CHAPTER ONE

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

A film, also called a movie or motion picture is a series of still or moving images using animation techniques or visual effect. Film also refers to series of images that are projected unto a screen to create the illusion of motion.

The origin of film can be traced to over 700 years ago. The foundation of what is known as film today was laid by Mark Peter Roget in 1824 when he propounded the principle “Persistence of Vision”.

          The history of film cannot be credited to one individual as an over simplification of any history often tries to do. Each inventor added to the progress of other inventors. The experimental Era was witnessed throughout 19th century American and French scientists engaging experiments and achieving remarkable success in the evolution of the pictures.

          In the 1800s as the popularity for magic lanterns increased, people in Europe and the United States wanted to be able to use magic lanterns at home. In fact during the 1800s no dinner party was complete without magic lantern presentation. Various image projection devices proliferate for enjoying at home were created. These were small devices called motion toys that were very different from the standard magic lantern. All of the origins of these devices lay in scientific experimentation. One of these experiments was based on a new concept (for the 1800s) called the persistence of vision, which is the eyes to retain an image, even after its possessive, its source has been removed. This idea prompted various efforts to built mechanism that could make separate still images into single movie image; from these concepts, a number of inventions for projecting images were created. Here is the list of each one and their creator.

Thaumtrope: created by John Ayton in Paris in 1862. This was around card attached to a string, while one side was picture of a horse and the other a picture of a man in a riding position. When the card spun, it seems as if the man was riding the horse.

Phenakistoscope: created by several different inventors in the early 1800’s. This was a plate sized disk with sequences of images that went spun; the person looking through the sloth of this device saw a moving image.

Zoetrope: created in the 1860,s by several inventors and was very similar to the phenakistoscope. It was bowl like device with a strip of drawings around the interior circumference. When the bowl was spun the viewer looked through slot word zoetrope re surface when Francis Ford Coppla used this name for his production for his production company and studio.

Praxiniscope: developed in the early 1870s by Emile Reynaud. It was almost the exact same things as the zoetrope, only it used mirrors.

The first motion picture ever made was in the year 1872, by a man named Edward Muybridge. He began experimenting on capturing moving images. This man placed twelve cameras on a race horse track, spread thread across the track, and attached the thread into contact with a camera shutter. Once the run across the track its leg broke the thread, causing the camera to operate in sequence. The ending result was twelve photo showing horse, s gait. Worth an inventing of this called the Zoepraxisco, he was able to quickly project t this images, creating what is known as motion photography and the first movie to ever exist among the midst of all the competition the man who created the praxiniscope theatre which was later known as the theater optique. This device was basically the exact same thing as the praxinoscope only it utilized a lantern which was used to project the images unto a large a screen, making it possible for an audience to watch.

          In 1885 two men named George Eastman and William H. Walker developed the very first reel of film. Film was sensitized paper gelatin emotion. One year later it was replaced by celluloid which was a synthetic plastic material invented in the 1870s which was used in the chemical compound cellulose cell wall.

          The Kintegraph was created by Thomas Edison’s British employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. It was a machine that could capture a sequence of images which was similar to camera, only it automatically took a picture of moving image every half second.

The images were place in his other invention the kinescope. This device had a motor and a shorter mechanism that ran a loop of film pasted on electronic light source. The spectators will the pear through a small window to see the moving image.

 After these two inventions were created, the Lumiere Brothers (august & Louis) created a light weight hand cranked mechanism called cinematography. It could take pictures and could project large images quickly when it was linked with projecting equipment familiar from magic lantern shows.

          With the cinematography invented German, English, Italian British and American inventors were becoming “hot on their heels”. The race to create the next big invention that could surpass everything created this far in the history of film was heating up. The transition of film into 1900s was stimulated b y the increasing competition among the many inventors, the easy reproducibility of film, the ability to use propaganda in cinema, and in general, its overall appeal to growing cities.

          Another major contributor to the development of movie was D.W Griffin, a writer, actor and a camera man. He introduced quite a number of elements as seen today in film making, he schedules rehearsal before final shooting script, and also the sue of close upshots. His famous movie “the birth of a nation”(1915) was a three hour epic film that took over a thousand people and cost about $125000 to produce.

          According to findings and records film first came to Nigeria in 1903 through the effort of late Herbert Macaulay, when he invited the Balboa and company theatre Troupe who had come to the coast of West Africa to exhibit their silent films at the time. The Glover memorial Hall was used to display films. This venture recorded much success and thus paved the way for more exhibitions of European films in Nigeria.

          Ekwuasi (1987:9) records that shortly after the colonial government took interest and brought in a lot of foreign films to Nigeria. Soon after film making distribution and exhibition began but was restricted to the colony of Lagos.

          According to Ekwuasi (1984), these films had to compete with stage concerts and drama shows and their content were subjected to high drama censorship with a short time, this new culture began to spread throughout Lagos and beyond. As the country grew in industry there was need to put down structures that will aid its spread and effective distribution. According to Nweke (1995) there was need to establish distribution and exhibition centers in these new areas.

