The footage begins showing a barely inhabitable place by our standards, the town in which these unlucky children live. This gives the audience a clear picture already of the lives these children live in this barren land. Then begins the slow, sad music, which tries to move the audience and play on their conscience. The camera work carried out in the early stages of the film also tries to help build a bigger picture by panning out. This suggests it is trying to give the audience the whole picture and story giving many people a wider perspective on this problem that is happening as close as the other side of Europe. All of these effects combined in the early stages of the video try to catch the audience’s interest and hearts.
After this initial harsh viewpoint the singing voice fades out and the camera then switches to colour. A typewriter print is now used to disclose the location of this miserable place in our world. The typewriter print is accompanied by all of the typical typewriter noises, I think that this is used to remind us of war as they (typewriters) were used in World War II and many other wars for letters to be sent around the world. I also think that this sound effect is as if to sound as a sort of distress signal, i.e. an S.O.S in Morse code or just a coded message telling us of their problem. It does this by using ‘click click’ noises of the typewriter that remind us all to easily of the things in history that we would much rather forget. Lastly this symbolic typewriter also reminds me of the primitiveness of this place and the fact that they most probably still use typewriters in some areas of the country. Next a voiceover discusses the problems that these areas, and children face, and how your donation can help ease the suffering and ‘bring joy to these poor, neglected children.’ The voiceover does not stop describing the situation or pleading with the viewers until nearer the end of the video.
Now the images separate into a split camera mode. Images of the children who receive these parcels are shown, and you can see the genuine joy and happiness on their faces. All of these images are set in front of many changing colours. The colours are all light, such as red and pink, as if trying to capture the joy and love in the images themselves. Next a man is shown on location (Kiev, the Ukraine) reporting on the atmosphere now that the Samaritan’s Purse is there. The audience is given a clear picture that to the children of the area the work these kind people do is very, very important to them.
The singing voice comes back as if to reach a climax with the singer singing more powerfully. The typewriter and voiceover combine to form a message to conclude the film, which is memorable, or so it should be. However the way that this is shot and edited together seems to make for a climax that is very anti-climatic indeed. By this I mean that the power of the singer does not seem to be great enough to move people, well maybe only not the scrooges like me in the world, but she should be able to .As should the whole video really. The effectiveness of the apocalyptic typewriter is also faded out slightly to make way for this narrator. Which is a mistake in my opinion really. The somewhat incessant processing of the typewriter seems to be like a constant drumbeat. This tells us that this problem in our world will not just simply go away, it reminds us that to do this it needs our help to help others. This seems to me to be far more effective than simply a rambling voice from above.
To the above, you would have thought, many people would react in a positive way. They might even create a shoebox, but the way that the entire of this video is conducted seems old-hat and ‘already done’. Throughout the course of the video you think of how unimaginative and how if you were not being made to watch in class you would simply change the channel or go and make a cup of tea, simply because its not new.
Charities have been going for a long time now and they now seem to compete with each other on how attention grabbing and extreme they can make their advertising campaigns, but not this one. Many charities try to out do each other for how controversial they can be, but not this one. Many charities try to break through the boundaries of camera work by using new angles never seen before and shots put together in a unique and most of the time effective way, but not this one. This video could be used for another hundred or so charities worldwide, and all you would have to do is change the language of the narrator and/or just a change about thirty seconds of footage and/or some of the narrator’s lines and you would be laughing. Any ordinary 5-channel viewer would know that they would simply find the remote, and they also know that there would be something better on the other side. Maybe even a better charity video.
Now, I believe that I am a most charitable person. I give my old clothes to Oxfam and give to the Salvation Army. Indeed I have created several shoeboxes, all without the need of a video, whilst I was at primary school. All because I believed in the cause and the fact that I had a lot of old toys that I no longer wanted or played with. However, since I have come of an age when Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle figurines are not so easily to come by in my bedroom I have begun to slack in my production of the annual shoebox. In a word, it now requires effort. To give effort, however, requires motivation. This is another area in which this video is lacking. It simply does not motivate you enough to give, surely it is not that hard to motivate people to give, but this video makes it seem like a Herculean task. This is simply not the case, and any charity video that makes it ‘a case’ is surely not a very good charity video at all.
Therefore I conclude that this is an advertising campaign that is all too acceptable but not all too effective. It leaves the audience with a feeling of ‘been there, done that’ with it’s old and clichéd approach. As I have already mentioned nothing in this film could be seen as unsuitable or unacceptable, but this is its problem. The way it does not provide any oomph or passion in its broadcast leaves you feeling numb and not at all guilty. As all good charity videos should.
MICHAEL ROACH 10JS
