Popular filmmaker Adekunle Adejuyigbe who is known as Nodash has mentored upcoming filmmakers on tricks of the trade while he was on the set of a recently shot movie with Kunle Afolayan.
And through 15 days of Instagram posts, he gave tips ranging from film pre-production, cameras, film crews and some very hard truth every film makers need to hear.
Talking from a cinematographer’s perspective he advised young filmmakers to continuously focus on creating ‘emotion-evoking’ scenes.
“Many DPs are more concerned about how the lighting and the camera movement looks on their show reels than how it fits in the story. Resist the urge.
*See the scene before getting on set…when choosing a crew hire people better than you or, at the very least, people just as good. Iron sharpens iron and two sticks rubbing each other is just noise.
Good cinematography doesn’t start with the equipment. It starts in the mind of the Director of photography. After all anyone can operate a camera…they all come with manuals!”
This daily upload of tips went on for two weeks and in his last post, he compared stories and guns.
“The world is ruled by guns and stories,” he wrote.
“Of the two, stories are the most powerful. Guns may get you people’s reluctant attention but stories capture their minds without resistance.
“With the right stories you can conquer a continent, change their names, their gods & corrupt their values but also with the right stories, you can remind people of who they are, restore their self-esteems, and give them hope.
“The media/entertainment industry is the storehouse of every society’s stories. So if you wanna understand a people just study their entertainment…or better still, study their entertainers… or even better still, dear entertainers, study yourselves…of course no one has the right to judge your motivation but as African filmmakers it’s hard to ignore the effects our stories have on our society.
“So as I round up two weeks of sharing my thoughts and tips on Nigerian filmmaking I ask you to ask yourself: “What stories am I telling?”… So as you write that script, get that funding or frame that shot keep it in mind that, even if you don’t care, this is not just about you…The journey never ends and we never stop learning. Treat every day at work like it’s the very first one. “The Tenants of the house” movie is done; the clock has been reset.
“So to all you visionaries, revolutionaries, & poets I say “Cheers to Day 1”
Coming from the man who leads The Elite Film Team, which is touted as the ‘only complete film crew in Nigeria’, many young filmmakers buzzed on his page.
A user, titikuti, wrote, “@i_am_nodash, somebody bera be compiling this tutorias.. Its gona be a best seller for aspiring film makers someday. #watchingyouclosely.. Great stuffs”
Nodash, an award-winning and internationally recognised cinematographer directed photography for films like ‘Isoken,’ ‘The tribunal’ and the recently released ‘The Bridge.’
