I was watching Peep, the Investigative series written and directed by multiple-award winning film-maker, Shirley Frimpong-Manso, and the big question I asked myself, which I’ve still not got  a complete answer is ‘What is she doing so right to get excellent these results’? If you’ve watched the Peep series (especially those in Ghana and Europe), or any of her movies, there is a superb ingredient in her works which makes them stand out.

Generally, looking through her works (I have all her movies), she is someone who loves to challenge herself. The reason being, some people use ‘faces/favourites’ (actor/actresses) in their movies so to get the ratings and sales, because that is what fetches the money. For a director to cast ‘unknown’ faces in leading roles is a big challenge especially, if you don’t know how high or low people will patronise the finished product. In this era where every employer needs an ‘experienced’ worker to cut cost, she works with them anyway and brings out the best in them and still sells.

All movies, both local and international have storylines which have been full or partially done before. It takes a lot of creativity to write the same story but in a very unique way as if it has never been told before. An actor once mentioned in an interview that; Shirley Frimpong Manso is one director he just cannot refuse when she offers him a role. This is simply because of how she writes and narrates her stories coupled with the fact that you tend to learn a lot from her.

Looking at how she portrays Ghana in terms of scenery and locations, you can see she takes a lot of time to prepare before shooting. The quality of her work speaks for itself. You don’t need to keep your finger on the volume button all the time, to re-adjust noise/volume with irritating background music. You just don’t get bored with unnecessary and prolonged scenes. When it comes to costumes and make-up, you cannot fault it. A complete look at her work beams one thing-a product of hard work

I went over to a friend’s house some time ago with one of her movies, ‘A Sting in a Tale’, and she told me point blank that she doesn’t watch my country’s movies (a Kenyan), because she wasted her money to buy a Ghanaian movie full of porn. I had to convince her that it was a decent movie, before she agreed to watch. Thankfully, she loved it and that was when her ‘love’ for Ghanaian movies was ignited!

This is how one bad nut was able to put somebody off a movie, in the same vein, just one good movie can speak thousand words about our Movie Industry.

Understandably, she knows her ‘onions’ (she studied in that field), but sincerely, she is doing something right which the others are obviously doing wrong!  So again, what is she doing so right that the others are not doing to improve their movies and the Ghanaian movie industry at large? Is it lack of vision or hard work? Is it that they are trying too hard in a field that is not their calling or plain laziness?

Certainly there must be a hidden catch…Whatever it is, Shirley Frimpong Manso stands out!