Rocky road to making Nigerian sci-fi epic, Ratnik – Ajibola

Dimeji Ajibola is a writer, filmmaker and animator. In 2012 he released his debut film, a musical titled ‘Hoodrush’ which received two nominations at the 9th Africa Movie Academy Awards. He is now set to release a science fiction movie, ‘Ratnik’, in the first quarter of 2020. Here, he talks about what it took to […]

Dimeji Ajibola is a writer, filmmaker and animator. In 2012 he released his debut film, a musical titled ‘Hoodrush’ which received two nominations at the 9th Africa Movie Academy Awards. He is now set to release a science fiction movie, ‘Ratnik’, in the first quarter of 2020. Here, he talks about what it took to make ‘Ratnik’, his passion for special effects, and more. Excerpts:

Weekend Magazine: From your 2012 musical movie ‘Hoodrush’ you have moved to a science fiction film, ‘Ratnik’, due to be released next year. As the writer, what would you say inspired ‘Ratnik’ and what was your writing process like?

Dimeji Ajibola: I was first an animator before I became a filmmaker. I started off as an animator because I wanted to tell a story using animation. But I realized that it is painstaking and takes time to do it all by yourself knowing the fact that we don’t have a lot of animation schools or specialists in Nigeria. It’s a difficult task. So I decided to go into filmmaking because I always wanted to tell a story. That was how I went to the New York Film Academy in the US in 2009. When I came back, I wanted to test my prowess in the area of film making and wrote ‘Hoodrush’ in 2010/2011. It was released in 2012. After that, I got a lot of accolades for the movie from people who liked that I was able to do that despite it being my first. This encouraged me to follow my true calling, which is visual effects.

A lot of people don’t know that I am an animator. I also do advertising as my day job. So, I wrote another movie titled ‘Sango’ which has a lot of visual effects in it as well. But I realized I would need a lot of sponsors to make that movie happen and I couldn’t get that at the time. ‘Ratnik’ was supposed to be a film that would showcase our talent in that area so as to encourage sponsors. That was the plan. We wanted a movie that would show how good we were. So, I wrote the movie and shot it in 2016 and started the visual effects.

Visual effects is a painstaking process, but we did it anyway because we wanted to show potential sponsors that it would be worth it. I worked with some other people but couldn’t keep up mostly because of financial problems. For that reason, I couldn’t keep a lot of them. They had stayed under my roof for too long. So, largely, all the workload was on me. I did it until the first trailer was released. The film wasn’t completed then but we got a lot of attention. People commended us and encouraged us to finish the work. We eventually brought out the official trailer.

WM: What was it like directing it and what did you find most challenging?

Ajibola: I try as much as possible to do a lot of planning before we go onset, especially in the areas of costume and choreography because there is some physical combat and shooting in the movie. There are some areas where the actors had to rehearse with imaginary characters who were later put in the production. I had to explain that to them. They have seen some of the makings in Hollywood movies and so had some idea of what it would take to shoot that kind of movie. At some point some of them were stressed but remained encouraged because it was something they really wanted to be part of.

WM: What did it take to find locations you needed to give the movie that complete dystopian touch?

Ajibola: Naturally, in Africa we don’t have a lot of crest environment. We knew that finding locations like that won’t be too difficult. It’s just that I am based in Lagos and most of the actors are also in Lagos. We shot half of the movie in Lagos State and the other half in Oyo State where we saw some of these landscape and rocky terrains. Some of the locations didn’t come like we wanted them so we did some work, post-production to get such places ready. For example, in a particular scene in the movie, there was a lot of present-day activity going on in the background that didn’t fit into the movie. So, in post-production, we had to crop out all those activities and replace it with a barren landscape. The process is called matte painting in visual effects. So we did a lot of that. It’s a painstaking process but we had to do it.

WM: ‘Ratnik’ was set for screening this month but has now been rescheduled to next year, what happened?

