Renowned Film Producer, Editor, Cinematographer and Director, Loukman Ali and his movie ‘The Girl in the Yellow Jumper’ recently made headlines after it became the first Ugandan production to hit Netflix on 27th December 2021.
As expected, this development prompted a lot of people to not only watch the movie, but also share their opinions on it.
During The Fatboy Show on RX Radio today morning, the Producer revealed that a number of people gave him feedback concerning the movie, but some of which was more hurtful than constructive.
“There’s feedback I've been receiving online especially from filmmakers who were like, ‘Oh, Loukman you really suck at writing, you should stop writing and get someone else to do it for you.’ I feel this is like telling a 2-year-old child that's not yet talking to get an interpreter, and recommending a wheelchair for them despite having everything else functioning.”
He said that given that the movie was released 2 years ago, over time he has come to realize and accept a number of shortcomings in it that he can acknowledge as criticism if pointed out.
“Usually the criticism that I hate is when people tell me to quit because I am thinking, I've done this for only 3 years and then I should stop? I can't just stop because I am not good, I have to try till I am good enough,” he said.
“For instance when I watch a Marvel movie, I can criticize it but I also understand that it's easier to give my opinion from the outside yet I can’t even create the film. So, I only want criticism from people that are doing the same thing as me because they can give me solutions on how I can improve and become better. Not a random person commenting that an act can’t appear a certain way, yet it’s a film and some scenes have to appear that way.”
However, he recognized that the success of the movie and seeing it trend on the platform amazed him and he contemplated on what it would be like if it had been a better feature film. “I thought to myself that if they could take this, it means that whatever I make next will obviously just go through.”
Loukman also admitted to having imitated scenes from filmmakers that inspired him such as Quentin Taratino and ‘Fargo’ which he said he consciously fixed into his own with an aim of trying to perfectly recreate a scene with the available resources.
“I've watched and re-watched so many movies back to back so whenever I thought of a situation of a story that I wanted to include, and is similar to one I've watched somewhere, I try to construct it like the way they did, especially since I work with no money. In the end, it's easier for me to redo it rather than trying to construct it from scratch myself.”
On mentioning money and how it's a constraint, Fatboy asked him whether money will not corrupt his filmmaking process and choice of movies in case funds kicks in as desired.
Loukman replied, “I dont think it’s the money that corrupts one, it's more of the corporate interests that other stakeholders might desire and details such as the choice of words to use in your movie. This can eliminate the things that make you you, and them being the ones that are paying, you end up having to find a middle ground between corporate interests and your art.”
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, Sarah and Lesham every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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