Vor der Kamera. Coping With Supercomplex World by Empowering Movie Making Collaboration

The motivation for the project was based on the will to collaborate internationally with the upper secondary schools that share the interest of having Acting for the Camera -classes in their curriculum and to build a network for them. The common interest of the collaborators was to involve theatre, language and ecological learning into the cross-curricular process and to form a model of international cooperation. There is a growing interest in camera acting among the youth and at the same time there is lack of instruction and education for the teachers. The main target was to provide the participants with an international and empowering “hands on” process that helped the participants to recognise their strengths and put them into use when getting the opportunity to collaborate with the film industry professionals. The project could challenge the participants to add digital means into the artistic process. The aim was to examine what possibilities digitality would open to advancing sustainability in a cross-border context and to promote equality and democracy in international collaboration. The project allowed the resources that are often lacking from the ordinary Theatre and language classes for the development of new practices.

The main objective of the project was to make a short film with an ecological theme by an empowering artistic, language and cultural learning process that enabled the participants to gain confidence to cope with the supercomplex world. The aim was to offer the students with different gender, social and economical backgrounds and with different learning abilities an equal opportunity to work together. The project had a target of strengthening among the participants the awareness of the diversity of the world. The understanding of other cultures helped the students to create ways to promote democracy, beginning from their own project activities. The environmental aspects of the project were planned to acquaint the participants with ecological practices that they could adapt in their everyday life. By making digitality a natural part of the project the participants were encouraged to apply it in various and innovative ways to both their working and freetime activities. The design of the project was based on the will to examine, develop, record, analyse and share the practice of cross-border cooperation to benefit further operators.The produced film is distributed to wider audiences as one outcome of the project.

The original activities were “Project Kick off”, “Project Management”, “Evaluation Meetings”, “Script Writing”, “Workshop Berlin”, “Workshop Movie Shooting”, “Workshop Helsinki”, “Movie Release”, “Theatre and German Culture Classes”, “Planning Continuity” and “Reporting and sharing”. They all were realised and some of them were adjusted from the original plan due to the Covid-19 restrictions and the Russo-Ukrainian War. The activities consisted of travelling; producing film with the theme of ecocide; studying language, dramaturgy, digital skills, media, acting, sound design and culture; developing sustainability; building democracy and equality within the group of participants as well as among the school and the surrounding community; creating ways to collaborate with the students and the film industry professionals; theatre performances and movie premieres. The supportive partners brought in the project their special knowledge, such as costume design, theatre make-up and film color-correction. Assuring the continuity was emphasised: “Together” served as a pathdriver and helped implement the project into the curriculum. “Glow” was being produced during the school year 22 - 23, and another filmmaking project has already started.

The short movie “Together” under the theme of ecocide was produced. Seven workshops were held for acting for the camera. Four Theatre Classes in Berlin and in Helsinki were involved in working and travelling. One theatre performance was made. Carbon neutral practices of international collaboration were introduced. The participants were encouraged to apply ecological practices into their lives and their versatile digital skills were strengthened. The results of the project as well as a cross-curricular model for combining theatre, language and cultural learning and a model of implementing Acting for the Camera -training at upper secondary level in border-crossed learning process were developed and presented internationally. Workshops and paper presentations were held at seminars and congresses in Helsinki, Berlin, Reykjavik, Melbourne and Florence. The Network of VDK-schools was expanded. The collaboration with New York Film Academy was strengthened. The short film “Together” was accepted to the Tokyo Lift-Off Festival and submitted to several other festivals. The project involved around 100 participants in Berlin and Helsinki and the movie and the project presentations have so far reached around 1500 persons around the world.