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STEP 1: SELECT YOUR ACTORS:
Do this even before writing the script or determining the plot of the movie. The golden rule of Nollywood is: the more the number of popular actors you can cram into your movie, the better your sales will be. The actors don’t all have to play major roles. Most of them only need to appear on screen for five to ten seconds throughout the whole movie. You could get them to walk past in supermarkets or on the street or just walk right past the camera in the middle of a live shoot!

STEP 2: CHOOSE A TITLE FOR THE MOVIE:
Choose a title that clearly explains the plot of the movie. Nollywood audiences do not like vague titles. Examples of great movie titles are; THE MAD MAN, THE STUPID HUSBAND, THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, I’M SEARCHING FOR A HUSBAND etc. HINT: you can use a phrase that is repeated by all the actors in the movie.

STEP 3: PRINT YOUR MOVIE POSTER:
This has been described as the most tasking part. It’s where real talent comes in as you are faced with different options from different schools of thought. One proposes that you tell the whole story on the poster. The easier it is for people to be able to predict the plot of the movie and the final outcome, from looking at the poster, the better the movie will do in the market. Another school of thought suggests cramming the faces of the fifteen or so actors you convinced to make appearances in the movie on the poster.
In addition to the options described above, the pictures on the poster can show them doing things they never did in the movie, e.g. Desmond Elliot holding a machine gun and sweating despite the fact he played a three-minute role as a doctor in the movie. You are also allowed to include one or two actors who didn’t actually appear in the movie. No one will ever know until they have seen the whole movie, and by then it’d be too late. Most would be successful movies fail at this stage…it is very demanding.

STEP 4: GET YOUR ACTORS TO START ACTING
Everyone will naturally gravitate towards his or her instinctive roles, and before long your movie will have acted itself out. Jim Iyke will always play the fine boy, bad boy, Pete Edochie, a billonaire red-capped chief, Aki and Paw Paw will always be street urchins living from prank to prank and Osuofia, can be whatever he wants to be. He always comes as a bonus as he never needs a script.

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STEP 5: DETERMINE HOW MANY SLAPS WILL FEATURE IN THE MOVIE
The more the slaps the merrier. A Nollywood movie without slaps is like Bollywood without dance. Jealous or angry lovers must always slap their rivals or partners. And for good measure the party that gets slapped must recover quickly and “return to sender”.

STEP 6: GET A STETHOSCOPE
Get one of your lesser-known actors to play the doctor. No movie can be qualified to bear the Nollywood tag if there’s nobody holding a stethoscope and shaking his head saying: I’m sorry we lost him. I’m sorry…” Also don’t forget to include a hysterical nurse whose only line is “Doctor, Doctor, please come! Doctor, Doctor help…”

STEP 7: DECIDE WHO IS TO DIE
This is usually quickly decided by picking straws or naturally decided by the first actor that has to leave the set for serious emergencies such as a situation where his attention is needed on another set. However in an unlikely situation that this does not arise, decide who dies (usually an unjust death). Choose a means of death- one, or a combination of the following: Gun-trotting assassins, food poisoning, heart attack or voodoo.
A crying (or rather wailing) scene is very appropriate at this point. Also there is no need for a tissue, the more tears and mucous you can get, even on the lens of the camera, the better.

STEP 8: REPEAT STEPS 3-7
However, to avoid monotony you can include people chatting and laughing, driving around town in luxury cars searching for nothing in particular. Party or office scenes where multi-billion contracts are discussed, also for added bonus show people shopping in upscale boutiques and dinning in fancy restaurants (at least even if the movie flops you are sure of something from sponsors). You can also go to other movie producers and get clips of movies that got edited in other productions.
Oh and don’t forget flashbacks! This can be very helpful at this stage. All you need is to change from a coloured set to black and white one and emphasize on the passage of time: 6 months, 6 years or 60 years.
The characters themselves don’t necessarily need to age or have a change of clothing. Also at this stage you should consider getting a soundtrack. This should be left simple and straightforward and should basically tell the story. You can always get one of your actors to do the singing, usually at no extra charge.

STEP 9
At this stage you should check the length of the movie. It should be at least four hours. If not, repeat/ continue step 8. If however it’s up to four hours, chop it up into two, two-hour portions and name them parts 1 & 2. No need for editing that’s for losers and amateur.
If however, you spent more than one week on steps (1)-(9), you are a failure and not cut out for Nollywood. Discard everything and hide your head in shame. You are not even fit to be called a Nollywood has-been.

STEP 10: MAKE YOUR TV ADVERT:
Take shots of your most action-ridden scenes in the movie (e.g. the slaps and crying scenes). You may even include scenes from Hollywood blockbusters like Terminator 3. Also important at this point is the voice over. A breathless voice-over reeling out the following words (in no particular order): explosive, scintillating, romantic, tragic, comic, action-packed, life changing. Grab your copy now, now, now! You are only allowed one sentence for all these adjectives. Also the voice over must reel out the names of all the popular actors and also the people behind the scene, and finally end it with a moral warning like “hmmm, ashewo no be work oo!”

REPORT ABUSE If you receive a scam mail via email: write their email provider at their “abuse” address (abuse@yahoo.com, abuse@onebox.com etc.) and include the 419er message with its headers; complain about the 419 message; and ask that the account be shut down. Please remember that it is important to include the message’s full header information. This is necessary for tracking the message’s point of origin.

LASTLY:
Give God all the Glory

SIDE KICK:
The achievements of Nollywood in such a short time goes to show the level of ingenuity Nigerians can attain even in the face of little or no support. However it’s high time stakeholders involved in the production and marketing of movies come to realize the movie industry is one of the most powerful means of portraying a nation either in a good or bad light more so as these are stories of Nigerians told by Nigerians.
It is ironic that we all seem to go on the defensive whenever Nigeria is portrayed negatively by the international media, but on the home front we not only condone but even patronize movies that project Nigerians as a people neck deep in ritual and voodoo practices. The dangers of such negative imagery came to fore recently when a riot broke out in Ghana as a result of the discovery of a corpse with some organs missing. The riot, which took about 3 days to quell, left four Nigerians dead and several others injured. It was however later discovered that the dead man was not a victim or ritual murder but was murdered as a result of an illicit affair with his brothers’ wife.
Furthermore, unlike our western counterparts who while producing movies bordering on the supernatural leave a window open whereby the occurrences in the movie might be explained as mere chance occurrences or might even be given scientific backing, thereby creating an avenue for the viewer to be the judge. Our Nigerian and indeed African moviemakers paint a picture, which essentially give credence to occultism and voodoo with an underlining advice for viewers to engage in such acts if they must, albeit with caution.

Ref…..The original article by Tolu Ogunlesi appeared in The Daily Independent.

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