Let’s prioritize our productions – James Gardener

Actor, James Gardener has made a passionate appeal to Ghanaians to help save the movie industry by prioritizing contents from local producers.

Speaking at a press briefing organized by Zylofon Media to unveil Benedicta Gafah, Bibi Bright, Toosweet Annan Zynnell Zuh and himself as ambassadors of the firm, James Gardener added his voice to calls on institutions to regulate soap operas.

He would not call for the contents to be taken off television completely as he argued that they serve as a source of revenue for television stations.

“Most of the telenovela that are being shown have overshadow our content. I don’t want to blame anyone but I feel like if we prioritize our productions more than the westerners’, it would give ours some value and that will speak well for us. If you go to Nigeria, they place more emphasis on their productions than the westerners’. That is why it’s so easy for Nigerians to be recognized here than for Ghanaians to be recognized there. So if there is a way that we can structure in such a way that during the prime hours, it’s going to be Ghana productions and late in the night, the other people can also carry on because they are platforms that the TV stations make money from sponsorship. You can’t just cut them off,” he said.

Touching on other means of marketing movies, James Gardener said it has become necessary for producers to consider premiering as the sale of CDs is not encouraging.

“I think it has got to do with how easy it has become for people to access movies in Ghana today because back in the day, you wouldn’t get movies streaming on your screens on almost every day. Now, people have decoders and that makes it easily accessible to the point that when you see CDs being sold, you wouldn’t even have the edge to buy, go home and watch. Now the trend is with premiering movies,” he noted.

As ambassadors of Zylofon Media, the actors will be producing movies for the firm as it handles their profession.