it, the person who applies it. So that brings us to training. I think over the years, normally what is trying, most of the young, I tell you some of the directors now, the CDR people, the soundmen, they are very young people who need time to train and get better over time, you know. So I think we will get there. We are improving. Trust me, if you watch some Nigerian movies now, you will give it to us. No doubt you are improving. There is another question that one wonders sometimes about when you hear that this movie grossed so-so-so amount. So you wonder, the box office ratings, how verifiable are they? Well, some filmmakers may not like this, but I'll tell you this for free. Some of the figures are falsified. Some of the figures are falsified. Yes, yes. Some are done for marketing purposes, but some are true too. Some are true. Give it to some of the people, some are true. There was a time we were trying to make a movie, I think we were trying to go to the cinema with the movie, and we went to a sponsor. Somebody suggested that we meet someone. I want to go to the person. The person said, well, I can give you 50 million to do this movie, but you're going to tell the press that I give you 100. Tell the press that the movie costs 100. So sometimes the executive producers who bring in money, they want to, maybe they have gotten this money from a third party that you don't know of, whatever reason. They just want you to hype the budget and make it look so huge, so that the movie was made 100 million. And some of the times it doesn't relate because we don't have a proper check and balance system. And of course, even in the cinema, I say what they tell you, the movie has made 200 million box office release and all that. We don't have a proper system here that checks overseas. It's automatic. When you hear 200 million, it is 200 million from the box office because they have a digital process where, as people are buying the cards to watch the movie, it's automated. So at the end of the week, you can be sure that 200 million is 200 million. I can't be too sure of our systems here if they are digitalized. But some have time to be corrected. Some may be correct. Some are falsified. Some are film tricks all the way. Well, thank you so much. King Asu is a filmmaker, film editor and director with Nigeria's biggest movie industry in the whole wide world. And we're very proud of that indeed. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Well, this is the package we have for you today. It's been amazing on the breakfast this morning. Thank you so much for your time. I am Maureen Menong Weizigwe. Before I go, I'll give you our quote of the day. And it is coming from none other than John Lasseter. The art challenges the technology and the technology inspires the art. Do not forget it is a technophile Tuesday. So there you have it. The art challenges the technology and the technology challenges the art. That's from John Lasseter. I am Maureen Menong Weizigwe. Have a splendid day and join us tomorrow on the breakfast.