FilmTerm

Project summary

The goal of the “FilmTerm” project is to create a comprehensive audiovisual multilingual film art term base. The project will merge international film terminology expertise, prior research and audiovisual examples, unify production standards for creating the audiovisual examples, determine the common features in the film terminology of the partner school countries and map out the differences, develop and put into practice a term base viewing platform which would take into account the nature of film art and the requirements of a film school (e.g. would enable displaying of audiovisual examples, the creation of illustrative lecture materials, gamified study materials and tests). The lack of terminological clarity, shortage of professional literature, an absence of a comprehensive term base and a suitable term base viewing platform, negatively effects several critical areas in the everyday work of film schools and the industry, resulting in: ● prolonged adjustment period for the exchange students; ● difficulties in employing exchange students to local film crews; ● a gap between native language film arts study programmes and the international programmes (which are commonly taught in English); ● a more complicated and time-consuming process of translating film literature; ● difficulties in carrying out film research and writing term papers; ● the need for extensive (terminological) editing when writing film textbooks; ● restrictions in the free movement of film professionals; ● large international projects running into language barrier; ● limitations in using the term base for learning purposes; ● restrictions in the availability of film terms and definitions in different languages; ● extinction of local professional terminology. “FilmTerm” will join as partners European film schools and organizations who are actively involved in film terminology work and in the production of audiovisual learning materials. Since, the term base building platforms do not put their emphasis on the viewing of the audiovisual illustrative examples (e.g. videos, audio files, photos, schematics), some even lack the ability to add these materials to a database, one of the main goals of the “FilmTerm” project is to create a simple term base viewing platform which would take into account the audiovisual nature of film art. The film terminology viewing platform should also have several customizable extensions, which enable the integration of the database into the lectures, study materials, tests, e-courses (MOOCs), and thus better take into consideration the requirements of a (film) school. The term base will be made freely available to everyone interested in film art, from a student to a scholar. “FilmTerm” project will bring the film schools and film industry organizations of different countries closer together by creating a comprehensive audiovisual multilingual film art term base, aiding film students in their studies, making the exchange of lecturers and students more effortless, facilitating large-scale international projects, and contributing to the free movement of film professionals. Additionally, the film term database will aid carrying out collaborative projects in film research and theory, as well as writing and translating academic articles (and film criticism) and textbooks. Furthermore, the project will provide a versatile term base viewing platform tailored for film art terminology and the audiovisual examples. The innovative term base platform will enable the integration of the term base it to the film studies and also to web-based learning. A multilingual terminology database will ensure the endurance of a national professional film terminology, preserving diversity without impeding collaboration.