‘Cinema business biggest challenge is lack of skilled personnel’

Weekend Magazine: How did you go into cenema business?Kene Mkparu: I think my life was always channeled to being a medical doctor. The idea was to do a first degree and then go to the United States to study Medicine, but I finished and then moved to the UK to do a Master’s in Toxicology […]

Weekend Magazine: How did you go into cenema business?
Kene Mkparu: I think my life was always channeled to being a medical doctor. The idea was to do a first degree and then go to the United States to study Medicine, but I finished and then moved to the UK to do a Master’s in Toxicology Bio-pharmaceutical Sciences. Whilst I was doing this, I got a job at Odeon Cinema.
I needed something to do and I liked films. I liked the job and got into the management training programme. My boss who was the General Manager wanted to discuss the possibility of giving me a contract. My response to him was, ‘I’m not interested in a contract.’ Then he asked me what I was interested in and I said, ‘your job. I like what you do. I like the business and how you do it.’ He had seen the passion with which I worked for the 10 weeks I was there. So, he didn’t take it personal.
From there I rose through the ranks and after three years, became his colleague. I was General Mmanager until I left in 2008 to return to Nigeria and with a partner decided to set up Genesis Deluxe Cinemas. A year later we charted different parts and I set up Filmhouse Cinemas.
We opened our first cinema in December 2012 and six months later in Ibadan. In 2014, we are looking to open about seven, beginning end of March, in Asaba, Port Harcourt and we will go up even to Kano.
How challenging is it to run a cinema business in Nigeria?
It is very challenging; the biggest challenge being skilled personnel. Cinema is new in Nigeria and there are not a lot of unskilled people. What we did was to attract Nigerians who were into cinema and were at the time working at Odeon. I doubt Odeon is very happy with me about this. We also got some technical people from Warner Bros Cinema who actually run the projectors. The digital set up, we got a Nigerian expert from Odeon and an architect who is Nigerian, but was at Warner Bros.
I was one of those who wrote the Odeon Training Manual for management. We got management operators; it was important for me to get these skills in en masse and then replicate it. Our big job is a succession planning because we are opening so many cinemas at the same time, we have to work double hard. Something which others will achieve in three years we want to achieve in nine months.
Also, cinema is quite costly to build. Cost of funds is quite a challenge. Thankfully, we took advantage of the entertainment fund.
There are cases where pirated movies are shown in cinemas. Is this a scenario you encounter?
We pride ourselves in the fact that no Nollywood film has been pirated whilst it is showing in Filmhouse Cinema. Cinema has gone completely digital and Filmhouse is the only one that is digital in all its studios not just in Lagos.
This digital technology has encryption. Even if you take the film/hard drive to another cinema and play it, it can’t play, because you need to have the key and that key is specific to that projector. Even if within Filmhouse you take it to another projector, it won’t work. All these are done to help fight piracy.
Converting to digital for cinema is very expensive. We, therefore, set up a digital lab in Nigeria to reduce the cost so that Nigerian filmmakers can make use of it and encrypt their movies. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that a lot of unskilled people run cinemas.
Against the backdrop of what you just said, how can this be corrected?
When we started, one of our primary focus was to get the generals know these things. So, whether it’s the design of the cinema or the technical thing… as at 2007, there were only two technical managers who could run fully digital cinemas in the whole of Europe and they were in Odeon. One of them is now with us at Filmhouse. So, from the architecture, operations, retail, human development views, we’ve people who were already in cinemas for years. I was in Odeon for about 20 years, some of them for 25, 15 and so on. Our goal was to get people with the requisite skills to come and run the cinema.
The second part was for all senior managers to clone themselves from their subordinates within a short time. It’s important for us that the business isn’t hinged on anybody, but on the corporate structure. So that if you are missing, people can survive. Yes, we’ll get experts, but once they put their influence there, the structure must be able to run if they are not there.
What does it take to show a film?
The key thing to bear in mind is that we are a business entity and show films that will make business sense. If the market wants Bollywood we show them that. When we open the cinema in Kano, the primary films we’ll show will be Kannywood and Bollywood before Hollywood, before Nollywood, because it is what the market wants. In the East, it will be Hollywood and Nollywood. Lagos feeds a lot on Hollywood and that’s what we’ll be showing them, although, Nollywood is significant too.
In terms of film release, Nigeria is a territory. Everywhere in the world every film has a calendar. We know what films are opening every Friday up until 2016.
Producers come through a distributor who comes to us with the film. If we like it, we accept it and reject it where we don’t. If a distributor for Hollywood comes to us with a film and we don’t think it will make money, we drop it.
Also, if their release date clashes with a date where we are showing a movie like ‘Spider Man’ which always draws crowds, we advise you to move your date. Where you refuse, we don’t accept the movie.
Cinemas in Nigeria don’t have enough screens. The average screen here is 4.8. If I’m showing ‘Captain America’ I want to show it on two screens to make more money. We look at so many different factors, but don’t reject films because they are Nollywood or Hollywood. We reject films based on their commercial viability or the dating. It’s not what we think but what the market thinks.
How do you ensure films are shown to the appropriate age of viewers they are meant for?
Once films have been censored and a certificate and rating issued by the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board, whom we work with, we apply the rules. Let’s say a rating is for 15 years, and some kids come in looking younger, we query them. In some cases, when we’re unsure and they’ve responded to all the questions correctly, we either refuse them entry or get them to sign an undertaking, because they might be telling the truth. When they are with an adult, the adult signs the undertaking.
But when it is so clear that the child is under that age, we refuse them entry outright whether they are accompanied or not, or will sleep through the movie. In the case where a film is rated maybe 12A, anybody can watch it, including children as long as they are accompanied.
What we find is that outside Lagos and Abuja, people are not used to such rules. We have to explain and insist on going with the law.