“I sold cakes and bread on campus… .”- Deyemi Okanlawon

Actors learn a great deal about the process of movie making while working.

According to Nigerian famous actor, Deyemi Okanlawon, after a while of working on other people’s movies, an actor can run across a script for a movie that they would like to do.

Deyemi who was on LN247 flagship ‘This Morning’ show, answered the question of if there are perquisites for young actors wanting to go into film production.

“You just need to be a storyteller. Transitioning for me from acting to producing was about three different things. And the first was that I found that as an actor, I needed to be working constantly. And it was taking away a lot of time that I could be spending with people that I love, my family. And in fact, that was one of the reasons why I joined Silverbird, because I just wanted to take some time off and focus on other parts of my life.

Producing offers me that opportunity. I’m in the planning phase. I can be at home when I’m planning. When I’m shooting is just a short period of time. And then I go back and I start doing marketing and stuff. It gave me much more time to be in my family.

He added; “I think the second thing was financially, I’d done the math. I joined distribution. I knew the numbers. I was like, you know what? If I were to produce a certain number of films, or even one film, and compare it to what the possible revenue would be as an actor, producing overweight, that’s significant. And I said, this is a more efficient way to spend my time”.

The versatile artist who revealed that he sold bread on campus, added ” the third thing was that in terms of branding, I felt that by producing a film, and hopefully it had been successful, would show that I’m an actor who brings more than just my face into a film.

I bring in marketing. I bring in distribution strategy. I bring an audience as well. I kind of like the stories that I tell. I’ve always told stories since I was a child. So it was just an opportunity to continue this thing that I loved doing in a bigger scale”. He concluded.