'We Are Creating For The Neglected African Young Demographic' - Filmmaker, Jesi Damina

In this episode of Nollywood BTS, sponsored by Filmmakers Mart, we speak with writer and filmmaker, Jesi Damina on her work in creating for the African young adult demographic with her sisters.

When films for young adults was still nascent in Nollywood, Jesi Damina and her sisters dared to be different by telling a story by young people for the young people. The project, Best Friends In The World came on YouTube, with a different feel and proved to be something fresh for young adults and teenagers alike. 

The series soon became a big hit and garnered a strong audience that have enjoyed watching the coming of age of its characters. 

In this interview with In Nollywood, writer and co-founder of Neptune3 studios, the production company behind the series, Jesi speaks about the process of making this series.

She shares insights on running a film company alongside her sisters and what’s next for them. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

You are a creative person who wears different hats. How would you describe yourself?

The first word I think describes me best is storyteller. I think the avenues through which storytelling expresses itself is a whole other thing, but being a storyteller is one thing I will always continue to try to grow in and improve in as my life progresses.

So far, I express myself through screenwriting, filmmaking and music. I also do some fine arts as well. That's a part of my life that is very protected just because of how I think I've been able to some extent commercialize the screenwriting, filmmaking and songwriting.

You co-founded and run a film company with your sisters, Neptune3 Studios. How did it all start?

It started when we didn't even know we were starting. We were fresh out of college, my older sister, Jemima, and I had just completed our Masters degrees. Our youngest sister, Jeiel, had just graduated high school. We didn't have the idea of doing something for ourselves but my mom reminded us that we practically went to school to learn to do this on our own.

In University, we had learned about the film pipeline which inspired me to write New Girl, which was the first episode of Best Friends In The World. It was a short film and we were just experimenting. We asked Jeiel to ask some of her friends if they were interested in joining the project just because we couldn't really get professional actors to respond to our casting call. We were new, nobody knew what we were doing or who we were.

We also decided to put up the series on YouTube because it’s a free platform and can be accessed globally which, to us, meant that our work wouldn’t be restricted by region and we could receive critique in real time directly from the audience.

The series has grown and so have you and your sisters. How does it feel to grow alongside your art?

It is a really new experience. Before we started filmmaking, my sisters and I were actually in a music group called Triple J Plus. We made two Christian albums and that was my first foray into the creative space.

That was the small scale version of what we are growing with Neptune3 Studios. For the work we do now, I find myself being a computer in a sense. Not only do I have to be creative, I also have become more business minded. It’s been a challenging experience for my sisters and I because all we were almost unprepared for some of the things expected of us.

We soon realized it was no longer a group of sisters coming together to do what we love but we are now also business partners and have to start thinking like business people. I think that realization was quite daunting. It was a lot to accept because a part of me specifically just wants to be creative. I am still growing and trying to adapt.

What is the most challenging part of making Best Friends In The World?

The financial limitations. I think that this would be the most common answer any filmmaker would give you because money is a huge factor. We bootstrapped the entire project and it was limiting in the sense that we had to wear a lot of hats that we would have rather outsourced if we had the funds.

This goes beyond the business into the creative parts itself. During the project, I had to be screenwriter, production manager, production designer, head of wardrobe and other things. My sisters also played multiple roles and at some point, we thought about bringing in more people but couldn’t afford to.

Now, two years after, looking back on it, we've seen so many things we could have done differently.

How often do you still find yourself exchanging hats with your sisters on projects?

We still wear multiple hats. Since Best Friends In The World wrapped, we haven't really put ourselves out there. We’ve done a few smaller projects that haven't come out, and we still relied on ourselves to run the pipeline.

After Best Friends, we had a year-long stint in Lagos where we just wanted to immerse ourselves in the industry, see what the people and the industry were like. In the upcoming productions, there is a plan in place to diversify the roles but it will still be done with caution because it's not just about finding people, it's also about finding people that care about the project.

Do you sometimes get the sense that you pioneered a niche show and where did you come from as a writer, considering the Nigerian context, in that kind of dynamic? 

Yes I do feel like we pioneered this niche and it's related to the foundation on which a lot of people are now expressing themselves. Before Best Friends In The World, I had done some research to see what a semblance of what we wanted to do was like, because there wasn't really any structure in place.

There was nothing we could refer to to understand how to do our own show. I had seen MTV Shuga and I think there was one other show, it was a Ghanaian show on YouTube. I had skimmed through to see what the feel of it was like. While those few options were at play, they weren't quite what we wanted to do. So I think we pioneered this style of young adult storytelling.

With Shuga, for example, they were passing a message, and the themes of sensitization about HIV and AIDS and sexual health were obvious. Ours was different in that it was about existentialism as a high school or as a secondary school student, teenager, or young adult. It was more about the coming of age process. I think when people watch the show it feels like there was a strong Western influence, which to be fair and  honest, there was, because I grew up watching the Disney Channel.

My mom exposed us to content from all across the world, not just with television, but with books as well. I think that's what's ingrained itself in me and influences how I tell stories and how I see my own life.

However, I think that the extent to which the West has influenced the show was in the structure of how we chose to tell the stories. Most of the experiences of the characters are things my siblings and I personally experienced in our own secondary school in Nigeria.

You spoke about being inspired by your own story and those of the cast members as well. How involved were your sisters in the writing process? 

Very involved, especially Jeiel because she is also a writer like me.

She's currently studying creative writing at Full Sail University and has always been a storyteller from when she was young. While me and Jeiel would come up with all the storylines for the show, Jemima would weigh in and analyse how well it would translate on screen.

The three of us are really at the core of the stories for Best Friends In The World. It wasn't just a solo effort. 

Would you say making Best Friends… was fun? What did a typical day on set look like for you?

It was absolutely fun. The four to five years we were making the show were some of the most sure challenging for growth and all that, but it was also some of the most fun times of my life.

The cast would come together at our office, and we would run through the scenes for the day. Sometimes we would meet on set, depending on what kind of episode we were shooting.

We shot like an average of 10 scenes on a good day and would break for lunch. At the end of the day, we would just go back to the office to debrief, work on the stuff that we couldn't achieve or the stuff that didn't go as great and just gear up for the next day. So it was really serious business, but on set it was always a fun time because you could tell that everybody was having fun doing what they were doing. 

How do you want Neptune3 to be seen going forward? What kind of projects are in the works?  

Our mission statement is to tell wholesome stories through film and television. We are specifically aiming to tell these stories for young adults and the teenage demographic. We are about servicing and working with that demographic.

This focus has crystalized over time as the demographic is very neglected in this industry and we feel a strong connection to them. More importantly, Neptune3 is made up of people who are passionate about the arts.

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This series is jointly presented by Filmmakers Mart, the leading film logistics marketplace in Nollywood.