Michael Paddi is a student of the University Of Education,Winneba, pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration. He is a Creative Writer, a Poet, a Transformational speaker championing leadership and human capacity. In the film industry, he is a Scriptwriter, Production Designer and Art Director. He is also a songwriter, a rapper, and does a little bit of singing.
Paddi's presentation on Redefining Cinema and the Scope of Contemporary African Filmdom is presented below:
A key highlight of his presentation is the use of the word "Filmdom", which he coined himself as a compound word connoting "Film Kingdom" which is a variant for "film industry". He moved on to say that every Kingdom has defined structures and regulations that govern it. Hence, industry is institution, and institutions are artificial bodies. He then set an example with Hollywood, that it is not a name given to people who make films in America but an institution run by influential bodies which has been employed over the years by the U.S authorities and institutions as a medium for introducing and educating the world about future policies, intentions, inventions, speculative and anticipated inventions, technologies, job, security, automobile, trade, etc.
Cinema, what is it?
Paddi stated that the old British filmmakers call Cinema a
place or theatre for watching movies. Apparently, only few had television those
days. Recent filmmakers define Cinema as the art and technique in making motion
pictures. Unlike Theatre Art where the audience and the artists converge at one
place, Cinema reaches their audience digitally. Therefore he defines Cinema as digital
production or play. The evolution of Cinema from traditional to virtual Cinema
like Netflix, YouTube, etc is a big plague on the conventional filmmakers who
make money from sales of Compact Disks.
Nevertheless, the
virtual Cinema according to Paddi is also a promising niche for the contemporary
filmmakers. That's the youth who are willing to project their talents and make
money later, use phones to shoot short videos and upload it to the
internet, create their own audience, create traffic, sensitize their content
and attract sponsors. This is why we need to redefine Cinema in contemporary
terms. Virtual Cinema is indeed a great platform but it can be sinking ground
for the undiscerning young filmmakers. The fact that everyone is laughing
doesn't mean you're thriving. There are talent hunts behind the virtual Cinema
looking for genuine talents to employ and to empower that's why we must come together to create an
avenue for the talent hunts to find us easily.
We must search to understand how this Virtual Cinema works
and the requisite. Let's not be selfish. Those who know should give the
knowledge for free so as to push the industry.
Paddi highlighted various areas that go into the film production: Content, Career, Culture, Message which he tackled individually. Speaking about content he said : Cinema is a digital reality and so there's no limitation on its content so far as the concept is relevant, realizable, expressible and communicable.
Speaking to the issue of Career, he said; Cinema is not only about the studio, Cinema is a stimulation of reality and Cinema is about people. Once your profession or career serves people, you have a role in Cinema. As the industry needs marketers, economists, procurement managers, researchers, Medical practitioners, farmers, engineers, absolutely everybody.
He continued with Culture by saying; the contemporary Cinema thrives on diplomacy and so there's no limitation on culture. Therefore one doesn't necessarily have to produce a movie in their local dialect, but can pitch accent, promote fashion, food, merchandise, trait etc. Also, the virtual scouts are looking for indigenous traits or characters as well.
Then he spoke about Message saying: once there's something to be seen, or information to be sent across, Cinema has no imposition whatsoever.but where it threatens society's dignity, key stakeholders would interfere. Hence there's no limitation on what message to project on television. One can promote agriculture, innovation, education etc.
In response to a question asked as to whether there has been a fall in income, in either the former or the
virtual process, he said that the virtual savvy is making money whiles the film makers are making nothing.
He the admonished that industry players should come together so that as productions goes on, the savvy pushes it regularly.Paddi again stated: if industry players want stakeholders to invest in the industry, fooling should be different from comedy, because the reputation of any corporate sponsor is affected by the content that is being projected.
The Existence of an Industry and Influences
In response to a concern about the existence of a movie industry in Ghana and if pop culture has influenced contents produced in the film industy, Paddi indicated that; once there's a place people sell and buy, there's a market and as far as people are making movies in the country, there is an industry: but there's no structured industry , i.e, an institution that oversees the film fraternity.With regards to the pop culture influencing contents produced, he said, that the foreign culture has influenced our industry totally. He further gave an instance of the idea of using fair people especially half casts in movies as an example, which he thinks causes many aspiring artistes to bleach.
Concerns about the Film Industry
A major concern highlighted by Paddi is the availability of people to raise and own the industry and run it. The numerous youth out doing so well and we need to come together, collect data, segment, augment and compliment each other's craft. Paddi opined that we should be ready to work for each other for free, for free and for free. We must collectively promote each other's craft as an industry, because the virtual spy is scouting based on segmentation like culture, etc. Like saying Ghana has good content. Remember, behind every star or successful project is a chunk of artists and crew. You could be one.
Concluding Words
In conclusion, Paddi stated: "There's an artist in everybody, therefore use your profession to augment your art." He called on everyone to come together with their diversity to build an industry for ourselves and also stop the viral videos and look at things that would affect our economy. He also called on filmmakers, to give chance to those who by nature have no interest in Cinema.because they may posses something they don't even know is useful to Cinema.
What do you think?
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