Costume, Make-Up and Props as Conveyors of Culture in Nollywood

Abstract

This paper interrogates how the use of costume, make-up and props in Nollywood aid in situating the films within a culture. Film art is a  cultural product which propagates and instils the culture of its origin to the viewer. It does this through the use of costume, make-up and  props which help to establish the background of the narrative. Aguba (2004), a Nollywood film will be used for analysis and discussion in  this study. Anchored in Social Semiotic Theory, the article uses descriptive and analytical methods to explicate the use of costume, make- up and props in Aguba, The findings reveal that costume, make-up and props situate films to a particular culture as it is the case in the  film under study. The paper concludes that costume, make-up and props is used to convey cultural information in Aguba. We, therefore,  recommend that costume, make-up and props should be discerned as the most visible channel through which we propagate and  document the people’s identity, using it to showcase cultures and values.