Film Education: A User’s Guide

This was a European project put together by partners from the BFI, the Danish Film Institute, The Film Space, Cinémathèque Française, Vision Kino and contributions from Greece, Italy, Estonia and Slovakia. The course materials focus on the importance of using film to aid learning and is geared at film education practitioners across Europe.

The course materials started life as a MOOC and due to huge interest it was decided to develop a more permanent home as a website to give continuous global access to the course and its educational content. The site has so far been translated into Estonian, German and Lithuanian, with several other language versions planned.

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The structure of the course is split into seven modules, focusing on different practices and approaches to teaching film education. The idea was the mirror the online course, so the learner can work independently at their own pace. To help with this we created a unique Notepad facility, so work can be saved as they go. The website is packed full of film shorts, clips, interviews and interactive tools.

One example of interactivity takes the award winning short ‘Edge of Seventeen’ and asks the learner to analyse the film in six different ways. For this we created bespoke tasks on frame analysis, style and form, emotion on film, soundscapes and the narrative model. Many tasks also make for perfect classroom activities, where results and opinions can be shared on Padlet boards

Separate to the course, a microsite was set up called Film Education Labs. The site features reports on strategic thinking for the future and exploring new ways for European collaboration.

This was a fantastic resource to work on and is well worth a look for anyone interested in film and film making.