Ghana is big enough, isn’t it? Ghana as a country is partitioned into ten (10) different regions which are made up of several towns and cities. You would bear with me that, there are lots of beautiful places in these towns and cities. Talk of nature, landscape, etc.
Let’s all conduct a small exercise here. Reach out for about fifteen (15) English (sometimes Twi as well) Ghanaian movies and watch them all (you need not watch each one of them to the end). If you observe each movie with a critical eye, you will notice something similar in most, if not all the movies.
It has something to do with the location. Most of the movies that are shot here in Ghana have the same scenery. The same streets are noticed every now and then in our movies. If it is not the Tetteh Quarshie interchange, it would probably be the Kwame Nkrumah Roundabout or Circle. If Accra Mall is not featured in the movie, you are sure to see Max Mart Shopping Center. It is either you spot the Ako Adjei interchange or you make out the Accra – Aburi road.
Are these the only sceneries that can appear in Ghanaian movies? Is it that aside Accra, all other places are irrelevant to be featured in movies? Are the producers not willing to spend money to travel to other places to enrich the quality of their movies? These are all questions that ought to be considered.
There’s a popular saying that goes like this; “in order to catch a fish, one needs fish to do so.” Maybe those who can read Twi can understand this better when translated. It says “y3de nam na eyi nam.” In order to produce quality works and make more money, money should be spent on these petty petty things. It becomes extremely boring when only one or two locations are being shown in each and every movie that one watches.
Accra is the capital city of Ghana (everybody knows this), thereby making the government focus its attention on the capital more often in terms of development. This also does not mean that other cities and towns are not developed at all.
There are other places like Cape Coast, Koforidua, Akosombo, Takoradi etc that have beautiful landscapes which can be used for shooting nice and wonderful movies. Yet the producers and directors fail to make use of these towns and cities.
The niche have been carved that once a movie is going to be done in English, the location should fall within the territories of Accra. If it is going to be done in Twi, what more can one expect than Kumasi.
It’s time for producers to travel around and look out for other interesting places where they can shoot movies. Don’t you think so too?
Creative thinkers re dying
out from our
entertainment industry,
people shoot movies not
considering the storyline
and how it will impact the
society, they write write
story around few actors in
Ghana bcos the marketers
av warn them if such
actors/actress re not
involved in the production
they wont market it,
majority of Ghanaians
want to be part of telling
good story but people av
bn discourage, Good story
writters re not needed
again bcos the money
they will use to pay a
proffessional story writter
can be use to pay some
actor and actress without
good story but the movie
wll stll generate some
small income, Marketers in
Ghana dont care about yr
story they only care abt
which actor or actress in
the movie…Our
Entertainment industry is
dying slowly and need
creative thinkers.
Just what I was talking about to a friend of mine. Regarding locations in GH movies.
90% of Ghanaian movies are very very very boring if u ask me…thank God we have the likes of Shirley Frimpong Manso to give us good quality movies