Nigerian film industry has been described as being technology driven. This was the views of the Managing Director, Nigerian Film Corporation, NFC, Mr Afolabi Adesanya. According to him, every aspect of film production involves one form of information technology or the other.
Adesanya who disclosed this in a chat with Vanguard Hi-tech in Lagos said; “you can’t separate motion picture industry from ICT revolution. When we are talking about converting from film to video or video to film, you need ICT. When you are talking of film productions and post productions like editing, you need computer. So it is an industry driven by ICT right now.”
He said though, the deployment of ICT tools has aided the growth of motion picture industry, that there were inherent abuses associated with it. “But inherent in the technology is its abuse. Look at what happened to Sony play station. Millions of their account were hacked into because, people had access to their account.”
The NFC boss however, added that the abuse and misuse of technology has become a global issue. “It is a universal problem. Look at what is happening in the banking sector, criminals are hacking into customers account despite all the security measures being put in place by the concerned authorities.”
On the issue of piracy, Adesanya revealed that they were collaborating with key stakeholders to combat the ugly trend. “Piracy is top on our agenda. We are planning to partner with all stakeholders to fight piracy and as much as possible, make it impossible for pirates to operate in the entertainment industry”, he said stressing that it would not be an easy fight as there were foreign elements involved in the act.
“The challenges are enormous because, we have foreign element involved in the piracy. We also have local pirates but we are sensitizing the public and as well, appealing to the producers and marketer to also enhance their DVD when they are being released to the market by encoding on them. It costs more money but they will probably gain more if they do that.
“Again, the release of CD’s has to be simoteneous across the country. You can’t just release only in Lagos without releasing in Port Harcourt, Abuja, etc. If that happens, you are given room for piracy.” Adesanya added that another way people could protect themselves from hackers was to regularly change their passwords to avoid being hacked into. “You have to constantly update your passwords to prevent criminal from hacking into your account.”
Further, the NFC MD stated that they were assisting the motion picture practitioners especially, in the area of training and capacity building in film industry. He said the annual film training programme initiated by the corporation was to provide a platform for practitioners to interact and exchange ideas. According to him, since the commencement of the lecture series, it has continued to provide ingredients for policy formulation through robust and fruitful discussions.
