Reuben Odanga, the brain behind popular TV shows
Reuben Odanga, Multan Production Limited CEO during an interview at his offices at Karen Connection, Nairobi on June 6, 2023.
No one will blame you if you say you have never heard of Reuben Odanga. But you’ll probably not be forgiven if you have never heard of the popular television shows and films he has worked on.
The simple boardroom we sit in for the interview at Multan Production offices in Nairobi’s Karen is naturally well lit with a breeze blowing past the slightly opened large windows, breaking the mid-day heat wave.
“Sorry it’s super quiet here, conducive for production — any film producer will tell you that,” Reuben says.
The boardroom walls have mounted photographs of some of his successful productions: the popular telenovela Selina, Nira, Nuru, Kiu, Saida and the movie Nafsi.
Three minutes into the interview with Lifestyle, a phone call interrupts.
“Hello prime minister, I have just settled for an interview — probably 20 minutes? Okay, that’s fine,” he says. The ‘prime minister’ on the line was his wife.
If there is anything that Reuben brings to the table other than his filmmaking virtuosity, then it’s his frankness and wittiness. He believes that for one to make money, they have to spend.
The Multan Production CEO could be listed among the unsung heroes working behind the scenes to make the Kenyan film industry great, profitable and conducive for everyone in the space, more so those involved in projects he is part of.
A case in point is a tragedy that hit the production of Selina in 2017, when the main actor Kone Nouhoum, who played Reagan died after months in the Intensive Care Unit.
“We hadn’t foreseen such a scenario. So much was said about his death and I thought to myself, what would have happened had his death occurred while on set? That’s how I came up with the idea to offer medical insurance cover to my entire cast. An initiative that was unheard of locally in our industry,” he says.
Artsy roots
The 42-year-old describes his film-making journey as “very colourful”. From the beginning, this is what he always wanted to do, and money followed thereafter.
“I come from a family of actors, all my siblings were artsy but currently, I am the only one in this space. My childhood was highly influenced by them but I was also privileged to attend schools that were really into arts,” he explains.
During his time at St Peter’s Mumias Boys High School, the institution was quite big on drama and so was the case when he joined Kakamega High School.
“You see how clubs poach soccer players? During my time, that was a common occurrence. In our school, we had the likes of Dennis Oliech who were poached to come play soccer while I was poached to come join the drama team in Kakamega High,” says Reuben.
Recently retired legendary school principal Oliver Minishi, well known for his magic wand in the Kenyan drama scene, spotted Reuben’s talents during the drama festival and offered him a scholarship to join Kakamega High School.
“He had watched me perform while still in primary school at the 1996 national drama festival held at Lenana School. Kakamega harnessed my acting skills. They were serious about co-curriculum activities at the time. It was basically difficult to join two clubs, you had to belong in one and drama was very active, so you can imagine how that shaped my world towards the arts,” Reuben says.
When he completed high school studies in 2001, he had “nowhere to go” as far as acting was concerned.
Reuben Odanga, Multan Production Limited CEO and Zainab Issa, Head of Production at the company’s editing suite at Karen Connection, Nairobi on June 6, 2023.
Then something interesting happened when he joined Daystar University. The senior lot of students had an active drama club, most of which graduated at the same time. “So I’m coming to this space where I have to sort of reignite the drama club afresh, something that forced me to go into writing and directing, moving away from acting,” Reuben recalls.
Fortunately, he had some background in the trade, especially having written church plays. So, when he took up the role of directing, acting was pushed to the back- burner.
Incidentally, the drama club that Reuben was reviving had notable names such as gospel singer Mercy Masika, former Tusker Project Fame winner (2006) Valerie Kimani, comedian Eric Omondi, former TV news anchor Anne Kiguta, Nation Media Group Managing Editor (Audiences and Engagement) Oliver Mathenge among others.
