VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

The second problem relates to the specific material conditions that characterize Nigerian videoproduction. In this chapter I will analyze and interpret the aesthetic and narrative strategies thatdefine Nigerian videos. While doing this, it is important to consider that in many cases thesestrategies are adopted as a matter of necessity rather than as the consequence of a conscious andexplicit decision. An example from the interview I conducted with Amaka Igwe, one of the mostsuccessful video director and producer within the video industry, might make this point clearer.When I questioned her about the relationship between Nigerian videos' contents and the country'severyday reality, and particularly about the role of witchcraft within this context, she emphasizedthat in many cases the final narrative structure of a film plot depends more on the specificscriptwriter's working conditions (tight schedule, parallel work activities, degree of literacy) than onhis or her actual intention to portray some aspects of the reality.If a scriptwriter has a problem with his script, the only way to solve it is to bring God in,either through a spiritualist or something else… for me this is easy writing! You couldsolve the problem without bringing God into it! [But the fact is that] when the story is tootough, and you cannot solve it convincingly, then you are forced to bring in some magicelement to solve the plot… they bring in a spiritualist to easily create a solution to thenarrative (Igwe 2010)As this example shows, then, when analyzing the videos' film language it is important to keep inmind that external observers' speculations can, in some cases, overemphasize aspects whose originis contingent rather than essential. This does not mean, however, that these contingent aspects arenot a relevant part of the analyzed film language. On the contrary, as I will argue below discussingthe nature of realism in Nigerian videos, they might have an important role in defining the veryspecificity of this language. They are in fact one of the ways in which the context of productionpenetrates and modifies the medium and its content.148