My Life

The first six episodes of HEART AND SOUL were broadcast almost 20 years ago in July and August 2002. Prior to these six half-hour programmes, two other experimental pilots episodes had been filmed in 2000 and 2001.

The very first pilot was called “Noah Meli’s Heart & Soul” made up of twelve, 3 minute shorts which were broadcast around the World Cup match broadcasts.

The six episodes were designed to test public reaction to the stories and the behaviour-change concept before the first full series of twenty-six episodes was produced.

The research company Consumer Insight conducted countrywide audience research, which identified a very positive reaction to the series, with a clear public understanding that HIV/AIDS and family conflict were key issues in the plot. The series was also successful in reaching viewers in lower income areas as well as the suburban middle class.

According to the research, 76% of all those who had ever watched Heart and Soul expressed interest in watching again. That such enthusiasm was generated after only six half-hour episodes was ample testament to the effectiveness of the concept.

A large part of the budget went into the research.The main partner, the United Nations (UN) really needed to know that this communication strategy would work to promote positive changes in behaviour in their chosen subjects, namely:

• HIV/AIDS and Health
• Governance
• Poverty Eradication
• Human Rights
• Gender Issues
• Care for the environment

HIV/AIDS was given greater prominence as the series began: the project’s intention was to create an environment where previously taboo subjects in this area could be discussed at family and community level, empowering audiences to protect themselves using the information provided.

Regular education programmes weren’t really making a dent in the spread of AIDS, so the UN allowed itself to be convinced that soap opera might be the way to go. This followed two very successful music videos on the subject of drug abuse prevention. The hope was that with the wider reach of serialised drama the audience would take the characters’ messages on board “without feeling they are being mugged by propaganda”. By using the edutainment possibilities of television drama, the attitudes and prejudices of the family, community, employers and work colleagues toward the character, would be explored and underlying perspectives positively examined.

The man behind the idea, Clive Haines, spent six years persuading the money people, the politicians, UN bureaucrats and Africa’s broadcasters that the idea would work.

Once Tore Brevik, the director of UN’s Information Office was convinced, he was invaluable to bringing the UN family on board. The project was also a showcase for the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s desire for less duplication of roles and activities and more joint programmes within the UN family. According to Brevik, the endless meetings it took to have the 24 agencies agree on the usefulness of the project was “like pulling teeth”, but eventually from New York Headquarters came word that Annan had said he was all for it: “It seems like an excellent venture and a valuable vehicle by which to raise awareness about issues such as HIV/ADS”, he was quoted as saying, as he urged his agencies to find the money to fund the project.

For the creative team, it was extremely important that there was an effective transfer of skills, not only on the technological side but also in creativity, written and visual storytelling, leadership, and communication. An indirect benefit of Heart and Soul is the contribution the project made to the development of creative and production talent in Kenya. By demonstrating the ability to deliver programme output to high internationally recognised quality standards, it was hoped the private sector would be encouraged to support other local programming initiatives.

Unfortunately these ideas didn’t always find resonance in the community, partly because of the fractured and individual efforts that the industry makes, often without collaboration or conversation about synergies and overlaps. Kenya Broadcasting Corporation had committed show the first pilot during the World Cup, but they used them like fillers, so they were broadcast inconsistently, which meant they kind of lost their impact.

While it’s traditional to see the international film productions which serve as powerful promotional vehicles for Kenya’s tourism sector, ordinary Kenyans haven’t been considered in Kenya’s tourism policies, resulting in some kind of disconnect between the creative industry and tourism.

As producers we were aware of the history of foreign-made films using Kenya as a beautiful location and casting local actors for background shots with few speaking roles, and with no real long-term returns on investment by the production company. We were also keenly aware of how rarely actors get paid a living wage. So the longevity of this project aimed to address this. Local talent in starring roles with proper salaries was the long-term vision.

So we set about making sure that all departments received some kind of training: the script-writers, story liners, and script editors; the actors, who up until then had had very little in the way of training for screen acting; the lighting, electrical and sound crews. The first two pilots as well as the final six programmes were produced with students from the Mohamed Amin Foundation’s Film School, and having an actual project to work on must have pushed their skills enormously.

While not privy to the way the money was being spent, or how much was actually raised, it was clear that some of it was spent on the distribution, ensuring the initial series reached as wide an audience as possible on prime time television.

Sixteen writers, twenty-five actors, and six directors benefited from training to make sure that the storylines would stand the test of time. The materials developed, including the character bible, story lines and draft scripts were tested through formative research on rural and urban target audiences in Kenya, and these findings were used by the six pilot series writers to develop and produce six half-hour television and twelve radio scripts.

Looking at the episodes now, decades later, would it be safe to say that we were ahead of our time?

The ground work for creating what the British trainers called “the engine” was thoroughly done = if the money had been found for the 26 and then 52 programmes to be made, we had built the capacity for the kind of speed that would be required to produce an episode every 10 days. This would require several teams of directors, camerapersons, and technical crews, which is how the project worked even before the first episode was aired on television.

The late Wambui wa Murima (who played the role of Mama Stella, had this to say during one of the training sessions)

“We have just been doing acting on television kind of mechanically, particularly for the screen. [As actors] we did not know the reason why we were doing several “takes” and angles of each scene. Now we are getting to understand. And also we are getting to understand we don’t have to shout (project our voices) or throw our hands in the air like we do in stage acting. There’s a lot more body language which is unnecessary on the screen.”

The six programmes were broadcast by KBC to all of Kenya, and by TV Africa (Stellavision) to 11 countries, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Mozambique. The radio programmes were broadcast to three countries (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania).

Remember, there was hardly a World Wide Web then. But the producers managed to find as examples, programmes in Mexico, the Philippines and South Africa that were successful in changing behaviour using soap opera. They had been successful at using interesting stories to change lives, and so would we.

Heart and Soul, whose plot revolved around two families, was inspired by the award-winning South African public health communication programme Soul City, which had been running since 1992 and used edutainment techniques. Produced and broadcast in a 13-part series, Soul Citystories were mostly public-health related.

Heart and Soul was supposed to start with an episode called Noah Meli’s Heart and Soul, which would give the audience a glimpse of the family’s backstory. Meli is dying and during his final days, he shares the wisdom of his lifelong experience to his grandson Martin.

There were recognised weaknesses in the project’s media model, particularly with respect to the promotion of the radio execution and panAfrican distribution. However, there was a lot of criticism from the public, led mainly by the media, who (strangely) never asked questions that could have clarified discrepancies in their opinions.

As this programme never went on to its third phase, I think this criticism may have cost the project more dearly than we’ll ever know, as many of the UN programme officers were already doubtful and needed so much convincing of the validity of the project it’s not hard to assume that they might have read doom in the journalists’ critiques.