A multimedia piece...

I Promise Africa


"I Promise Africa" is a touching, short piece on H.I.V positive orphans in South Africa. The piece uses video, images and audio to portray the message. As the viewer, "I Promise Africa" could easily be the most powerful three minutes of film I have ever seen. I remember the first time I saw the piece I not only cried, but I wanted to help the children in any way I could. I was also moved at the amount of weight and emotion the piece brought to me in only a few minutes. I thought, "How was the director able to do this? What was it about the way he made this film?"

After reviewing "I Promise Africa" again - this time for the course - I notice some of the audio and visual techniques the director used that attributed to the piece's emotion. The audio was extremely emotional as the only sounds throughout the video were the singing voices and clapping hands of the children. Their sound was happy and positive. It contradicted the ending message of the piece, adding much more feeling than any print article could.

The visual images were also a large part of the piece's emotional influence. The children look happy and excited to see the video camera. They look happy to sing and happy to be a part of this project. So when the director uses print - words that appear on screen while the children sing in the background - to inform the audience that the children are all H.I.V positive orphans, the contrast in the positive emotions and images and extremely negative message is heartbreaking.

The particular part of the piece that left an impact on me was his promise. The director did not have to use many words or command us to help the children; he only told the audience his story and his promise to one day return to the children. The use of the text while the children sang happily in the background intensified his story.
"I Promise Africa" is a beautifully produced film with effective images and audio to leave a withstanding message. I have never been able to forget that piece, and I only hope that one day I could direct and produce a multimedia project with the same type of influence on an audience that "I Promise Africa" left on me.