Next Movie Star Bigger Than BBA | The News Nigeria

?Sola Fajobi, creator and executive producer of the Next Movie Star, speaks with FUNSHO AROGUNDADE on the journey of his television reality show

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Shola Fajobi

Can you tell us how you came about the concept of the Next Movie Star reality show?

The idea of Next Movie Star came to me when I was in Ghana around 2003 and early 2004. I was trying to create a package for television, specifically for Unilever Ghana. After my presentation, the company fell in love with the idea. However, because the idea was a high-budget production they started to ask where I was coming from. What was my pedigree? Which production had I done before? Just like a young graduate looking for a job. And they emphasised on a five-year experience. And at that time, there was no referral; no one you could ask about reality show experience because there was nobody that had actually done it before either in Ghana or Nigeria. Since there was no way I could drive it on my own without their support, I decided to forget the idea for a while and decided to come back home.

On arrival in Nigeria, I realised that there was a void to fill. Having looked at the entertainment industry totally, both music and movie industries needed a lot of improvement. But then, I realised that the music industry was self-evolving. It was full of individuals or a particular group of artistes who were either talented, with a hit track, or lucky to have a good management at that particular point in time. So, I chose movie. However, sometime in 2004, Nigerian Breweries plc did GuIder Ultimate Search, which meant a reality show had been done. That same year, Dapo Ojo also did House 4, a near-reality show, but not a reality show per se. House 4 is more or less a talent hunt where people are camped, but not entirely reality because it was not a real time show. But I eventually launched the Next Movie Star in January 2005, making it the second reality show that took place in Nigeria.

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Why the choice of movie at that time?

I chose movie because Nigerian movie industry was growing at an alarming rate. With my experience across Africa and other parts of the world, I realised that people knew Nigeria more for its movies than any other thing. The movie industry was more or less the second largest foreign currency earner after oil for Nigeria. It was seen as a strategic industry with a lot of potential. But I noticed that Nollywood kept making use of the same faces in those movies being released. This set me thinking of the need to create a platform to help steer and propel new talents to prominence. So I was inspired to design a system that can identify, nurture, grow and promote young people, with the primary aim of bringing out world class movie stars. And since charity begins at home, I decided to start with Nigeria, then take it across Africa later.

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How did you find the take-off of the NMS?

When I came back, it wasn?t as if I had so much money. I had little money, but a lot of goodwill. We sent proposals to some companies, mainly multinationals. Some of them were asking us the same questions: What is your pedigree? Where are you coming from? Some showed enormous interest but at the end of the day, none responded. But we later did a media unveil at the Excellence Hotel, Lagos, where we invited musicians, movie stars, directors, producers and the media. It was a mini event to share my ideas and plans. The Next Movie Star concept was unveiled by Senator Babajide Omoworare, who was then in the Lagos State House of Assembly. Many people saw the depth of what we wanted to do from my powerpoint presentation, then the goodwill started growing. I remember after my presentation, Tajudeen Adepetu of SoundCity asked me to see him in his office two days later. And that was the first time I?d ever met him. All this encouraged me and I was more determined to see that my idea came to fruition.

The Next Movie Star was a vision that wasn?t copied from anywhere. It came directly to me. I picked it, nurtured and built it up. So I was very convinced that if this was the last thing I was going to do in my life, I must succeed at it. So I started to put together my resources and goodwill and I was able to get the Pan Africa Media, led by Baba Adebiyi, to agree to run the broadcast across its own network. Adepetu invested in the production and Bayo Akinrinwale of Temperance Hotel, Ota, Ogun State, gave us the whole of the hotel, including feeding and accommodation, for 15 days, free. By the time we were through with the first edition of the NMS, we had spent about N88 million, directly and indirectly. That included the list of broadcast, which was done by Pan Africa Media, and production, which was partly done by Adepetu?s production company. We made no gain as we got N480,000 in return from the whole show. There was a loss of about N74.5 million. But along the line, some organisations like Haier Thermocool came in and made a lot of difference.

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Why did you adopt the format of confining the housemates in a closed house?

My format for the show is not totally about fun, where you have some young folks sitting down in a house and having fun. It is a talent hunt reality television show. I believe when talent is raw, you need a special place and time to refine, grow and bring it out. We need to realise that some of these young people went to theatre schools and did pure theory. Some studied mass communication, which also is largely theory. In fact, some of them had never gone to school to study anything close to their talents. To unveil these people to the viewers as the next movie stars, you had to take them through a lot of processes that include schooling, grilling, training, grooming, mentoring and impacting. And you must put them in a closed house, not just any, house. We put them in a house that had enough touch points, with a large compound for engagement where they could do different kind of dramatisations.

