A Rookie’s Mistake
From the moment I finished my film directing course at the Royal Arts Academy in Lagos, Nigeria, I have been introducing myself as a filmmaker…along with the other titles I like to describe myself as. Yet, four years since I earned that certificate, I do not have any film — short or feature — to my name. Oh! It isn’t because I haven’t tried. I have tried, alright! But a series of rookie mistakes have made me a filmmaker in name only. My first foray into film making started in 2016, just after I finished my directing course. A couple of friends and I wrote a script, recruited some of our actor friends, put some money together, secured a series of locations and…began preparing to shoot our short film. On the day before we were schedule to shoot, we slept at one of the locations, so we could be up on time and begin shooting. We factored that if we were fast, we would be done before noon and we could go to the next location and continue filming. What we didn’t factor in was that, with one camera, and all the shots we needed to take, there was no way we could be fast. So, we trudged on. But nerves began to be frayed from going over the scenes again and again. I began to snipe at my friends the more frustrated I became. I could see that everyone started to walk on eggshells around me. The situation got tense, but filming continued. Behind-the-Scene Photos from the first film, Buff. At around 3pm or so, we were through with location one. We then had to transport ourselves from Ajah to Surulere to shoot the rest of the scenes. Thankfully, Lagos traffic was mild, and we got to Surulere in less than two hours. Setting up the location became another hassle. This location was an office that had the personal effects of the owner and we needed to make it something different. By around 6pm however, we were ready to start filming. The cast was fantastic, and we didn’t need to do that many takes. And if I am being honest, I didn’t have the energy for many takes. I was tired, stressed the hell out and needed the entire process to just come to an end. And end it did! When we finally called the wrap on shooting, we gave a collective guffaw of joy and hugged each other. I had been forgiven for being a diva director and we were all back being chummy buddies. Then, we had to reset the location and head home. After all of this, we were so tired, we decided to just head home. Here is where things got funny. When we finished recording in the first location, the raw footage was ‘dumped’ on my laptop to ensure we had space for subsequent shooting. Because we had been so tired at the end of the shoot, we didn’t ‘dump’ the new footage on my computer. My friend who served as cameraman/cinematographer took the rest of the footage with him. The sound guy took the entire sound recording with him. We planned to pick a day where we would sit down and edit our project. A week later, I had an emergency that required I left Lagos sooner than I expected. Turns out I would not return to Lagos again except for very brief meetings. So, editing the film was shelved. We thought it was best to edit together so we could pick out our favorite scenes. But how could we do that when half the footage with me in Yola, Adamawa State, and then Kaduna State, and then Abuja and the other half was in Lagos? My life took a hard turn at that point. I was no longer thinking of film making. I just wanted to survive. Then by the end of 2016, I got a job which I was to resume at, at the beginning of January 2017. I would go on to work there for a year and a half. That period was so fast paced that I barely had any time for myself. I didn’t have breaks and I was way too stressed to even write any script or think of filming. By the middle of 2018 when I left the job, I began to itch for my life behind the camera. I called my friends in Lagos to see if we could meet up and edit our short film, and maybe, finally put it out. That was when I realized we had a bigger problem: all our audio was lost. While we could use the audio from the camera, there was no chance in hell the sound would be clean. I mean, filming in Nigeria means a lot of ambient sound like the noise of the generators you will need because power supply is epileptic. Editing the film was going to be tougher than we planned. Again, we shelved the movie. I went into a depression for a couple of months after that. Or more appropriately, I was crashing from being depressed for months, if not years, before that time. This crash had me wondering if I could ever get anything right in my life. And the seeming failure of the short film — in spite of all my efforts — made me feel like I was bound to fail at any project I touched. It is important to note that I was out of a job at this point too and being the over-thinker that I am, I was really spiralling. Then I got another job. This one was really good and though fast-paced, let me balance my work and life. I was able to compartmentalize work and personal time. And because of that, I again began to think of the films I could make…the stories I could tell. By the end of 2018, I was resolute: I was going to shoot at least four short
