In our last Erasmus + project we had a student mobility to Italy where we visited a museum in Florence. During this visit, the group discovered the exposition named "Bil Viola". The students started to play with their own Handy, creating works like Bil Viola. One student said this would be a good idea for the next Erasmus + project. And we as teachers said: why not? The experience from all partners is that sometimes it is difficult to motivate students to work with classic works of art, but it is very easy to motivate them to make a movie. Our project will be used as a method to combine both themes. Without exploring classic works, students will not be able to produce the films. Our Project “ Rembrandts movie camera” involves art, theater and film production. These three fields are very loved by students and we intend to use them to improve students learning motivation and students ICT skills by using innovative teaching approaches. The participants will explore own artworks, learn how to plan film projects, to deal with the digital film technology, the editing as well as the public presentation. A side effect is the active use and immersion of the English language. There is much room for creative ideas, the participants will learn more about national and European art and painters. Furthermore, the participants will acquire experience in occupational fields that normally are outside their daily experiences. “Rembrandt's movie camera” involves 6 schools (Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Italy, and Turk. We will involve 45 teacher and 666 students in the project activities. Our students are aged between 10-14 years old. In this project students and teachers research, own and European artworks and will turn it into moving pictures throughout short films. One takes one work of art and students ask in Maner of the contemporary video artist Bill Viola, how the moments before and after the "snapshot" may have looked like. These ideas will be performed by students and video recorded. Those scenes will be compiled into three short films " Our national work of art", "Our favorite European work of art " and "One picture different views". Our final common work will be a public exhibition " Our European works of art" where all project products will be exposed. We also plan one teacher's meeting and several students workshops where students and teachers will work together. The first project goal is to get students focused on own culture, museums, and old painters. The use of digital film technology will motivate students to explore own works of art. We will use modern digital methods which may help other visitors to a better understanding of the works of art. We work with old works of art and create modern works of art. When all final works come together in a video, we have the ideal European Exhibition with works from Germany, Italy, Greece, Bulgarian, Turkey, and Romania. This exposition will be unique and can be shown all over the world as it is a digital one. Students will learn how to produce a film. They will work with the video camera, cut and sound programs. In this way, students will learn more about new occupation and work fields. By comparing own ideas with the ones from European partners students will learn to respect and live in other cultures as well as to be open to different ideas. During the student mobilities, within the host families as well as to produce project results students will have to use English as a communication form. The main objectives of the project are - increase students learning motivation by using innovative teaching methods - acquisition of media educational experiences and their practical realization - openness and respect towards other cultures, lifestyles, and ideas - active use of a second language This project will help students to analyze old artworks in a different and interesting way. Teachers will work with ICT and have motivated students. Through the several students and teacher workshops, students will have the chance to travel to different countries and experience different cultures and lifestyles. Openness, respect, and cooperative work between all nations will benefit all participants, for the future, and make them openminded. Families will be directly involved in the project as they will host students and take part in the project activities, these families will establish contact with other European families and this contacts will remain, helping all participants to better understanding of the European spirit. The products will be exposed at school and can be used by future school teachers. Short films can be used in art and English lessons as well as to motivate future students to take part in Erasmus activities and mobilities. Contact with associated partners like museum, art gallery, media education association will be used for future projects and activities. All products will be posted online and can be used by others worldwide.
The project idea arose during an Erasmus trip to Italy with children. While in Florence, we stumbled upon an exhibition that was showing a major retrospective by Bill Viola. The children were fascinated and we saw the potential of the Bill Viola Method for a future project. Bill Viola is one of the leading contemporary video artists and is internationally known. Among other things, he shoots short videos about paintings, he lets actors re-enact the scenes and so feels his way to the moments before and after the actual picture. These videos are shot in slow motion and without sound and offer the viewer the opportunity to deal with the interpretation of works of art in an action-oriented way. We started the partner search via eTwinning but included one Italian and one Turkish school from the previous project. In the end, we were six schools from Germany, Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece,e, and Romania. The project application agreements were very binding and detailed, so that all participants got to know each other before the start of the project. The children and parents were also included in the planning. We decided for the name "Rembrandt's Movie Camera" to make it clear that we will deal with paintings by the Old Masters and that this concern should take place through the cinematic discussion. We also established contacts with the museums in advance to ensure that this work with children is even possible. The “Rembrandt's Movie Camera” project started in September 2018. Erasmus groups were formed in the partner schools and the public was informed about the projec and its development over newspaper and social media platforms. The first teachers' meeting took place in Istanbul. Here we had the opportunity to get to know each other personally. We dealt intensively with Bill Viola and explained our options for putting the subgoals into practice in the future. In November each school set up an Erasmus wall newspaper, which was constantly updated. A logo competition was carried out in the individual schools and the first evaluation questionnaire was drawn up. The questions were then filled out online in the schools and the Greek partners collected and evaluated the results. In addition, each school produced a Powerpoint or a short film so that the pupils could get to know the partner schools virtually. Many children took part in these presentations, so a large number of children were involved in the project. The visit to Germany took place in November 2018. The work in Germany was very successful, because each partner school immediately started at home with the production of the short film "Our Artwork" using the Bill Viola method and made the results available to everyone on eTwinning. The search for national old masters was not so easy in Romania and Bulgaria and broadened our view of European art history. In Schwerin we couldn't find a Dürer or Grünewald either, but a Caspar Netscher, who could be found in the collection of Baroque painting. On May 9, 2019, on the schools celebrated the european day. Collages and drawings were made and the exchange of results via Skype and eTwinning brought the children closer together despite the distances. The third trip to Italy with students took place in April 2019. The Italian team even managed to get in touch with Bill Viola. Many partner schools have tried this and waited in vain for an answer. Now we had the appreciative answer from America. The trip to Bulgaria in September has clearly shown that our method is successful. In the National Gallery in Sofia, through which the children would normally have strolled listlessly, groups spontaneously found each other to recreate the scenes in the paintings. All children knew the Bill Viola Method and were able to interact with one another in this way. The corona pandemic forced us to cancel the following trips and we also had to cancel our graduation film on Rembrandt's "Night Watch". Schools remained closed and attempts were made everywhere to continue education with distance learning (homeschooling). This created a lot of problems, especially because not all children have the technical capabilities to zoom in, skype, or stay in touch on social media. Despite homeschooling, we were able to include another challenge in our program: Based on Bill Viola, the task should be mastered by the children at home alone or with the support of the family. The children were asked to choose a painting from a number of given examples or to look for a painting on the Internet. You should recreate this painting and, if possible, photograph it so that the image detail and lighting conditions come close to the original painting. The photos could be quickly exchanged via Whatsapp and initiated a small competition. So the children stayed in contact with each other despite the school being closed. The second newsletter was also sent by email and kept all children, parents and teachers up to date.