Thoughts on Mandala's Walk Video

Below are technical thoughts from the Mandela's Walk video found here: http://www.mandelaswalk.com/

Mandela’s Walk opens with a beautiful video to entice readers while putting them into the correct mindset. The video and audio separately does not provide a direct answer about the article content, but together it can be fairly obvious to someone who knows of Mandela.

A key item to decide when embedding an introduction media piece into a website is to determine if the title should be shown. Mandela’s Walk chose not to show a title and I think this was very clever of them. It makes you question what you are going to watch, and lets you try to piece together an answer from what the video provides.

When the first lady walks into frame she places the doll on the ground, mimicking the process of a burial by placing something special on a lost one. Once someone else is seen walking behind her it takes away the focus from these people and instead to the reason they are bringing objects to this location. All of the objects brought have some kind of resemblance to Mandela including barb wire, and picket signs – again hinting what the article will be about.

The cinematography and editing in this piece is stunning. For each person who entered the scene there was a shot of them placing something on the ground, and one of their blank face. Although this could seem repetitive on paper, it is done in a way to use receptiveness to its advantage by hinting that the article’s subject has affected many different people.

The audio consists solely of background music and a narrator, and has removed all of the sounds from the recorded footage. Doing this keeps the piece more simplistic but it does further separate the video and audio from each other.

The audio and imagery work brilliantly together. When the narrator says “Many roads will present themselves, but he must take the one that few others would follow” there is an image of a young boy placing down a clean white dress shirt that is obviously too big for him suggesting a path for his future. There are many examples like this one throughout but the most striking is at the end. The camera zooms out from the art while the narrator says “would not change a single footstep” and on the edge of the frame the feet kicking up as last person’s walks away is seen.

If I were the director on this piece I would have shown more environment shots (to lessen disorientation of an international audience), added the title or a phrase of what the topic is at the end (to familiarize people who may not know Mandela’s story), added sounds of objects being placed, and sounds of the first and last person’s footsteps.

With our project in mind, I would like our introduction video to not directly say what the website content is for – to keep the audience guessing.