Accra, Ghana -- After about 10 years of a brush with acting and play writing during school days, I recently decided to try my skills at acting again so I actually lobbied for a role in new Ghanaian movie (title withheld).
I was fortunate to have been a co-tenant of the Executive Producer (EP) of the movie so I got the role with no sweat; no auditioning, nothing - I was just given the script one night and in a couple of days I was on set shooting a movie. Wow! How easy.
During the shooting I had a number of experiences with the Ghanaian movies industry, some of which were my own experiences and others I gathered from my heart to heart talks with some of the professionals in the industry who were on that set with me.
First off, when I was given the script, I expected some sort of a contract document to come with it. Something to tell me what was expected of me and what I was supposed to expect from the EP. But nothing of a sort came, nor was it even mentioned.
I thought that was funny, but I decided to keep my cool and observe the turn of events so I could get the true picture of what pertains in the industry. As a writer, I was interested in the full picture.
My first shock was with costume. I expected the EP to provide costumes. I mean the EP should have organized sponsorship from some costume companies for the movie, but no.
To my amazement I was specifically asked to bring two of my best suites, shirts, ties and shoes to the set. What was even more shocking was when my suites were given to someone else to use without my prior knowledge. In the end I rather had to make do with the same attire I wore from home to the set.
I was peeved to bits, but I comforted myself with the thought that I needed to keep my cool to get the whole picture. In fact that night I told my dear wife about my first experience and her immediate reaction was, "you better ask the EP to do the right thing or back out from the movie all together".
Throughout the shooting I used my own costume and I was not even compensated for it. That was the least I could expect, compensation.
Speaking of compensation, for the many days I used my car to go on set and for the many errands I ran for the EP and to shoot portions of the movie with, I was given a paltry 200,000 cedis ($22) in two chunks of 100,000 cedis on day three and another 100,000 cedis on the final day of shooting. Wow!
Initially I thought I was the only one being given a raw deal, probably because I was a novice (per se) on set. I decide be inquisitive and to chat with some of the "professional actors" on set to know what it was like for them.
One of the key actors in that movie told me she was being paid a paltry one million cedis ($110) for a very high risk role she played in that movie. Her character appeared so many times in the movie, in some of which she played a chain smoker and a drunk. I watched this lady, who in real life was not a smoker and a drunk at all, smoking at least two full boxes of real cigarettes and drinking several bottles of alcoholic beverages, all for the sake of acting.
As a matter of fact, my character in the movie had to sit beside her and watch her smoke as I inhaled the fumes. I became a second-hand smoker, which doctors say is even more dangerous than direct smoking. At one point I had to kiss this lady on the lips several times to get that scene properly shot from all angles. And what did she get? a paltry one million cedis.
I was more concerned for the lady because she could hurt her lungs and kidneys for smoking and drinking that much for a first time. I was sadly amazed at her story.
That chicken feet she was paid did not also come in bulk but in bits and pieces. When one million cedis come in bits and pieces…?!
That lady had acted in other Ghanaian movies and she could tell me that in some of those movies, one of which is currently being paraded as the beacon of hope for the Ghanaian movie industry, the lead Ghanaian actors were paid not more than five million cedis ($550) each.
That movie had some foreigners (whites) in there and I am sure they may have been paid far more than their Ghanaian counterparts, why because even our own local EPs place less value on our actors.
I found out on one Nigerian movies website that Nigerian actors are paid between 250,000 Naira (17.5 million cedis) to two million naira (140 million cedis) per movie.
When we do the Ghana-Nigeria collaborations, the Ghanaian producers deal with the Ghanaian actors and the Nigerian producers deal with the Nigerian actors. The result is that the Ghanaian actors get paid peanuts whiles their Nigerian counterparts get away with fat envelopes.
No wonder the Nigerians churn out very quality movies lately, in terms of acting, directing and technology. At least 10 movies a week I am told. Their movies dominate the African market both on the continent and in the diaspora. As a matter of fact they now have what they call Nollywood, named after the famous Hollywood in the USA and they are rated third in the world today, only behind Hollywood and Bollywood (Bombay, India).
The problem is that the whole approach to the movie industry in Ghana, by both producers and actors is very unprofessional. I say that because Ghanaian executive producers (financiers) of a movie prefer to deal directly with actors and sometimes threaten to dump actors who decide to deal with them (producers) through managers.
The idea is that managers are likely to deal with the producer on contract basis, where conditions and terms are properly documented and a contract fee is duly charged before the actor even takes the script in the first place.
But as it is now, the word "contract", is not part of the producers'vocabulary at all. If you dare raise the issue of contract as an actor, you are on the path to forfeiting your daily bread, especially if acting is all you do for a living.
It is very difficult for me to imagine that someone acting for a living and another, making movies for a living would rather base their professional relationship on some loose gentleman's agreement and nothing else.
I had the privilege of chatting with two of the most popular Ghanaian female actors (names withheld) who were also on set with me and they were frank and candid about their experiences with producers. They confirmed to me that the producers deliberately shy away from actors who have managers and from those who prefer to work on contract basis.
In fact I told those two big Ghanaian female actors, I would be obliged to manage them – that anytime a producer called to hire them, they should give the producer my phone number and I would get them a good deal for their actual value. But they turned down my offer not because it was a bad one but they do not want the producers to black list them.
It's amazing how we claim to be running such a big industry in this country and yet we prefer to do it in the most crude and unprofessional manner. How can we expect to move forward? What justification do we have complaining about the way Nigerian movies dominate our movie market, when we decide to pay our actors peanuts and indeed run the industry in such a sorry manner.
To think that such brilliant actors could be at the mercy of producers in that manner I was very sad because I knew these actors and they are some of the most delightful ones to watch on our screens. Yet they manage to get away with peanuts for all their fantastic performances in movies.
There's more; the actors themselves do not like some of the movies they act in. They have qualms about story lines, the title of some of the movies, the unprofessional manner of shooting and directing and sometimes the caliber of persons some producers parade as actors, most of whom they might have picked from only God knows.
They actually mentioned names of at least two producers whose movies they regretted taking roles in, but for economic survival. But they were not pleased with the way those movies were done and with the caliber of actors used.
In fact I was not surprised at the names they mentioned because I personally have had issues with those two (names withheld). They have made themselves what we call "one man contractor (OMC)" in Ghanaian local parlance, to wit, in their separate movies, they are the script writers, producers, executive producers, directors and guess what, the lead actors as well. Wow!
Maybe those guys would mention names like Eddie Murphy and Tyler Perry as their inspirers, but you and I know that people like Eddie and Tyler do the OMC thing with perfection. So if you want to copy them, do justice to their character. On the contrary I cannot imagine someone like Steve Spielberg being producer, director, script writer, screen play writer and play even the minutest role in the same movie.
Those guys usually collect people off the street, who know next to nothing about acting and use them for some comedy shows they call movies. In fact for me, if there was any award like "The Worse Movie of The Year Award", those two guys would jointly win that award without any challenger. They are jointly the greatest apologies of the Ghanaian movie industry.
I could go on and on, but we must look forward. I think some of our writers and producers make good scripts but do not get adequate funding and that is why they choose to play strategically tough with the actors just to get managers and contracts off their backs. Their lack of funds is genuine and they need help. The whole industry needs help.

captured by
Francis Ameyibor