Ajibola: We are looking at releasing it in March 2020. Because of the nature of the movie we want it to reach every nook and cranny of the country. We also want to be encouraged by its performance so that movies like it can continue to be shot. We plan to open an academy where we can teach people this type of movie production and make sure it doesn’t take as long as it took us. About three people worked on this movie and it took us four years to get it ready. We don’t want that to happen again because it was too long. So, we want to teach, especially young people who are interested in this kind of field. Our sponsors asked for more time so they can benefit from the advertisement that will be put out.

WM: Why the title Ratnik?

Ajibola: The word ‘Ratnik’ means warrior in the Russian language. The Russians use it to describe their tactical combat. In the movie, the technology of the security department fell into the hands of a Nigerian solider. That is why we named it ‘Ratnik’.

WM: The movie is a blend of science fiction and magical realism. As the writer, were you ever tempted to impress and show that Nigeria can do this?                        

Ajibola: Of course. I wanted to show that it’s possible. You always here that if it’s this good then it is not from Africa, and when it’s bad it is associated with the continent. We wanted to change that narrative and decided to go all the way. We wanted to do something impressive that will make people talk. If you look around the world, you see countries like China, Thailand and Vietnam doing something like that. So, why can’t we in Africa? If we come together, we can surely do better in the film industry.

WM: The trailer shows a lot going on. Did you struggle with the decision to explore more or less in order to stay on track? 

Ajibola:  If you watch the movie as a whole, there is a balance. In the trailer, it seems to have a lot going on and that is because we want to get a lot of attention. We struggled to get it done. Even the bits of the movie were a struggle because of the visual effects involved. Apart from the skill needed to achieve this, we also needed some impressive hardware equipment to pull it off. We had to find a balance somehow. Sometimes when we realized our hardware couldn’t do what we needed, we had to compromise.

WM: What did it take to choose the cast and what influenced your final decision?

Ajibola: The lead cast in the movie is a lady and that is very important. Most of our senior actors in Nigeria are not used to this genre. You have to do a lot of running around, fighting, training, choreography and all of that. Because of how physically challenging it would be for the actress, we went through a lot to arrive at the person we finally chose. That person is Osas Ighodaro. The good thing about her is that she is passionate about such roles. She didn’t want to keep doing the usual and needed something challenging. She was really impressed when we started training and begged for the role to come to her. The training was to ensure she was fit for the part. We didn’t want a situation where we would get onset and she would give up on us. Once we realized she already had the passion we were after, it was pretty easy from there.

WM: How did you realize Osas Ighodaro was ready for the role?

Ajibola: We put them through a series of exercises and watched them. When they passed all our tests, we knew the people we wanted to be the cast.

WM: What kind of training did you put them through?

Ajibola: In the movie we have a lot of martial art. So, we got a martial art instructor. Before we went onset, we had a month or so that we used to train vigorously. We put them through all the necessary exercises, including martial arts training, and of course we had actors around to break their fall. Those are the things we made them go through. Then we realized how good Osas was for the role.

WM:  ‘Hoodrush’ and ‘Ratnik’ show your attempt to break barriers in Nollywood. How would you compare the experience of directing ‘Hoodrush’ to ‘Ratnik’? 

Ajibola: I had a little challenge doing ‘Hoodrush’. There’s a lot of singing in it all originally composed by us. The challenge was the script and composing about 12 songs. We had to make sure the songs aligned with the film’s storyline. We also had to audition for actors that could sing. We wanted viewers to know that the actors were also the people singing the song. If you are singing a song, there is a passion that comes with it rather than miming. So, we wanted to capture that on camera. The challenges we underwent during ‘Hoodrush’ was getting actors that could sing. Eventually went it came out, it was something we were happy about.

So, they are two different kinds of films. One is a musical, the other is sci-fi and adventure. I know viewers will wonder where ‘Ratnik’ is coming from, but I have always been into visual effects and wanted to showcase that talent. It’s just that it took a longer time. I feel it’s the perfect film to showcase with.

WM: What is next for you now? What mountain are you looking to conquer?

Ajibola: I wrote a story called ‘Sango’. That is what I actually wanted to do before I decided to start with ‘Ratnik’. My next project would be ‘Sango’ now that people know what we can do. I also want to do a series. There is something else we are working on, a thriller because I prefer them to love stories.