Are you an aspiring Nollywood filmmaker? Have you always wanted to direct your first Nollywood movie? Look no further. In this article, we will show to you steps in which you can direct your first Nollywood movie and all the hard work that goes into bringing a story to life.
The role of a director in a movie production can never be underestimated, their role involves endless planning, communicating, and industry knowledge. They occupy a unique creative space in the whole process and most importantly, they orchestrate technical and performance elements to manifest cinematic visions from scripts. Regardless of how overwhelming it can get, the end result is always an incredibly rewarding experience.
Below are steps in which you can direct your first Nollywood movie
Plan Your Movie Shoot Thoroughly:
A lot of planning goes into filmmaking but what most people don’t know is that, that planning comes right from the director. The first thing you need to do is to know and understand your script forward and backward by breaking down every scene, piece by piece, this will help in giving you an idea of where to begin your major planning from. After you are done with that, then you can start to plan your crew, the filming schedule, costumes, actors, and expectations for locations among others.
Be Intentional About Your “Director’s Vision”:
Your “Director’s Vision” revolves around your vision of how you want the Nollywood movie to look and feel. You are already familiar with your script and you know what you want to achieve with it, then you need to translate this vision to paper so you can express it to the producer and crew. You must be able to translate your vision for the movie in 50 words or less. If it’s longer or more complicated than that, then you need to rethink your vision or revisit the script.
Plan Out Your Shoot:
Now that the Directors Vision is already in place, it would be easy to plan out how each shot will look like. It will also help you on how to direct your actors do they know what to do during each scene.
Build Out A Budget:
The Budget might come even before any of the script planning but in most cases, it is better to plan the budget after you’ve laid out the scenes and other things you will need to bring your vision with the movie to life. Budgeting in Nollywood movie in very crucial, without funding, your vision might not be able to come to life.
Hire A Producer And Solid Production Crew
No matter how big your budget is, a producer plays a huge role in any movie. The function of a producer revolves around overseeing all aspects of production, including funding and other key items that ensure the movie gets made. Once your have tour producer hired, the next thing is to hire the production cree. The production crew includes assistant directors, camera operators, set designers, and costume designers, among others. A lot of work goes into directing but with the right team, you can achieve your vision.
Begin Shooting:
This is the stage whereby you put everything you’ve planned into action. During this stage, do not think that every single thing will go as planned as you direct your movie, prepare your mind that things can change very quickly, which is more reason why you must be able to flex and move with these changes. Being calm and open-minded about how changes will be handled is the best thing that you can do. Remember, once you are done filming, you will have to send all of the footage over to the editing team, so the post production stage can begin. From there, everything will be complied together to give the final result.
