Nollywood Structure

The accountant comes up with a production budget. The film that wraps within a week (6 days) needs:

a. Director @ 300pd – £1,800
b. Main Cast of 2 @ 200epd – £2400
c. A sub cast of 10 @ £100epd – £6000
d. A production company – which employs its own lighting, boom, camera, gofer, etc, crew – £4800
e. Location costs / permits – £1400
f. Production Manager / Welfare – £1200
g. Editor – £1400
h. Marketing (e-flyers, e-trailer) – £1200
i. Premiere (hall/redcarpet) – £2000
j. Contingencies (inc. crowd, wakapass, permits, props, etc) – £2800

The above is an over-simplified budget for example purposes only, and in no way meant to be absolute.

So, an anticipated budget totaling £25,000 for a week’s production and marketing can be spread amongst, say, 25 investors of £1000 each.

Assuming the movie fills a theatre of 200 on premiere night alone, with each attendee paying £25, that is a revenue of only £5000. You must now recoup another £20,000 from distribution. If not, all of the above contributors must either agree to donate their services for free, or in lieu of dividends.

Talking figures – A movie with a £25000 budget may likely gross only £5000 premiering at a 200-seater cinema at an average £25 per ticket – leaving it with a £20,000 bill to recoup.

Aside from sponsorships, an actor on, say £200 per day on set, (£600 pw) can decide to instead defer/invest his/her £600 (3 days) in the production of this movie – giving him/her a 4% stake of the film.

If the film then goes on to make £500,000 on youtube with subscribers paying only £1 each to watch, the actor/investor earns £20000 (£500,000*4%) from a £600 investment.

These figures are, of course, over-simplified as they do not cover marketing and miscellaneous costs which would be deductible. However, the key is to consider investing your ‘wages’ in a project with proper legal documentation.

And since each project you invest in becomes your ‘baby’ it is incumbent on you to promote it as best you can to the general public especially with trailers.

You may wish to consider the free platform uknollywood.com to promote your trailer as well as subscribe to the uknollywood.com channel on youtube.

The key is marketing the movie.