It has been a fun week. Full of too much wahala and drama. I had my fair share of everything. From brutal insult to speculations that I am who I am not. I performed a google clipping and found out that many people googled the name Joy Della Ocloo. They are looking for dirt and connections. Fruitless search though. They need to remove one name and add another before the achieve any results. I respect my full family name too much to put it out there for anyone to rubbish. My father will kill me. My mother will cry.

I had a good time thinking though. I have conluded such, filmmaking is Drama. to be a filmmker or a creative person you must prepare for a lot of drama. Why? You are in a dramatic field. Creating fake people and fake situations calls for someone with a deep mind. That is why we as filmmakers are so temparamental.

Lets remember some of the great. Michael Bay, I am still waiting to meet someone who has anything good to say about him. I keep wondering why everyone hates him so much. They say he is arrogant, full of himself, rude, blah blah, his movies have no storyline. And I say so what? He breaks box office all the time. No one releases movies on the same day Michael Bay will release. That one is total suicide. His movie will flog yours like mama and son.

Speilberg. Love him or hate him. I think it is the awe that keeps people around him. Some of my classmates were lucky to visit his set on the indiana jones movie. They all saw a different part of him.

Michael Mann. One word I have heard people describe him is simple, asshole.

But the truth here is that, these people think differently. Come on now. To make a movie like transformers, Indiana Jones, it is not easy. I think it is almost scary. I was scared in my directing class. Everyone is looking at you! Same with actors, all eyes on you. Man, that’s pressure. Why? there are people like us, the Joys who will simply bash you in without feeling. No, I am not defending tone. I am just saying it is what it is.

When you take a stand to get the job done, you become a mean person. Everyone calls you names. They do not understand what you are going through. I know I have given my good share of bashing to people, but truth be told, I have also praised people. what I will not do though is call white black. If the movie is bad, sorry. It is bad. If someone is good, sorry, the person is good. I expect to be told the same but not have it punctuated with vile words like charlatan, ugly, bitch, cockroach etc. That is just vulger.

Creative people are always misunderstood. You are expected to conform. To be this, to be that. You can’t be yourself. You have to please everyone. If you decide to be yourself trouble. So where is the balance? sorry, oh. let me thread dangerous waters. I wrote sometime back that when Genny was plump, we said hei! when she got skinny we said hei! Nkiru, when she is a vllage girl we say hei! she cries too much, when she is a city girl we say hei! please, you can only be a village girl. What at all do we want them to do?

I am playing devils advocate here because I am worse for telling them about themsleves. I, Joy for one. What do you guys want me to do? have a double standard? There are some people I write about and I get 173 comments of good job. There are others I write about and I get 173 comments of Joy you are a bitch. Interestingly, I have never changed my tone. The tone you praise is the same tone you diss. So, what is it? when I wrote about Bob Manuel and Fake accents. I got praises. I wondered, why? I did write the truth about Bob, and ah ha!! Bob has NO FANS. I don’t think he does. When I wrote about Jackie, I got mixed responses, even though what I wrote was the truth, I used the same tone on Bob, Stephanie, Tonto, Jackie and a host of others. What changed? It is my job to be objective, but, how many journalists are? Even Fox news. We know who they support. There are the good ones like CNN who give fair opinions. LMAO. I am not CNN.

I have never used the word stupid, foolish, bitch, ugly, or anything like that on them. I say Jackie wears to many colors. I did not lie. Tonto, too much make up and she cannot act. I did not lie. In fact Mimi agreed with me and said Jackie should work in Burger king. Thanks for pointing that out to me. In fact I was surprised to go back and read it on the Jackie thread. So what suddenly happened? Creativity no be small matter. I am telling you. Because I use a tone of mockery to make it more interesting…well, I guess I am misunderstood.

What is the point of this workshop? To an extent, we all are creative people and our emotions are high. We need to stop judging and insulting. My job is to critique. Lets be frank, does good news sell? No. it doesn’t. Look at the Sammi Rotibi article. How many people commented? in all three. No arguments, no fights, no kudos Sammi we love you. Nothing of the sort. If I had written something bad about him, criticized him. open floor. Ghana Vrs Nigeria. Power tussle. When I bring in a discusson board of modern films and traditional films and how our actors peform in them, who responds? no one. But let me write about Jim Ikye fighting Emeka Ike and take sides. market day is here. If I had asked Sammi, what do you think of Nigerian movies and he said they are crap. haters commencement ceremony. Which is why I have decided not to post the rest of the stars interviews. CSUN newspaper will apprciate it more.

So, is Joy biased? probably. are my readers biased? probably. Are we all inclined to be biased? Of course. It is only human to take sides. Do I blame anyone for taking sides? No. I do not.

What we all should do though is to stop taking things to heart. Stop feeling. Yes Joy writes about your fav star something bad. Can you please make sure what the journalist wrote is right or wrong before castigating him? If we say that Jim needs to stop wearing shades inside dark discos and we say it in a way that makes fun of Jim, where we do not call him names like pig, fool, idiot etc, is there any need to get agrressive and angry and insult the writer? no. That is not a sign of maturity. A journlist needs to spice up his write-ups to make them interesting. we all have our styles. We are creative people. Take your heart out of it.

I have come to accept that I cannot please everybody and I will not even try. I will make certain compromises though. To be creative is not easy. Let us give creative people a break! It is ok to discuss their work objectively without being vulgar or passionate. I am including myself in the creative people mind you. 🙂

Joy don come again oh!

-Joy Della Ocloo EXCLUSIVE for nigeriafilms.com