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| The Set of HEAVENS GATE |
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| MICHEAL OKON and AUSTIN NWOLI |
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| OSITA OKOLI, ZIK ZULU OKAFOR, ALEX OSIFO, FRED AMATA |
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| SEGUN ARINZE |
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| FRED AMATA |
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| ZIK ZULU, FRED AMATA, ALEX OSIFO, WUBA OGO |
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| The Set of HEAVENS GATE |
There is no doubt that the television series and soaps are taking center stage in quality programing in the Nigerian film industry...
TALKER, took a trip down to the set of one of the longest running TV series on Nigerian Television, to find out what has been the secret to their success story these past years. HEAVENS GATE, is a collaboration from the City of David parish of the Redeem Christian Church of God, the Incubator, Optimum media group and Zik Zulu Productions.
This particular scene took place at the beautiful edifice of Zik Zulu Okafor himself, down town Surulere, here in Lagos State.
I met with the brain behind the direction Osita Okoli, according to him, this is basically the winding down of a lot of the story lines created and told in the past eight years. The script describes it as ''Denoumor'' the final chapter, but in our usual style they are surprises and twist here and there it ends with this but ends very well.
HEAVENS GATE stared the likes of Alex Osifo who played the character chief Chukwuemeka dan Philips, Franker Brown as Rebecca Dan Philps and Fred Amata playing his son Kelechi Dan Philips, a character which has gone through a lot of changes, from a play boy, became born again, had his father trying to kill him, become lame, blind and all of that. Now back from it all, its pay back time.... According to the light skinned actor, ''there are some scenes u will just love when we re engineer the very word of God from the bible, I remember there is a particular scene I liked were they say every knee shall bow, the way it was played out I think people will love to see it''. The son's fiancé is Adora which was played by Monalisa Chinda, and of course the major antagonist Chief Gbadamosi by Segun Arinze, he describes his character as a very mischievous character, the leader of an occult group, called ''Brotherhood''they believe in the ''POT'' and so he is a very cantankerous arrogant character that feels that he knows everything but unfortunately was beaten to it, every move he makes boomerangs him, he just keeps trudging but, let's see how the character walks out eventually, will he die or will he give his life? There are so many questions to be asked.
Zik Zulu Okafor who happens to be the producer and also the current president of the Association of Movie Producers AMP. Playing the role of pastor John says, the soap tells a story that celebrates God in a very subtle way.
I also met with the character Chike played by Okon Micheal, his character grew up not knowing his biological parents, more like a lost son but the intrigue of not knowing and the incidents that brought about the circumstance is what we are about to find out, star studded I must confess.
Now let's meet the crew proper, starting with Emeka Duru as the Production Manager, he has been doing this over the years so, the set of a soap, is quite an easy lane to tread. the Director of Photography Austin Nwoli is well know for his cinematography and on this set he is working with the Panasonic P2 camera with lenses to get a very good picture. Temisan Esede is a professional male makeup artiste, who understands his craft very well, he talked about how he's been able to tone down the make up for the occult scenes. On sound is Semiu Adewuyi he is using a separate camera to record his sound according to him it will help him get a better sound. Jacob David on lights and Chris Ezirim on continuity, he describes his duty as an assistant to the director, who sees what the director do not see. All in all, about 195 scenes went down in 19 days and over 45 cast and 14 crew personals wrapped up this phase of HEAVENS GATE the final chapter......cut!!!!