“I then got an offer to join Afda, a private institution in South Africa, offering courses in film, TV and business innovation. I did harambees to raise the fees, bought Safaricom shares, which then dipped, tried all I could to raise the finances but nothing worked,” Reuben narrates.
Around the same time, it happened that an acquaintance of his
had landed a deal with NTV to produce the Wash & Set show.
“It was just the beginning of local TV shows and they were gaining momentum. There was Papa Shirandula at Citizen TV, Wash & Set beginning at NTV, and this friend, Mary Migwi, invited me to join her production team. I started doing everything. One thing led to another and here I am,” Reuben says.
Own path
“Remember the Harambee money? I had saved it. I topped it up with the sale of my Safaricom shares and bought my first camera, this (pointing at a drawer) and I started doing wedding photography,” he recalls of the time he decided to chart his own path in 2010.
A few wedding events later, the director had saved enough to shoot a short pilot movie.
“I did two short films, Saida and Sssh (which was a story on post-election violence) in 2010. They cost me Sh15,000. Both films were shortlisted for Zanzibar international film festival and Amakula International Film Festival. Zanzibar was big then, if your project was shortlisted, it was paralleled to the Cannes Festival,” he explains.
Reuben’s game-changing moment came when he attended the Zanzibar film extravaganza. The reception of Saida was deafening.
“That made me believe that I was on the right track. In 2012, I pitched it to Citizen TV, they dilly-dallied and it was approved by M-Net for commissioning. When Citizen TV learnt of that, they successfully tabled a counteroffer,” he says.
During this period (2010-2012), Reuben realised that a lot of dramas getting on the TV shows were Nairobi-based.
“The likes of Ashina Kibibi had died and the Coast dramas had gone down, and now South American telenovelas were taking over. What I did was coin Saida to feel telenovela-ish, like the Mexican shows but very Coastal. The concept was simple — rich, poor, love and it took off. Unfortunately, since then, I have only been associated with telenovelas. So every time someone calls, all they want from me is a telenovela,” Reuben says.
Listening keenly to the film director, it’s clear he holds Saida close to his heart — it is the project that saw him set up an office in the affluent Karen neighbourhood, just a stone’s throw from the Deputy President’s official residence.
The office also hosts a highly sophisticated editing suite with several powerful iMac computers in a round table setup connected to a server.
It’s from this base that Reuben has transformed the lives of many celebrated actors.
Some were smart enough to invest the money he paid them into owning apartments, land and other ventures while others squandered their fortune into oblivion.
But at what point exactly did he realise film would butter his bread?
“When we (with colleagues) did Saida, we pushed for a licensing deal that meant we own the content and thus able to resale, that’s when we were able to see the fruits of owning your own IP (Intellectual property). So far, I have been able to resale Saida twice and even though the money was little when I resold it in 2015, I was able to take care of my debts, bills and leave with some pocket change,” he says.
Saida, a 13-part episode, originally fetched a significant amount, then was resold and continues to attract even more money due to increased demand.
“The beauty about telenovelas is that we are doing a number of episodes, so if I am reselling even at a lower price, it’s still a profit,” he says.
As sweet as the deal may sound, there are a lot of numbers to balance.
“Most of the money gained when the production is running always goes back to the project, so the best thing to do is try your best to ensure you are not in debt when the production comes to an end so that when you are doing the resale, you have good margins,” he advises.
Selina, the game changer
But it’s the production of Selina which ran for four seasons from 2017 to 2022 that put Reuben on the pedestal of Kenyan telenovelas and in the process benefited many people working with him.
Selina remains Reuben’s best-selling production. With the hype that came with it, the quality of production and the ratings, everybody made enough to be happy about.
“When we started doing Selina, my lead characters were taking home Sh120,000 per month, and by the time it was ending, the highest-paid actor was earning Sh280,000. There were three people who were fetching more than me,” he says.
