AI in Nollywood: Why Viewers Notice Bad Effects More Than the Technology
AI is gradually becoming part of filmmaking, and Nollywood will likely use it more as filmmakers pursue bigger stories on tighter budgets. The real problem is not AI itself. Viewers react when an effect looks artificial enough to pull them out of the story. The debate around Colours of Fire shows how quickly that can happen. Although its AI-assisted flashback scenes reportedly take up only about 85 seconds of its nearly three-hour runtime, those moments became the focus after the film reached a wider streaming audience. The backlash was less about the idea of AI and more about whether the visuals blended convincingly with the live-action scenes. AI can help create medical injuries, disasters, fantasy settings and other expensive sequences. But it cannot replace skilled visual-effects artists, practical effects, CGI, strong post-production and careful storytelling. Disclosing AI use clearly may also help audiences focus on whether a scene works rather than feeling misled. Nollywood does not need to imitate Hollywood. It needs the talent, tools and investment to make distinctly Nigerian stories look as ambitious as the ideas behind them.
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