MY MOVIE, FELICIMA WILL CHANGE THE FACE OF NOLLYWOOD
Henry Omeronye is not given to self adulation. As a director, he has a roll of musical vides to prove his mettle and as a movie director, he has certainly paid his dues. A pioneer musical and movie director, some of Henry’s productions helped in building confidence into other directors, this writer was on set last year when the final editing of his new movie, Felicima was completed. in this interview with our correspondent, Henry spoke on his incursion into movie production and on new the movie titled. Felicima. Enjoy it.
CLASS ABOVE OTHER LOCALLY PRODUCED MOVIE?
My brother, I directed the movies and I can tell you that the bulk of the equipment we used on location were the types you can only find abroad. The effects in the movie will blow the minds of Nigerians when they see the movie. Apart from that, Felicima is a story that dwells in an area that Nollywood has never operated.
This movie has three different parts to it and I know they all will affect viewers. There is the human interest angle which has to do with dealing with a cripple, the psychic angle that tells you that another fellow can do great things if given the opportunity to and the third is the antagonist part, that no matter what you do, there is always somebody around the corner trying to pull you down. And these are forces we deal with every day.
ARE YOU GOING TO PREMIERE THE MOVIE BECAUSE THAT SEEMS TO BE THE IN-THING IN TODAY’S NOLLYWOOD?
Of course, we are looking at doing that, but for now, we are negotiating with some prominent marketers who have shown interest in the movie,
After my graduation, Iwent into real show business as a dancer and takeing roles as a model from agencies. Idid one or two major jobs for Maggi but all these Ieas concentrated on my dancing. Itook part in several competitions but stopped because my parents wouldn’t let me.
I give kudos to late Tina Onwudiwe because it was in 1989/90 that the late J. T. Tom West and I wre opportune to meet with her. W started working on her musical video project. And among all the qualified and known names then, she chose J. T. and me to make her videos.
She gave us the tall order of creating the dance steps for the two songs and the other was to select dancers for the videos.
J. t. and I practically walked the streets begging everybody we met, “would you like to dance in a musical video?”.
At the end of the day, we got 25 people composed mainly of Majek Fashek, Oliver D’Coques’s dancers and a few others.
So Tina was my first breakthrough because it was through her that people began to know that I and my late partner, J. T. had something to offer. The two videos shot us straight into the limelight. After that, we also featured in a few other videos like Alex O’s, Daniel Wilson’s, Alex Zetto’s and a few other artistes’ videos. There weren’t many dancers then.
So over the years, I went from being a young man looking for where to stand to being a young man wanting to make videos.
You can remember Orits Williki, years back, he did a musical video of one of songs and if you see that video up till date, I’m sure you will applaud it.
I think it was Dudu that directed the video in 1992. In those days when you own a studio and a job is done in your video, you own the right. But I knew the contributions of other people who were not part of Dudu productions.
When we did the Tina Onwudiwe video at solar production, the studio took the credit and so, may individuals were denied credits and that explains why people like us did not see the lights on time.
What I’m going to say may sound boastful but the musical video of one of the songs of Mr. Kool I can say started the musical revolution in Nigeria.
As far back as 1998 after the music industry had gone down and there were no artiste nor videos, Mr. Kool manager to put himself together, got some fiancés, to make a good musical video for himself. That job was done by Jason and me.
And because of the quality of the video, a lot of people thought Mr. Kool was an American and the video shot abroad! Musical video at this time was used as interlude on TV and apart from Cally Ikpe’s Live beats, there was no proper musical space.
Eventually, Kool said he would like to make a video that would make people realize that he is a Nigerian and that the job is done by Nigerians too. And that was when we made the second track called, ‘Don’t call me brother’.
This was the video which in my own opinion gave a total revelution of the musical video industry because when the job went on air, it was a Nigerian who lived here and that the video was done by Nigerians who lived here. It was J. T. and I that directed the job. It was then people started having hopes and started enquiring, “Who did this? Where is the studio, where this was done? How was it edited?”
The new video became a yardstick in measuring other video so much that when you take your video to TV station, the first question they’d ask is, have you seen Mr. Kool’s video? Is yours as good as it?. I got encouraged when I began to see people like Paul Obazele and Ayo Adedeji came on board, trying to make good videos.
And of course you know that in Nigeria, talents abound but these young talents cannot realize these talents if there are no investments.
With the advent of more quality video, people started bringing out more money to invest in music, and of course more money means right kind of equipment and right hands to do the job. And this is where Kenny and D-One come in.
Most people don’t like them and they say all kinds of things about them but we must also give credits to whom it is due, they took Nigerian music to its next level and even beyond.
They are the first to pooch their artistes to a very considerable height. An act that a company like EMI of those days could have propelled to greater heights.
WILL YOU SAY OUT INDUSTRY HAS COME OF AGE?
Yes, I even think it is lagging behind and I put that blame to our local TV and radio stations. They have a lot to do. While MTV Base is paying Nigerian artistes royalty for airing their videos, some Nigerian TV and radio stations are taking money to air same videos.
Some stations owned by prominent Nigerians who have helped build the industry are behind his extortion.
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