Tonia Orevba Roberts: Dropping Her Pretty
Tonia Orevba Image: Facebook I woke up thinking of Tonia Orevba Roberts. Tonia is a beautiful actor cum model whom I met in 2016 at the Royal Arts Academy, Lagos. I had gone to brush up my directing skills and she had come in as an acting student. The first thing I noticed about her was that she was so well put together; her hair was so perfectly groomed, her face perfectly made up, he nails perfectly painted and her outfit? Yes! Perfectly selected. I knew this was a girl that loved to make a statement with her look. Though we were polar opposites in terms of our style, we became friends. Soon, we were going home together and sharing ideas. When it was time to do our class project – a collaborative short film by all script writers, directors, actors and editors in our set – Tonia was cast in a supporting role; something I stood firmly against. I didn’t think she was fit for role or could deliver well. She was just too pretty and too put together to deliver the kind of acting I wanted. To keep the peace, I accepted the casting and kept quiet. On the day of the shoot, I was apprehensive. I am a perfectionist and it was important that my first attempt at a film goes well. I needed it to be just right. The entire cast and crew had slept in the school the night before and while it was a bonding experience, it served to increase my fears about Tonia. She didn’t do much of a rehearsal and when she did, it was always playful. I mentally prepared myself for a long day. We got the actors in makeup and I told the artist, ‘Bad makeup for Tonia. She needs to look like a poor girl who has no money to buy good makeup products but tries to make do with what she has. Make Tonia’s makeup look ratchet.’ That was not in the script…or my original plan. But I wanted to see if she would let go of her ‘pretty’. As expected, Tonia rebelled. ‘Ha ahn! No oh! I cannot do that. I am going to look good. You can’t spoil my market?’ I was mad. She was my friend and all but I felt like it would be hard working with her. ‘Tonia, I am not saying poor girls cannot be fine. I am saying that I want to portray you as a girl who loves to look good but who doesn’t know how to.’ She protested some more and soon enough, I was visibly angry. I left the room to cool off. Most people didn’t know how mad I was because I didn’t lose my cool. I decided I would be better off at the location than overseeing makeup. I didn’t see Tonia until it was call time. I was shocked! Not only was Tonia poorly dressed, her makeup was so hideous I couldn’t help but laugh. And she was laughing herself. ‘No mind this Ramat. She wan spoil my market.’ Even though she had accepted to wear horrible makeup, I kept my fingers crossed to see how she would act. I blocked the scenes and we did a dry run. Boy was I shocked! I wished I had recorded the dry run. That was how good Tonia was! Not only did she drop her pretty, she became the ratchet character she was supposed to be. Turned out that while we slept, Tonia worked hard at trying to get her lines and in character. Never had I been so impressed with a character portrayal than I was with Tonia’s delivery in that moment. It wasn’t an Oscar-worthy performance but it could have been for how excited I was. I love to see an actor morph into a character and Tonia did that for me. Tonia was a delight to work with and all the other directors I worked with on the project said the same thing about her. That moment, and her performance of one of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s speeches, forever endeared her to me as a performer. One of the hardest things a pretty woman can do is ‘drop her pretty’. To agree to become someone else, at the cost of changing the perception people had about her – and all this in the era of memes – is something I admire about Tonia. She showed me that when push came to shove, she wouldn’t let her pretty get in the way of getting the job done. Many women can learn from this. I think we spend too much time worrying about how we look. There are times when we have to get down and dirty to achieve certain goals. If we worry too much about how we look – and as a result, how people perceive us – we stand a greater chance of losing out on so many things in life. A pretty woman is just that; pretty. But a pretty woman with an intelligent mind and drive is just… wow! That performance opened some doors for Tonia. She has gone on to star in many other films in the past year and she is sure to rise to the peak she desires. I don’t know if she hears this a lot but I want to tell Tonia Orevba this; ‘You are a beautiful actor. Keep honing your art and soon, you will be where you want to be. Thank you for inspiring me’. For this, Tonia darling, you are my #WomanCrush. Contact her on Instagram @toniao_roberts. Though my first foray into film making was barely average, I am so proud to have been a part of the making of Blurred. If you haven’t seen it, do so 👇. PS: Don’t laugh oh! This is my start! I promise to make even better movies.
