PowerPoint Presentation

What do children learn from making very short films?Mark Reid, BFI18 April 2016

Le Cinema, cent ans de jeunesse

Since 1995Cinmathque Franaisea question of cinemaFormal and aeshetic propertiesWatching and making togetherAuthenticity of childrens view

For my contribution, I would like to focus on work made by primary school children as part of a programme BFI has been involved in for the last 6 years. The programme is called le Cinema, cent ans de jeunesse, and has been running since 1995, under the direction of the Cinematheque Francaise.CCAJ is described as film watching, making and thinking programme, in which the twin poles of film education watching and making are integrated into a fully formed exploratory process, following a question of cinema that changes each year. In my first year the question was why move the camera? Subsequently it has asked what is the relation between the real and fiction? or between what is shown and hidden in film. This year, we are looking at the role of weather in film: its place in narrative, in theme, and in relation to character.

The programme has a number of features which are quite unique in my experience of film education: the integration of watching and making (va et vient, the French call it) as reciprocal and dialogic, not watching then making; the exploration of a question of cinema, rather than using film for other means (social issues, social skills, other curriculum aims); the focus on the formal and aesthetic properties of film; and a respect even reverence for the views, sensibility, and experience of the child. There are weaknesses: film as cinema is probably too hermetically sealed from the wider world, and the wider moving image; and they follow a set of rules (regles du jeu) which are maybe too rigidly applied. But overall the focus on formalism, authenticity of experience, and constraints that enable new thinking and experience, I think outweigh the weaknesses. Above all, I think it offers a model of film as education that is rich and generative, that is realistically intellectually challenging for children and young people, and that takes them into areas of film that they havent yet experienced. It exemplifies what I think the purposes of art education should be: creating opportunities for children and young people to look and listen more closely.

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to look more closely

Scott Noppe-Brandon

Looking closely: the Lincoln Center InstituteIn 2011 I visited the LCI. If you dont know if it, imagine an education institute attached to the Barbican. The then Director, Scott Noppe-Brandon told me LCI was set up in 1971 with the mission to help people look more closely. A beautifully simple proposition, looking more closely is a skill or attribute that benefits people of all walks of life, and in all areas of experience: surgeons, taxi drivers, hairdressers, bricklayers, friends, neighbours, citizens would all benefit from the ability to look (and listen) more closely at the world, their clients, their political leaders, their colleagues, their friends. In CCAJ I have found a way in which film and film education can contribute to that attribute.

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The Long Take

Typology

60+ clips

3 Exercises

Final Film Essai

Les Mto MinutesIn the very first year of CCAJ (1995), children were asked to make films in the style of the first French films, made by the Lumiere brothers in the 1890s. The Lumieres made single-shot films, without sound, and without moving the camera. Their films lasted around a minute, depending on the length of the reel of film they had. The first CCAJ theme was thus the first use of a constraint in the programme: you had to capture a moment, without being able to move the camera to follow action. It meant you had to follow duration, not action: because you couldnt move the camera, action came and went across the frame.Have a look at this example [SNOWBALL FIGHT]. Again, what do you see (and hear)? And what do time, sound, image contribute to those effects?

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Several varieties of long takeLong takes and physical performance Sherlock Jr.

Deep focus: two scenes at the same time Citizen Kane

Decoupage: several scenes in one takeThe Player

Long takes and. jeopardy Rope

The existential long take StalkerAlasdair Satchels Youtube channel: Understanding Cinema

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Where it all started: Lumiere Brothers

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Exercise 1: Lumiere minutesEach participant will film a minute of material in the manner of the Lumiere Brothers. The shot will be from a fixed position, lasting one minute and include the sounds recorded on location at the time of filming. The minute can be filmed either inside or outside. Choose a place, a subject, a moment, and record it, without influencing anything in the shot.All participants, including teachers, film-makers, and cultural partners should make a Lumiere minute.

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Tower Hamlets Long Takes

.. And some reflections..

.. And some reflections..The question of the moment the three moments that they capture

The typology: which type of Lumiere film is it? Multi-action? Horizontally composed? Using the z axis? Using off-screen space?

What do they notice? The question of finding drama in everyday life the natural things we dont plan our reveal more drama than the things we do plan out

Long take short filmAt a certain moment a character or characters have an encounter which troubles them.

Create a film around the provocation above which includes several long takes. The film can be edited together, including elements of montage if you wish. Final length 7 minutes. In one of the Long Takes the camera must forget the character or characters and become autonomous, following another path, and then finding the character or characters again.

This section should create an emotional response in the viewer

Long take - prephttps://markreid1895.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/mile-end-track-and-dolly/

Long take final filmhttps://markreid1895.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/thames-final-film/

thoughts and questions?What realities are being discovered by the children making these films?What are they learning to see differently, or more clearly?What kinds of truth are they achieving?How is film, and film-making, educating them?

More informationwww.cinematheque.fr/cinema100ansdejeunesse/en/http://markreid1895.wordpress.com