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Until Valentine’s Day, only a handful of people knew of music video producer Femi Dapson, despite his impressive body of work in the Nigerian music industry.
Mr Dapson is renowned for producing videos for hits such as Burna Boy’s “City Boy”, Rema’s “Calm Down”, Kizz Daniel’s “Cough”, Omah Lay’s “Woman”, Buju’s “Kenkele”, among other chart-topping tracks by leading Nigerian Afrobeats artistes.
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PREMIUM TIMES reported that he became the centre of attention after taking a bold step to celebrate his fiancée, Simi Sanya.
On the day of love, the founder of Nouvelle Films, a Lagos-based production company specialising in high-quality music videos, commercials, and documentaries, publicly declared his affection by displaying heartfelt messages to the lifestyle content creator on digital billboards in Lagos.
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Mr Dapson’s messages appeared prominently in Lekki Phase 1 and Phase 2, capturing the admiration of onlookers.
While the buzz was still fresh, he revealed during an interview with Meristem Nigeria, alongside his fiancée, the fees he charges for producing a single music video.
The video, which has gone viral, was uploaded to the channel’s YouTube page on Saturday.
Benchmark
He said: “It’s not that I just charge above 50 million. It’s how I like to work, except I genuinely believe in the project, I don’t take it on. And unless the project is exceptional, I don’t take it on. And then, except for quality, I won’t take it on. And they reach out to me for quality. So, if you’re paying me back, what amount of money do you expect? It’s what you saw and why you came to me. I want to deliver that to you. So, that’s why we charge what we charge.
“The way production works. Let’s say I’m going to shoot a commercial for something. I can give you a full idea for a video, pictures, and all that. When I give you the budget, it might be around N200 million, just being honest. Honestly, I sent a budget out for a commercial last week, I think it was N246 million. It’s not all my money. This is a production, but on my set, we have about 200 people working.”
Rationale
Additionally, Mr Dapson explained that production fees vary depending on the artist’s requirements and other factors.
He highlighted the high costs of creative direction, premium production equipment, and the need to deliver world-class quality that meets international standards as key reasons for the charges.
“I’m going to pay all 200 of them. Some of them take N2 million per day. Some of them take N500 per day. My DOP charges in dollars. Production people, they know. For example, I do projects where the set design alone will cost a lot of money. Let me give you an example. I think it was Awuke, a song for Davido and YG Marley. The set design alone was about 20 million, just for the set.
“Then there’s lighting. Lighting alone would be N7 or N8 million. And they were short for 2 days. I paid for lighting for 2 days. DOP charges in dollars, I paid for 2 days. Do you get it? It’s not as if I make out the whole 240 million. I mean, of course, I make a reasonable amount of money. I feel I’ve answered the question.”
