I love to teach viewers with my films than entertain them —Tunde Ola-Yusuf

Tunde Ola-Yusuf is one of the few directors in the Nigerian movie industry with an intentional focus on the promotion and development of indigenous Yoruba films from the grassroots to the global community. He has produced and directed several movies since his debut directorial job in 2005. The Iseyin-born entertainer, who is also an actor, in this interview by FEMI OGUNTAYO, speaks about his craft and issues affecting the Nigerian movie industry. Excerpts:  

 

We know you are more prominent in movie directing than in acting, when would you say your career started professionally both as an actor and a movie director?

As an actor, it started in 1989 and as a director, it started in 2005. I have been writing since when I was in secondary school. I have also been watching movies since my childhood days, I watch a movie to criticise, I don’t look at things from the way people see it. I try to look at things from a different perspective. So, when I started as a director in 2005, the first thing I learnt was that nobody would give you the opportunity to show what you can do, you can only show what you can do with your own money. You don’t use people’s money to make name for yourself, you have to do it and take the risk all by yourself. There were a lot of already established directors in the industry then, so even if you believe you can do it then, nobody will believe you until when you prove yourself.

 

The director has a lot to do when it comes to filmmaking. How has the experience been for you so far?

I love to multitask a lot and as a director, one must know something about everything in filmmaking, because most of the hands you will be working with on set, you might be working with them for the first time. Before you know it, different people will be coming with different ideas and if you don’t know what you are doing, you will just follow the wrong advice. So, I tell people, a director must be arrogant and actors must be very humble, but that is if you have enough knowledge though, because you are going to need that ego as a director. So, anytime I am going on set, I am always ahead of everybody. Even when I am to work with some senior actors on set, I would have researched them and know which one will give me a problem, which will always try to change scripts, which is always in a hurry and so on.

There was an experience I had about 12 years ago. I was directing a movie, I don’t want to mention names, but there was this senior actor I worked with on the set of the movie. I noticed my continuity person wasn’t that good with his job, but I didn’t want to change or embarrass him, so I decided I was going to do 50 per cent of his job. So, when we were taking the wide shot on a scene, I already took note of every detail, the moment they move, I jot. So, as a young director, the senior actors are bound to intimidate you sometimes. So, you cannot change whoever somebody is, you just have to manage it. When we were about to take the close shot, I told the senior actor that sir, your hand was resting on the mat in the previous shot, it should also be on the mat in this shot, but he disagreed and said his hand was not resting on the mat. It was becoming an argument and I had to tell him, I would take the blame if it came out differently after the production, so we were able to shoot like that.

The mood of the actor was not the right mood I wanted, so we had to take and retake the scene until I was able to get exactly what I wanted. So, after taking that scene, I needed to establish myself as having a better knowledge of what I was talking about, so I called the D.O.P and some other senior actors on that set and told the D.O.P to replay the two scenes and alas, the senior actor was putting his hand on the mat. So, I told them, next time he does that I will send him out of the set and that I didn’t want to embarrass him that was why I didn’t argue with him the other time. So, as a young director, you will find intimidating moments with both senior actors in the industry and even actors who just believe they are big and because of that, they know it all. You just have to learn to manage them all.

 

What are the biggest movies you are proud of directing or participating in and why?

I have not made my biggest movie. I try to challenge myself and improve on every movie, so my best is yet to come.

 

Most of your movies, whether produced by you or directed by you have a way of promoting indigenous Yoruba culture and tradition, is this intentional and why is this so?

I am African; I believe I have to promote my culture. You won’t find Americans promoting the African culture more than they promote their culture. If we cannot sing our songs ourselves are we expecting those people to come and sing our songs for us? Aside from that, our movies are supposed to be educative and informative also, not just entertaining. There are a lot of things in our culture and tradition that are not being taught anymore in our communities and only in movies or on the radio can they be taught. So, I see myself not just as an entertainer but also as a teacher who should be able to teach people one or two things in every of my films. In all my films, I try to leave a proverb that everyone can say they got from my film.

 

I believe for you, there cannot be a movie without a story. What is the motive behind your recent movie, Ejiworo?

Funnily, that movie is 60 per cent true-life story. My Uncle, Architect Oladeji gave me that story. It happened to one of his friends, who got married to someone who reincarnated, they did not have problems like I created. But from what he said, I just picked some things that, they are twins, so he dated the first one and she told him he must marry her twin sister too and that was how I wrote out a story from it and made it a movie.

 

How did you discover the young girl ‘Abebi’?

Her intelligence was what caught my attention the first time I met her. Then I advised her mum to bring her to my drama school – Ibadan Drama School. She was saying she didn’t have the money, I told her not to worry, that I was interested in training the girl because I could see that she was really ready to learn and do something new. When we were ready to shoot her movie ‘Abebi’, I called the owner of LIBRA TV, Mr Lekan Wasiudeen, I told him I wanted to shoot a movie that will involve Odunlade Adekola and Bimbo Oshin, but that I want the movie shot around that little girl – Abebi. When we started the scriptwriting, we were writing around ‘Abebi’, then I told her mum I wanted to take the girl to the photo studio, took some great pictures of her, told LIBRA TV I wanted their graphics designer to design the movie poster and project just the girl and list the names of other actors in the movie on the side. LIBRA TV asked me if it was going to work, I told him I had a feeling that it would work. Then, I know the audience would like to question her age, so I made sure her lines were heavier than her age by infusing a lot of Yoruba proverbs and incantations in it. So, the movie took us a lot of planning and re-planning to make and here we are we have a great movie – Abebi.

 

Speaking as one of the stakeholders of TAMPAN TGD, how would you rate movie directing in Nollywood, especially in the Yoruba sector?

It has really improved. The moment this administration of TAMPAN came on-board, they have been working on training and re-training and that has really helped a lot of directors among us. Now, everybody is challenged to do better than they have been doing before.

 

What is your take on infusing English language into ‘Yoruba’ movies?

Our problem is this, I have seen Jumong from seasons 1 to 20, they spoke Korean language throughout, and they never spoke English at all. If they could do that and people still enjoyed it, then we can make Yoruba movies interesting without infusing English Language in it at all. It is a choice though, nobody can say this is the best way to do films, but me, I like to play with my Yoruba language. I like to make Yoruba sound very interesting and I write very well in Yoruba language, because my own belief is that I can sell more films when I write in Yoruba language. When I was shooting my movie, ‘Ejiworo’, I shot it in both English and Yoruba Languages and the same actors that acted in the English version acted in the Yoruba version too, except a couple of actors who were not in the Yoruba version. So, what I did is this, a Yoruba film is a Yoruba film, the other one is a Yoruba film, shot in English Language. So, if I want to shoot a complete Yoruba film, I expect us to speak in Yoruba Language. Even though, I didn’t change the Yoruba incantations to English language (laughs).

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