The 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda outlines that „education, and in particular higher education, plays a crucial role in individual and societal advancement. Moreover, the international mobility of students, researchers and staff, as well as the growing internationalisation of higher education, have a strong impact on quality and affect the key areas.” Our project replies to these statements and is in line with the aim of „Strengthening quality through mobility and cross-border co-operation”. It helps to realise the target “to double the proportion of students completing a study or training period abroad to 20% by 2020”. There are 138 Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses registered, but none of them is in the field of cinematography, puppetry or applied theatre. The project is innovative, targeting joint curriculum in new fields of higher education. Also the structure of the programme has an added value: experts of the different fields can share their experiences in the process of curricula development and help each other to achieve the best output possible with the help of continuous feedback coming from test teaching of international students. What are the three layers of storytelling? Cinematography is the art and craft of translating a story into images. Puppetry translates a story into animating objects. Educational Drama and Applied Theatre itself is an innovative method that uses theatre as a tool to achieve pedagogical and social impact, translates a story into action, talk, theatre and drama. The planned consortium consists of 8 partners from Ireland, Estonia, United Kingdom, Norway, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. The University of Theatre and Film Arts Budapest is member of three key umbrella organisations (CILECT, E:UTSA and IDEA), so we have connections to hundreds of art educator organizations and have selected our potential partners very carefully from them. Our main concern was to select universities of high quality educational work and experience in international cooperation. The general structure of the project: • Members of the consortium will form three working groups, each for a field of art: cinematographer, puppeteer and applied theatre. The working groups will work parallel for 3 years. They organize teaching practice for host teachers with mixed nationality group of students, testing curriculum module, collecting feedback from students and building in the development of the curriculum, repeated cycle of curriculum improvement. • All three working groups will create an intellectual output, a joint curriculum during the three years. • After the creation of their intellectual output, members of the working groups will continue working together on the dissemination of the output. • During the project period, leaders of three working groups are in constant contact in order to share their experiences with each other. Representatives of all partners will meet four times during the project period at the transnational project meetings. Results / direct beneficiaries • 84 learning mobility for students • 42 learning mobility for teachers • 88 mobilities at management meeting • 2 conferences with at least 265 participants • 14 test teachings for cca. 420 students from different nations • Intellectual outputs: 3 joint curricula, detailed quality plan • Detailed dissemination plans (8 national) • Semi-structured interviews with teachers and students (minimum 20 / 5 countries) • An accepted interim and a final evaluation report • Media appearances (90: at least 10 national /country and 10 European instances of media coverage) • 4 project meetings Indirect beneficiaries: • 8 universities – increasing professional knowledge, reputation and experience in international cooperation • cca. 1.000 teachers and cca. 50.000 students from the 8 universities (teachers attending project meetings, test teachings and working groups will multiply the knowledge and experiences at their host university) • cca. 900 students in ten years from all around the world (30 students per new curriculum per year), who will take advantage of the new international trainings – multiplying what they have learnt in the whole world, either as teachers or professionals • stakeholders of the three professional fields (multiplying and mushrooming around the world) As a result of the project we will create joint training programs of different complexity in three fields of arts education (potentially but not necessarily three joint MA programs). The established partnerships may also form the basis of a future network for international artistic higher education. The ERASMUS+ Joint Master Degree program is a main target of the partnership for future cooperation. This grant for this project can be considered as a SEED MONEY that leads to (in best case) three self-sustaining educational program in the long run. So the cost-benefit ratio is very effective.
The project “3 layers of storytelling” was implemented by seven European universities in cooperation, from 2014 to 2017. It comprised the activities of three work packages, those of Cinematography, Puppetry and Applied Theatre, interlinked by their respective roles in storytelling. The higher education consortium made up of the University of Theatre and Film Arts/HU, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, Technology/IE and Baltic Film and Media School of Tallinn University/EE enriched the range of European Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees by its “Viewfinder” cinematography joint master programme (the first semester of the first class started in in Dublin, in September 2017). www.viewfinder-ma.eu The concept, the curriculum and the consortium core documents for launching the “PuppeTry” joint master, a theatrical field not yet covered by an EMJM, were drawn up by the University of Theatre and Film Arts/HU, the Academy of Performing Arts/SK, the Puppetry Department of Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art/PL and the Academy of Performing Arts/CZ. Together with the above-mentioned Hungarian university, the University of Arts Târgu-Mureş /RO developed 4 joint university modules in the Applied Theatre field. They intend to fit them into their training portfolios first in the form of an international summer university, then as a joint master. Other activities implemented during the project period, playing an important role in creating the above joint training courses, included i.e. 16 test teachings in the framework of teacher/student mobility, work-shops, experience exchange, 9 international project meetings and the professional conference of January 2015 held with the contribution of the whole partnership, 17 international lecturers and 124 interested domestic parties, tackling the theoretical, empirical and pedagogical issues raised by the three fields concerned, as seen from the common perspective of storytelling. Proceedings, the freely available document comprising the conference presentations and published by the project leader Hungarian university is expected to initiate further scientific, professional and training contacts in the fields of puppetry, cinematography and applied theatre. The other two freely available intellectual outputs of the 3 layers project –I know that you don’t know that I know – the Intentional Stance in Filmmaking by János Vecsernyés/HU in the field of cinematography, and 3D HEROES – Some Dramaturgical Aspects of Adaptation in Contemporary Puppet Theatre by Dóra Gimesi/HU in that of puppetry – are meant to serve the same purpose. An extensive network of international associated partners has evolved around the joint training programmes developed under the project: the Viewfinder programme is supported by 28 international and national professional organisations, film companies, HEIs within and without Europe, CILECT, the International Association of Film and Television Schools and IMAGO, the European Federation of National Cinematographers Associations. Its students are hosted for short study periods by York University, Canada, Jerusalem-based Maaleh Film and the Media School and Victoria Colleges in Melbourne. The quality assurance committee of the programme is headed by a senior cinematography professor of London Film School. The implementation of the PuppeTry joint programme is supported by 26 international organisations, by puppet theatres and UNIMA, the International Marionette Institute. The professional quality of the 4 Applied Theatre joint modules was checked by a professor of London Holloway University. The outputs of the 3 layers project were presented to the wider professional public at the Kecskemét Meeting of Hungarian Puppet Theatres (puppetry work package), the Hungarian Film Week (cinematography work package) and the Hungarian National Theatre Festival (Applied Theatre work package). According to the 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda, “education, and in particular higher education, plays a crucial role in individual and societal advancement. Moreover, the international mobility of students, researchers and staff, as well as the growing internationalisation of higher education, have a strong impact on quality and affect the key areas. „replied to these statements and is in line with the aim of “Strengthening quality through mobility and cross-border co-operation”. The project outputs contributed to reaching the target “to double the proportion of students completing a study or training period abroad to 20% by 2020”.