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Many notable names in the entertainment industry in Nigeria and other African countries have passed through your show. What is it about your platform that made these guys excel?

When we look at the success factors of NMS, I think, first and foremost, it started with the audition. At the audition, we are always thorough as we are not just looking for who is more beautiful or handsome or who is more endowed with a camera face. At the different stages of our auditions, we?ve seen people with camera faces who can?t even act to save their lives. At our audition, we test every single person. We actually sell forms and the reason is to allow us reduce the number of applicants. If we allow everybody to apply online for the NMS, we?d have like 50,000 entries. How are we going to audition 50,000 entries? That means we would do what other reality shows are doing ? random selection. With Next Movie Star, we spend at least five minutes with each of the contestants during auditioning. So we started from the audition perspective.

At the auditioning, we selected about 20 people for the final screening, then followed by intensive training and grooming. During this period, we brought the best available resource persons in the media and entertainment industry. People like Yinka Ola-Williams, a theatre director who has worked in Nigeria and United Kingdom, were in the house. He was the theatre director for the Next Movie Star. Ola-Williams is also an author who has written a couple of books. He wrote and owns the franchise to 3 Omugos, which the housemates performed during their stay in the house. We had other people who came to train and groom them on various activities including media management, personality management and attitudes. Top movie personalities like Joke Silva and Tunji Bamishigbin came to interact and give them assignments on drama. Alhaji Teju Kareem was in the house to talk about celebrity attitude and personality management. Fisayo Esan, one of the best entertainment lawyers in Nigeria, spoke on Entertainment Law and how to respect contractual agreement. We brought in Steve Ayorinde, the managing director of National Mirror, to speak on media management. Fidelis Duker, movie director, took them from the perspective of a director and Azuka Ogujiuba, ThisDay?s style journalist, trained them on celebrity styling and fashion. From that point, it was no longer our responsibility to make the final choices that would be presented to the world. These trainers made suggestions and recommendations on the last 16 contestants that entered the house and vied for the title.

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Some of your housemates became shining stars of the Big Brother Africa reality show. Do you have any form of relationship with the organisers of the show?

I don?t have any form of relationship with them. I would say it?s purely coincidental. But what I can tell you categorically, and which I am proud of, is that the process of preparing for the NMS helped my housemates a lot. Kevin and Uti won the BBA based on the experiences they garnered during and after their stay in the NMS house. Karen, in the 2011 edition, was another example. There is nowhere in the world where you can get the kind of training they had with us. Once you have successfully passed through our show, there is no talent show or audition in any part of the world that you attend that you will not succeed. I?m talking of a two-week stay in the house, where more than 20 resource persons will impact you on all the things you?ll need in your life as a celebrity. It?s not only Big Brother reality show, but any audition around the world.

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Reality shows are becoming an all-comer?s affair and this seems to be reducing their appeal with the viewers. What is your opinion on this?

I agree with you totally that some reality shows are fast losing their appeal. But this is not just a problem for reality shows alone. It is a general problem that affects the television content market. Lately, it has become a fad that anybody that has access to camera wants to put on air a TV programme. Meanwhile, they don?t understand the challenges and implications that go with the production of TV content. But as I always say, men will always be separated from the boys when the chips are down. For a couple of years now, there have been various kinds of reality shows on television in the country. But where are they now? I can tell you categorically that last year, the only independently produced reality show in Nigeria was the Next Movie Star. And preparation for the 2011 edition is at advanced stage. It takes no long time to separate the professionals from the charlatans and we are already witnessing the distinction now.

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We learnt you plan to make the Next Movie Star a pan-Africa show. Are you aiming to rival BBA on the continent?

First and foremost, Big Brother Africa is a reality show I respect so there is no need for me to compete with them. The two shows are different. Big Brother Africa?s direction is purely entertainment. Ours is beyond that. We are a talent discovery show with a tinge of entertainment. We cannot do NMS like Big Brother. But in terms of viewership, yes, BBA is strong. But we are stronger because NMS has its own strong viewership. You must understand that in Nigeria, less than 30 per cent of the population have access to cable television, while 70 per cent are tuned to NTA and AIT networks, through which we run our show. Therefore, if you are talking about viewership, we probably have more viewers than Big Brother in Nigeria, which is the largest market on the continent. But we are two different concepts and can?t rival each other.

Source: http://thenewsafrica.com/2011/08/15/next-movie-star-bigger-than-bba/

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