Movies of Saturday, 18 June 2011

Source: ghanacebrities.com

"Adams Apples" London Premiere: Good Movie, Cheap Organization

It would be absolutely absurd to re-echo how great ‘Adams Apples’ is since this has been done several times, precisely when the chapters were premiered in Ghana.

However, I sincerely cannot depart an inch from what was said in the linked post. I perfectly understand why it is a ten chapter movie, it could perfectly pass for fifty chapter movie; the twist and suspense are enough to make you want the movie not to end.

Shirley Frimpong Manso perfectly understands what her audience want and she is exceptionally great at deliverying that without any dilution. The movie is on point and the reaction from the cinema hall yesterday firmly affirms that.

The best part of all is that, the large crowd that were seated at the Odeon Cinema could relate and were headedly fixed into the movie despite the fact that the weather was terrible.

Who was in charge of the organisation for the London premiere of Adams Apples? I would be exceedingly disappointed if the person or whatsoever company that handled the premiere still has a job today.

Ghanaians have to understand the value of time and customer service. I will outline the various serious organizational disasters of the London premiere of ‘Adams Apples’ under the below headings…

Who in God’s name hired these people to handle the premiere? How on earth could there be shortage of tickets? What time did they say the premiere was supposed to start? Do these people know the proportion of Londoners who are wholly dependent on public transport? Do they know what time trains and buses close services in London? What was the name of the movie that was premiere yesterday? There was not a single poster/banner out there. The whole organization was an unpleasant JOKE. A big disappointment and disproportionate value for any money that was charged.

Can you believe there was not a single BANNER or even POSTER of ‘Adams Apples’ at the premiere yesterday? I heard 3 Ugandan guys asking a lady standing behind me a very simple question; what is the name of the Ghanaian movie that was being premiered?

How much does it cost to get a POSTER or even a white ‘BED SHEET’ and use a black paint to write ‘Adams Apples’ and stick it by somewhere on the wall even if the organizers could not afford a glossy banner?

Do I even have to talk about the absolute disregard for time? As usual, an event that was supposed to commence at 9:00/9:30pm per advertisement came to life around 10:30 when the movie stars showed up for the red carpet.

Which reasonable individual will care anymore after having been made to wait on his/her legs for almost 1 and half hour just for the red carpet? Gosh!

As if the 1 and half hour wait was not enough, the organizers continued their gruesome disrespect for time and ill-consideration of the fact that a majority of the various people who have gathered for the premiere had come on public transport which ends services around 1pm.

The first light from the projector was thrown around 11:40 when people were dozing off and were getting uncomfortable with constant check at their wrist watches with ‘How Do We Get Home’ in mind.

Let me go back to certain events that could have easily been avoided with the issue of the tickets and yet the organizers stupidly, preferably cheaply ignored it.

You print out amazing glossy tickets without a full address of the venue on it. Wow, who did this job? Worse of it all is that, the tickets did not even have a phone number to call should an emergency arise.

So this is how they thought, give us your £10 pounds and we will send you this shiny ticket, if you are not able to make your way to the venue, screw you because after all, we are just interested in your money and nothing else.

Yes, you have gotten my money this time, but what about next time? This is a clear display of a myopic mentality; all the organizers seemed to care about is today and not build a good relationship with Londoners for future premires.

Would it amount to contempt if I call the organizers ‘losers’ who had no idea about what they were entrusted to do? How on earth tickets would be finished at the premiere venue when the only ‘trustable’ and viable form to purchase your ticket was to come there and do it.

Where did they sell the tickets? What happened to using tickets outlets like ticketmaster.com and others to sell tickets? I remember there was a ticket hotline but was a pretty useless as if it did not exist.

In the midst of all the havoc, there was no one to ‘correctly’ speak to, except a young lady placed in the dark at some unnoticeable corner who did not even know what was going on herself. All she could say was, ‘tickets are finished, wait for 10 mins and this 10mins turned out to be 3 hours.

Should I continue recalling all the unnecessary discomfort that was caused yesterday just because some ‘ignorant company or person’ was probably in charge of the premiere of such a good movie?

For a minute, I thought I was there to see ‘Mirror Boy’ because their posters and banners did justice to marketing and promotion…

The chapter 2 of the movie ended at around 3am and you would not believe the look on my face when I heard some a girl saying to her mates, we have to hang around till 6am when the buses start so we can go home. I will not come here next time, she added.

Yes, they will not come next time. I do not want to even think about the many people who could not find their way there and could not even have a number handy to call to ask for a simple ‘full venue address’ and therefore will not also bother next time.

Great movie but the packaging, organization and presentation was as cheap as the last Community Centre event I attended in 2001 in my village.

Please do not get it twisted, this is not about Shirley Frimpong Manso’s ‘Adams Apples’, the movie was exceptionally great. The movie is one of the best to have come out of Ghana, it adds colour and glamour fused with an exceptionally intriguing story line to the Africa movie industry.

Those who were put in charge of the organization in my candid opinion screwed it up. Let’s call a spade a spade and not a fork. Shirley and her Sparrow Production team must re-evalute whoever was in charge of the London premiere organization.