I wish to continue my discussion on the new trend of video-filmmaking in Tanzania by further discuss the question of audience hood. If you are following closely this column, in the December edition I asked “who are the audience” that are patronizing this new trend of video-filmmaking in Tanzania? And I went to connote that they are embracing it, they are embracing whether what is produced or tailored for them to consume is good or bad, probably with the reason that they find the products as friendly as to their use, environment and identity.
But before I continue the discussion, it should be noted, first and foremost that the objective here is to try and understand this new trend from the perspective of the audience before other contributing factors to its susceptibility, emergency, and continuity and not to interfere with people’s sense of pleasure and patronage.
As for the case of the new trend of video-filmmaking, it is my conviction that the criticisms that have been provided hitherto will have no impact as to change the tendency of producing half baked, copy cats video films if we don’t take at least a step to understand the attitudes of the audience to whom these films are produced for and further more what regulates their attitude. And I here by raise another question in this edition, the question of audiencehood.
The question of audiencehood can be traced back to the early experiments of audience’s response to film by Bantu Educational Cinema Experiment (BECE) in 1930’s that was conducted by the British under Major L.A. Notcutt. For the first time in history the brains of the Tanzanians (Tanganyika by then) were put into test to see how they can conjure the plot or arrangement of events in a film in order to understand what the film is all about or trying to propound. Even though on the other side of the coin this was the act towards the British mission of civilizing Africans in their manners and ways of living, this is how far back I wish to begin the discussion on the question of audiencehood.
I suppose the reason to initiate such an experiment was based on the fact that film is the language in so much as it uses the cinematic codes, images, signs and conventions. Briefly, we can say, there is a way that film speaks to its audiences or spectators. While watching film we happen to read what we see and I am of a view that that’s how film obtained a universal reach and appeal. No matter who or where we are found in this universe, we all can interpret or read what we see. However our interpretation of what we read as we see demands knowledge, a shared experience and meaning between the communicator (in this case film author) and the audience. Therefore we arrive to a point where we realize that film as a system of communication with wider range of meanings; it demands a different mindset to understand it. Now a mindset is so abstract to define it, however one criterion that can be used is the attitude demonstrated by an individual towards different situations, life circumstances, objects of pleasure and so forth that demands his/her inner drives to act in particularly a different manner towards the same.
If I go straight to our case study “film” where by the state or conditions for a person to become the any genre of film audience or fan is based on his/her attitude towards the same, for example the audience who prefer horror films has a different attitude to them compared to the one who doesn’t. However what regulates those attitudes is so subjective to provide a clear cut explanation, but I can speculate that we bring to the reception of a film our experiences of what the film is treating whether it’s a fiction or non fiction and take as a process message what the film will suggest at the end.
Watching the currently occurring commercial tailored films, some would argue that I don’t watch them because they are insulting my intelligence, but some would watch the same film to the moment where the credit starts to roll keenly, and you may consider him or her to repeat that viewing. What does that suppose? In the previous article, I conclude saying that different group of audiences, under go different experiences while watching the same film. I wish to add that these experiences are drawn from the different moments they have undergone in the past; in this case exposure plays a significant role.
The one who don’t watch these films produced under the current trend I believe he/she must have made that inference from, apart from his/her own convictions which I may fail to grasp, a certain reference that he/she has been exposed to in the past. This is where we find the impact of neo – liberal economy, where by the importation of for instance Hollywood films into our country was made possible and the films found its audience. However during the same time no research had been conducted to determine who and where are these audience found but then who are left out of the box and what is it that they want to watch instead.
During the same context, the new trend of filmmaking emerged, taking the advantage of the Nigerian films that started dominating the film domestic market in our country, and set a different atmosphere from that of Hollywood or Bollywood, they went on to find their potential audience, period. See! Beauty in the eye of the beholder! Now some of us are not among this group of audience, I guess that’s fair, but some would ask, so what’s the point of this discussion? Well, I would say there is, whether it has already become an academic enquiry or yet, there is the need to analyze the tendency rendered due to this new trend especially when audience are being taken for granted. Mine are speculations.
Some would say its not the matter of quantity but of quality, If that’s the case I think its high time we start rethinking about the tradition of quality espoused in the art of filmmaking where we find that the artistic values overrides the commercial values. The tradition of quality gave film art a status of becoming a pedagogic institution in our social contexts because apart from what the film will maintain, for audience to conjure the arrangement of events, the twists and turns, the psychological closure in it is a brain teaser that supports the development of human brain. Am worried of the psychic of the target audiences that are now “taken for granted”.
If I continue my speculations, and look up to the aesthetic processes that were involved at the emergence of this new trend of filmmaking, I would say early TV dramas played a major role. At the eve of commercial filmmaking in Tanzania, there was a shift of attention of the popular actors and actresses, TV drama producers as well as the audiences to the making of film. The movement that left a gap on the popularity of TV drama in Tanzania to date was virtue, if I may call it that, to the continuing trend of video-filmmaking in Tanzania. Why? Again from the audience perspectives, it can be analyzed that the thirsty and hunger for something of their caliber to entertain them was still there, and to obey their thirsty, they turn to the films that were now produced strategically with the same TV drama stars as the commercial motives. This tendency has been informing the commercial filmmaking in Tanzania since then, now days to become a film star, you need to find a way to TV dramas first to gain the popularity needed before you appear in a film.
I find the movement to have an impact also on the most critical problems of these commercial films’s dramatic and narrative structure. If at all, the same producers and TV drama stars are the ones who oversee the production of these films, I suspect they are just shifting some, if not all, the expertise from making TV drama to films. Am saying so as I happen to watch most of the films being made following what can be referred to as the episodic dramatic structure which is supposed to be used in TV soap operas and series.
If I treat now “the question of audiencehood” also from the writers/directors point of view of their work or vision. Let me take an example of what Gavin hood, a South African film director and writer of the Athol Fugards screen adaptation of Tsotsi, said; “the challenge in this film (Totsi) was to draw the audience into the world of a very marginal, anti-social character and have them emphasize with him”. Drawing from his view, we may see to it that screen play writers and directors knows exactly that the challenge in front of them is how to suck the audience into the film’s world. But the question is how are we (audiences who makes the potential group of film buyers and renters) supposedly sucked into the world of these commercial films produced under the current trend? Are we conscious of that fact? What does that makes us? Active, passive or just users, If that makes us users, the question will be are we satisfied with the kind of films that we have been watching for almost a decade now? If we are not, why are we buying or renting them?
In view of the current trend of video-filmmaking, it’s clear to our observation that the producers and distributors are taking the advantage of not only the audience’s taste, and interests, but also their mental capacities and their social compositions which I think shall draw them adrift if they would be no measures to conquer the situation. It should be noted that the moving images that are the raw materials of these films works not only as to entertain, inform and educate us (audiences) but also persuade audience to see the world in a particular way. But what is it that unfolds before us whenever we seat and watch these films? How do we find it? Who is responsible as to articulate that particular way in a film? Is it the author or the audience themselves?
Don’t miss the next issue of The Hill Observer where by in it I will discuss the state of film authorship in Tanzania, and the implication of it to the development of our film industry, and I shall draw examples from other film industries from around the world particularly Hollywood.
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