          The world war 11 brought about increase participation of colonial government in film making business and this led to establishment of colonial film unit (CFU) it was established under the flag of the ministry of information to produce ‘propaganda’ film and encourage Nigeria to support for the war.

          Another important point to note in the development of film was in the introduction of unit. It was as a result of the attainment of independence. In 9170 Kong is harvest was produced by Calpheny and was directed by an American, Ossie Davies. This film was regarded by many Nigeria’s first feature.

          There after other film makers emerged, some of them included Ola Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Sanye  Dosumu, Jab Adu, Eddie Ugbomah, Ade folayan, Moses Adejumo  Olaiya and so on. These early film makers produced quite a number of films notable among which are; Ola Balogun’s  Alpha Black Goddess, Sanya Dosunmu’s  dinner with the devil, Ija Omiran Ajannir Ogun, cry freedom all Ola Balogun, and Jab Adu’s  Bisi’s daughter of the River. Others include Hubert Ogunde and Wole Soyinka’s  Blues for prodigal, Eddie Ugbomah’s  the Rise and Fall of Oyenusi , Adamu Haliu’s  Hausa Villlage and Duba Day!

          Towards the late 1980’s celluloid had given way to video cassettes which were cheaper and easy to edit. Then in 1988, Ade Ajiboye produced “Sosomeji” the first film produced in video format in Nigeria. It was hoped that this transition would help win the hearts of Nigerians away from the American Indian and Chinese movies that characterized movie shelves. Contrary to claims that Nigerians first video film was Kenneth Nnebues’s  “Living in Bondage “ a lot of films had been produced before 1992, even Kenneth Nnebue, then a movie promoter and distributor, invested in the production of some low budget video films such as Aje ni Lyami, Osa Eleye and Ija Eleye between 1988 and 1999.The truth is that it was living in Bondage’ (1992) that first reached National acclaim, and marked the beginning of new dawn, which is today known as Hollywood.

          Motion pictures called films is one of the most popular forms of entertainment enabling people emerse themselves in an imaginary world  for a short period of time. Film cam also teach people about science, human, behavior, and many other subjects some films combined entertainment with instruction to make learning process more enjoyable. However what constitutes film is seen as custodians of cultures also importantly the question of cultural promotion in the developing world has been hampered by blind acceptance and practice of Western cultures by the young ones. Findings shows that film as a medium of mass communication is one of the contributors. This shapes their thoughts, attitudes associations, behaviors and general ways of life.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

What constitutes a film is seen as custodians of cultures and the early Nigerian video films were a reflection of culture and society of Nigerian. A close look shows that so many films are full of vices like shooting, killing, smoking, terrorizing, harassment, pornography and other violent act which could lead to negativity in the lives of individual, large proportion of these films are loaded with various forms of violence (which the society condemns) that have to an extent be proven to inculcate negative influence or human behavior to find the segments of which video films are directed.

          The worry of some parents, educators and other organizations to project individual from the hazards of violent video films that has mobilized forces to question critically what children precisely learn when they watch such films as drug addict, murder, horror, Rituality, pornography amongst others which portray violence.

          A major criticism of films especially violent one’s has been its portrayal of aggression and the message which the individuals think they convey to them. Individuals think they convey to them. In Nigeria a major observation is that violent films shown on screens usually are films that tends to copy the style of foreign films which have more violent and immoral contents which not only influence the inner working of individuals but also provide them with models upon which they fashion their own lives, such include; half naked dressing or indecent dressing by the male and female, rapes, use of pistols, gangsters, burglary, suicide armed robbery, prostitution etc. The belief is that constant exposure to vi0olent films will teach and increase a person’s level of physical and emotional arousal which will in turn increase the probability of aggressive behavior.

          The most important concern in the debate about violent film has been whether among viewers most especially the young one’s (Evra 1990) researchers have shown that heavy exposure to screen violence can cause problems. For instance it can make people become both fearful of the world around them and accepting violence in real life as displayed by others.

          The other views which hold that violent films have a purifying impact suggest that its impact on individuals is the art of being sympathetic after watching such violent films. These views however do recognize the influence of the violence on video films. These views need to be investigated, analyzed and comparatively presented before intelligent conclusion about violent of Nigerian video films and how it affect the lives and learning process of individuals. Long term studies are even more disturbing, university of Illinois Psychologist Leonard Enron studied children at age eight and then again at eighteen. He found that television or film habits established at the age of eight influenced aggressive behavior through childhood and adolescent years. The more violent the program preferred by boys in the third grade, the more violent the programs preferred by boys in the third grade, the more aggressive their behavior, both at that time and ten years later. He therefore concluded that “the effect of television violence on aggression is cumulative”. Twenty years later Eron and Rowell Hussmann found the patter concluded. He and his researchers found that children who watched significant amount of TV violence at the age of eight were consistently more likely to commit violent crimes or engage in child or spouse abuse at thirty.

          They concluded that heavy exposure to violent films or televised violence is one of the causes of aggressive behavior, crime and violence in society. Television violent affects young stars of all ages, of both genders at all socio economic levels and all levels of intelligence.