What are you up to?
Last year was not a particularly happy year in terms of job satisfaction or in terms of monetary returns. But, of course, we have put last year behind and we are back working.

When you say we, who are you referring to?
Me and my company. We have series of plans for the year. We are about to start working on a film called Girl Next Door. It is a very powerful story and it is a family movie. Of course, with a tilt towards the theme of prostitution in the country. But I am not taking it from the angle that a girl is a prostitute because she is poor. Here is a rich girl who goes into prostitution.

Are you going to be using any new faces or would you insist on the big faces for commercial reasons, especially the banned ones?
Talking about the ban, what the marketers have done is to try and sanitise the industry, and since nobody is working in isolation, we are all working together. We are all working as a team. Although, when the action was taken, some of us were not informed. When they told us the rationale behind what they did, we had no other choice but to say, maybe for a while, it is okay. It is not a ban as such; it is just that, for some time, they will be kept aside for others to be tried. They really cannot be stopped from working if they want to work, but this is all for the growth of the industry. No, I am not using anyone of them for now. Yes, at a period, I had broached the idea with one or two of them, a lady and a man. I don't want to mention names. But, of course, I am moving on. When it is time for them to work, we can work together on other projects. But I have contacted other notable artistes. Some of them already have scripts. What I do is that I do not call for auditions. I do what is called table casting.

Why?
Well, we used to do auditions in the past, but you end up making many enemies, because the artistes are friends.

But are you sure to get the right persons, if you table cast?
Yes, I get the right persons.

So, the chances of using a brand new face here is very slim, if not zero.
No, I have a lot of photographs of new persons. I look at the photographs and they have at one time or the other been auditioned. So, I know the capability.

What if this brand new person has never been auditioned?
If a new person walks into my office, and he or she is good for the role that I have, I can actually give him or her that role and put aside the other person that I may have already cast for the role. It is as simple as that. I have been part of the creation of the very best artistes, the so-called G10, or how do you call them? I can say that 80% of them, I discovered. So, creating new talents will not be difficult for me. In fact, that is part of the reason why some of us actually supported the ban order, because it made the industry look like only a few artistes could do the job, whereas this is not so. At a point, those people were nobodies, and like you said, if you do not give room for the so-called unknown face to become known, how will he ever become somebody.

What are you doing with television?
We have a project called Storm. It is a soap opera which will begin any minute from now. The script is being worked on. I am actually writing the scripts now. There is another soap called The Unknown. It was created by a young lady, a sister to our very famous Genevieve Nnaji. Her name is Beverly Nnaji. She is the older sister. We have the first 26 episodes which we will begin work on very soon. So you can see, very soon, this office is going to be buzzing with activities. We are going to be using these soaps to introduce new artistes, new talents. You are only accepted based on your performance.

How will you be marketing your new works? Distribution and marketing of films in this country remains a big problem. Will you limit it to the Idumota and Onitsha marketers or are you looking to take the works out of the country, to festivals and, say, premieres?
I am not a film marketer as it is called in the Nigerian parlance. Do not forget, our office is registered as producers of film, television programmes and documentaries, commercials and also, distributors. We are also international distributors. We are presently in partnership with one of the biggest distributors in the world, Worldwide Entertainment. I am proud to say that they will soon be distributing Nigerian films via Australia, via the whole of Europe, via the whole of Asia, wherever. Their concentration is in America, in Asian countries, in the Carribeans, Australia, the Netherlands. So very soon, our films will be seen, not just seen as pirated copies that trickle out into the world. They will be seen as original copies all over the world, on television. They will not be sold as video, but on DVD. We the film makers, the owners of the films, have started talking to a few people. We are authentic, we are original. Money will come back to you. All my life, I have striven to make sure that Nigerian films are seen all over the world. Over the years, I have travelled widely, attending festivals and whatever. I do not travel as Ralph Nwadike of Finnu International alone, I go there as Ralph Nwadike, a film maker from Nigeria. So what we have been able to do with this Australian company is that you will not only be expecting your returns from Idumota, or Iweka road,. You will also be expecting foreign exchange from outside the shores of this country and, that way, our film industry will be better appreciated the world over.

At what point did the marketers lose it? I know that years back, films were sold.
Films are no longer being sold as they should, especially since they can be rented. Basically, when 40-50 films are released every week or every other week, we do not have that kind of buying power, for goodness sake. Then, do not also forget that video sales, as it were, is dwindling. Virtually everybody now has a VCD or DVD player in the home, so they can watch the CDs in their homes. But I think the main problem started when people started releasing films recklessly.

So they killed themselves?
I wouldn't really say that they killed themselves. Don't forget that they were trying to introduce something new. They released and did not accept that all films cannot be released at the same time. Nobody wanted to wait, because he was thinking of his investment. It became a matter of, you want three releases, then you have three. They, too, themselves have seen that this thing cannot work. The release of films has to be regulated. There is nothing wrong in releasing 8-10 or 12 titles every fortnight; it is fair enough. But to release 60 films every week or every other week is not a good thing. I am sure they are also working on that. I wouldn't really agree entirely that they have lost it, because marketers are still very much in control.

I understand that they can barely sell 20,000 copies now, is this true?
Yes, the films are not very good, not very well made but films are still selling. Indeed, it is not like it used to be in the past where you made a film and the minimum number of copies you sold was 50,000. Yes, it could get better really.

What do you do to get yourself in the right frame of mind to write a script?
Before I became a producer, I was a writer; I am still a writer. I went to school, I was trained at the NTA. I read Dramatic Arts at Ife. Writing is a gift from God. When I go shopping with my wife, I could actually, while waiting for her, be writing in the car. I could do it in the plane. As soon as the idea comes, I simply put it down. That is how it works for me. You simply cannot force yourself to be a writer. Apart from whatever training you get, it must be a gift first before it can be polished.

How long have you been a film maker?
About twenty-five years now. I started in 1980, actually, writing with NTA channel 10, in Play of the Week. And since then, there has been no going back.