Wale Adenuga is a household name in Nigeria. Ask any television viewer from the age of seven and above, they will tell you he is the creator of Papa Ajasco, the popular comedy TV show featured by television stations in the country and produced by Wale Adenuga Productions (WAP), among other equally interesting comedies. In this interview with Samuel Olatunji, he tells the story of his life like you never heard it before. Excerpts:
Why did it take you so long to produce another feature film?
Actually, when I wanted to produce Perfect Church I was not really prepared for it because it came like a divine message. The lady walked into my office and said God told her to bring her book to Wale Adenuga for film production and I had my doubts in the beginning, but she said I should go through it first.
So, I decided to read it and after two weeks I was touched, and I identified with the message in it and also decided that every human being must see and learn from it. That was why I decided to reproduce the book in the form of a film. Like I told the Press earlier, it was not for the money, but generally to win souls for Christ.
A lot of people are getting this idea of church thing wrongly because some people don’t know the difference between ‘Churchism’ and the idea of going to church and imbibing Christianity as a way of life. The film is basically telling people that there is always grace to repent at anytime, that the grace of God abounds at all times. If you look at the film, Perfect Church, you will see the name of the church is the place for perfect people, if you look around you today, people that go to church now always want to portray this holier-than-thou attitude, everybody leaves their real self at home and come to church to give another impression that shows they are better than Christ himself, but that is wrong. Let’s reveal our nakedness to God, let Him know we are sinners and He is there to transform us.
You are not known as a church person, are you?
Yes, I’m not, but what I’m saying is that ‘Churchism’ is different from Christianity. Christianity is a way of life, if you meet a Christian you don’t need to be told; it is not by going to church every Sunday that makes you a Christian. After studying s church goer, do you see that holiness in him or her? After interacting with some people you can’t but ask if they are Christians or not. Your character should be telling people that you are a Christian.
That is what we are saying, not your position or the number of times you go to church. As for me, I am a practical Christian – you don’t need to shout church all the time, but I believe in the Creator and I believe in the power of the mind. You don’t keep bad things in your mind because, for me, I believe when you do that and you sleep, your subconscious will still dwell on those things even when you are sleeping. It is always good for you as a person to keep your mind clean, remember we are not perfect as mortals, we are bound to make mistakes, but when we ask God for forgiveness He will forgive us.
Can you reproduce the status you have as the king of “soap” into feature films, as you will be in the cinema from the 29th of this month?
You see, whether you educate or entertain people in magazines, films or television you are giving out the same thing. The difference is in the medium you are using and the format. The idea is to pass a message and it could be done in so many ways.
The main thing is to get the message across to your audience. If you look at any production or service, you will talk about the four big “Ms” – Money, Man, Machine and Material. If you compare the production of television and cinema, the only difference is that the machine used for cinema will be heavier than that of television. You use the same money, same cast and crew, the material would also differ in some areas, but basically it’s still doing the same thing in a different way.
What makes a good movie?
What makes a good movie are the same requirements for a good television programme, they are both movies but a movie is bigger, the pictures move on television, they also move on big screen, so it is only in the size of the screen. Now, as in what makes a good movie, what makes a good film an authentic programme? One, a producer, is he really a producer? That question is very vital, this is one thing people don’t think about, you can’t say because you have enough money at your disposal you want to start a church, is there divine instruction to do it?
You see, it is not just money, the same thing I have been trying to tell people, before you can become a doctor, you need to go to a medical school, before you become a lawyer you need to go to law school. The job of a producer is a calling, we are like prophets, we are like pastors, you need to be called as a producer, it is a spiritual thing. In the art world, in any area of creativity in particular, theatre art in general, each artist, everybody has his own calling, you need to know, if your calling is in the area of acting, in which case you just restrict yourself to acting, you will excel in it, you will shine in it, you will make all the money you want in this world because it is your calling.
You need to find out if your calling is in the area of editing, because a film production has many departments, find out where your calling is, if your calling is in the area of acting, restrict yourself to acting, when you want to become a producer, you fail, because the producer is someone that has been called and anointed by the Almighty Creator to produce; the job of a producer is entirely spiritual. What does a producer do? He gets the right story, he gets the right director, he is not supposed to carry camera or write any story by himself, he is just a facilitator, he is an organiser, you get my point?
The job of a producer is to get the right story, the right men. He is to get the best material, the right material, whether it is comedy, romantic story, religious story, it is his duty to get the right story, the right material, the right equipment, the right men, cast and crew and the right money. So, getting the right story, that is when spirituality comes into play, it is God Himself that will tell you this is the right story and He will tell only the person that is anointed to do so.
That brings us to the idea of natural calling?
What is natural? A gift of nature; what is nature? God, because my own anointing is in story, if you pack hundred stories on my table and tell me you want a story that will captivate the people living in Ikoyi, if I go through the synopses of the stories, I will pick the best story, I will not miss it, but if you ask an actor, who is not a producer, who parades himself as a producer, to pick the right story from a stack of hundred stories, he won’t know the one to pick because he hasn’t got the anointing for stories, and once you pick the wrong story for production, failure at the beginning sets you out for total failure.
When you see a lot of stories on television or any film, the so-called producer may have money and material, even the men we are talking about, but it requires the intervention of God for you to do the right casting. The story you watched yesterday, for instance, it was a beautiful story, everybody said it, it would have been marred by wrong casting, maybe instead of using Ramsey Noah, you now used Segun Arinze; doing the right casting, knowing the right person for the right role, is a divine thing, it is a spiritual thing.
If you look at Super Story, what makes Super Story so popular, we all know that this television thing is a make-believe, but then for you to succeed at that make-believe, you have to make it credible and you can only make it credible by getting the right persons to assume the right role, look at yesterday’s, for instance, Olu Jacobs now speaking as the bishop, he looks like a real bishop, a foreigner coming to this country will not believe he is not a bishop, a foreigner coming to this country will not know that our pastor is not a real pastor, that is correct casting, which comes only from God.
If your own calling is editing and you are asked to produce a film or a book, you cannot achieve that, you will do the best editing and the best graphics, beautiful effect and everything, but everything will go wrong with the casting, because you don’t have the anointing to identify the best person.
When I get a story, my spirit will just tell me this is the best person for this one and I will go looking for the person, even if the person is my enemy, I will beg him because I know that without him in it, without her there, the thing cannot work, because I know that is the element of good movie. So, it’s spiritual. You have to be called as a producer, if not, you will produce a beautiful nonsense.
I have seen some drama programmes on television, both foreign and local on television, and I know what went wrong, I know that this or that person has not been called as a producer, they have money to produce, you will see beautiful things: beautiful sets, beautiful cameras and other things, but watch it for five minutes, you are already sleeping because you don’t know the story. You can only identify a good story by His grace, and that is the truth. So, now you know who a producer should be – he is the spiritual head of production.
So, the producer is the key to production?
He is even more than the key, he is the production because, as I said earlier, a producer says this is the right story, the right crew, there are many directors, who specialise in various types of drama, so if a producer wants to produce comedy, he should be able to know which director is best suited for the comedy; not all directors are suited for comedy, some are so serious-minded that they cannot direct comedy – the comedy will be too strong. So, it is the duty of the producer, with the help of God, to be able to identify the right director for the story he has on his table.
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