CINDY'S NOTES.

· REVIEWER: EFEKOHA OGHENETEJIRI VWEDE. DIRECTOR: Izu Ojukwu.

· WRITTEN BY: Amaka Ezeala.

· PRODUCER: Ify Dozie and Ngozi Nkwoji.

· DATE OF RELEASE: 2008.

· THEME: Do not judge a book by its cover.

· SETTING: The film is set in a rural area.

· MAIN CASTS: Bharia Mcwizu, Nonso Diobi, and Clem Ohameze.

· LANGUAGE: English, pidgin and Hausa.

· COUNTRY: Nigeria.

· SOUND TRACK: Dalyop Gwon and Seigha Ebide.

· STORY: Amarachukwu Iwuala.

· DURATION: 102minutes.

· PLOT:

Cindy Harstrup, a youth corper, was posted to serve at Adamawa state. Being the girl from the rich family, she tended to want everything her way. She reflects this in the way he ran the affairs of the school, also when she was shown her room, in her attitude to the NYSC allocator amongst other situations. There also is Wilson, another youth corper at Wuse who finds it hard to adapt to the attitude of Cindy, but seems also to be the only one who has the patience to understand her. He ends up falling in love with her. Then there is Wande, the student who becomes Cindy’s best friend.

The story kicks off with Cindy at the orientation camp disappointed that her parents could not get her to Lagos. She settles for this with the condition that her mother would see to it that she was redeployed to Lagos. She meets a couple of friends and orientation commences. She is posted to serve at Wuse community, Adamawa. She attempted explaining to the officer in charge that she was expecting a letter and she was given the condition that if she did not report to the school, she would not be granted her letter. She got there and poured out her anger on everybody she came in contact with, during which she met her friend-Wande.

She also saw another corper who went through the same orientation camp with her. They became friends and he put her through all the things she should and should not do. Overtime, they developed feelings for each other. She had clashes with a number of people who did not like what she was doing and in the process, a father of one of the students died. At the end of the day due to frustration, she attempted to leave the town but was encouraged by Wande to finish what she started. She affected a lot of change and got adapted to the community life. She turned down the re-posting letter and her mother was angry due to the fact that she put in enough effort to effect the change.

· TITLE SEQUENCE: In the beginning of the film when the cast was shown, the background was first a plain black post and then Cindy(the main character in the film) was shown in her living room going through memories from her past. A background music was heard which led to her voice reading aloud what she was reading.

· COSTUMES: school uniforms, NYSC uniforms and normal day-to-day wears, cultural wears.

· GENRES: Melodrama.

· SHOTS: The shots that were used in this film are: Extreme long shots, Medium shots which were basically used throughout the film, Close-up shots, extremely close-up shots and long shots were used in the beginning of the film during the orientation camp activities.

· ANGLES: The angles that were used in this film are the mid-angle, the subjective or point of view. The extreme high angle was used in the beginning when she was shown at the orientation camp.

· QUOTES: The quote I find significant in this film is “There are three kinds of people, the first set of people see a problem and walk away, the second set see a problem, talk about it and hope that someone or some people would do something about it, the last set of people see a problem and take on the challenge of doing something to solve it”. It was first said by Cindy and later by Wilson.

· TRANSITIONS: Fade-in and Fade-out were used in the introduction of the film.

· REFLECTION: I found the film quite inspiring. Cindy who started off with a bad impression about the community ended up being the one to change the lives of the members forever. The ironic thing is that the more the forces operated against her, the more proplelled she felt to do more and even stay in the village. Until the incident which occurred at the school compound when the parents came to revolt.

This was the point where everything seemed to be crumbling down at her feet and Wilson who was her backbone was not around. This even made her end on the hospital bed. But despite all odds, she made her mark and stayed till the end.

This is the part I like, within a short period of time, she was able to convert her hatred for the school into innovations of different things for the school and the community. I like her determination to work. I like the guts she had when it came to dealing with issues from the haters.

Also the effect of wrong English by both students and teachers showed the extreme ltvel of illiteracy by both elders and students.

· FINALE: The climax of the movie was when the parent of one of the students died and everybody turned their backs against her. Despite this she was able to handle the situation well.