He adds: “You are earning that much and you are always on set because the production is vigorous, I provide you with breakfast and lunch so when are you spending your money? I know of someone who saved Sh100,000 every month and bought an apartment, and another saved Sh50,000 monthly and paid for her first car in cash, but I also know of people who went broke. Selina was a massive project, raking in tens of millions — we shot it for five years, it changed people’s lives.”
But Reuben is quick to point out that the success of Selina wasn’t as easy as it sounds, especially on the welfare management of the cast. Just
four months into the lengthy project, he had realised that actors’ problems were no longer about creativity but a human resource.
“Rumours arose about who is sleeping with who, who is into gambling and so on. To arrest that, because ultimately such issues would flow back to me, I took the initiative to create platforms where I would invite experts to talk to them about financial literacy, life, saving and investments. We used to have team buildings and even leave days,” he says.
Kone’s death
During the production of Season One late 2018, Kone, a lead character in Selina, was involved in a horrific accident at Olkaria geothermal spa in Naivasha, sustaining multiple spinal fractures that had him admitted to Nairobi Hospital ICU for five months. He had been in and out of surgery when he succumbed to the injuries that had left him paralysed.
“The death of Kone opened my eyes, there was a lot of blame game over his demise, I wondered what would have been the case had it happened on set. So, I spoke to insurance companies and found a deal that made sense. For my two lead actors Selina and Nelson (after recasting following Kone’s demise) their medical insurance package was a little bit ‘special’, covering them extensively compared to the rest.” Reuben notes.
He adds: “But also, the agreement I had with the cast was that they had to pay their National Health Insurance Fund while I paid the medical insurance covers and Wiba (Workers Insurance Benefits Act). Basically, the insurance covers the cast from their house to the gate of the set while WIBA covers them from the moment they enter the set.”
For these covers, Reuben footed a budget of Sh1.8 million every year, amounting to Sh9 million in five years for the 60 main cast crew.
This is a system that the Nafsi producer has continued to employ in subsequent productions.
“At most, I do Wiba because should something happen on set it can be very messy. But even then as an industry, we are not doing well on actors’ welfare. The people I have worked with will tell you I insist on the actor’s well-being and mental wellness,” he says.
From where Reuben sits, actors’ welfare has been proposing some
masterstroke plans, which are always shunned.
“This job is different from accounting or any office job. Actors can’t work without putting their feelings into it, these people literally give themselves into it and sometimes going back to sobriety becomes problematic, and some of them lose themselves in the process. What is called de-rolling is now becoming very necessary,” he says.
To run a successful film business, Reuben has learnt the art of streamlining operations and cost-cutting. He leads a small team of less than six full-time, salaried employees and only expands the team based on the needs of a project.
“I picked my lessons when I produced Saida because by the end of it, I had incurred a debt of Sh1.1 million and I realised my mess was a simple issue. I didn’t have an accountant to help track the expenditure, so I quickly learnt that when you start out, two important individuals you need are an accountant and a lawyer,” he offers.
There were also misses with the successful Selina.
“The first three seasons, I didn’t make any profits because of small calculations like the number of episodes vis-à-vis the pay. If you are going to give me many episodes, then I can work with little money and vice versa. Another challenge was that Selina was written in India and executed here, so you could not pre-empt what the writer is going to script in the next episode, mind you the budget had already been agreed upon and locked,” Reuben says.
He adds: “If he decides to do five weddings in an episode, that’s a huge cost. So, I quickly realised I was spending so much on wardrobe and found markets to source them cheaply. We got a crew van because we were spending about Sh700,000 on Uber per month for the cast. So many little things happen on set that can easily make you go broke.”
Reuben hopes filmmakers like him will get more support and be seen as doing serious business.
“For example, loaning institutions are yet to understand what we are doing as a business. An instance is the banks that I transacted with the Selina project for the five years it aired, raking in over Sh300 million, but when I needed a facility of Sh300,000 from them, they couldn’t just offer me. I was taken in circles and eventually gave up,” Reuben says.
