Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Youth exchange
Venue: Patara, Antalia, Turkey
APV (advance planning visit) dates: 28-30 June 2019
Youth exchange dates: 26 September – 6 October 2019
Participants:Tereza Hynková, Lucie Koháková, Martina Bolatzká, Běla Harazimová, Lucie Švecová, David Ondroušek, Bertan Can
Group leader: Vít Votroubek
Host organisation: Kultur Art
Participants’ fee: €50/participant collected by hosting organisation.
Please read the info-pack & project website. Please also read the YE daily programme and APV daily programme
Participating countries: Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Romania, Czech Republic, Turkey, Germany
Project report:
As the name Get Your Own Picture (GYOP) is already metaphorically telling us, the most significant message of this project was about recording our video in order to promote European values regarding to Active Citizenship. This brand of GYOP (https://gyop.de) has quite long tradition and under this frame there were organized many projects where just filming as the process played important role.
Project took place in small village called Kabak, close to town Fethiye in south Turkish riviere. There were together more than fifty people from Estonia, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Turkey. We were accommodated in camp Yerdeniz. It’s the place with very specific ambient and for this type of creative projects it was the right choice. The creativity itself here had significant role overall, that’s why the structure of project was different than at typical Youth Exchange – the schedule was more designed regarding the needs of pre-film, film and postproduction phases. So, there were three main parts.
At the first one, we got to know each other through several teambuilding games. Needless to say, that was quite challenging to remember too many names but thanks the flexibility in program and the way of learning by doing we got to closer relations to each other. For instance, at the second day, Czech team actively presented themselves in intercultural evening. It was nice to provide it directly outside under the sky full of stars. The night temperature was also comfortably high. Our presentation had the biggest success in aspect of wide diversity of product which we brought.
During the first phase we tried to get theoretically to definition of Active Citizenship and to get to all the meaning of this keyword for us personally and how to postpone it to our films. The truth is, that to find proper definition is not so easy and even thought to fill the condition to have strong idea in our film respecting the concept based on importance of conflict, that is essential for movies in general. We engrooved our overview by several smaller workshops oriented to problematic of scenario, sound design, shooting, video editing and postproduction.
The second phase was more individual and focused on work in ten teams where each was preparing and shooting own video. The preparation started with first brainstorming of our ideas, in our team we decided to go through the story about waste, ecology and how to be an active citizen in topics like ecology and clean environment. This conceptual phase was very important in order to stabilize strong and authentical idea. After presentation of our concept we could get to specify the scenario and come to shooting itself. We created detailed storyboard with all the scenes and transitions between them. That improved our competence Learning by Doing on totally new level, especially in proper timing of our agenda – to use parts of the day when the light has the best characteristics and less attractive part of the day for postproduction and work on computer. It needed from our side to define our roles and responsibilities in whole filming process. I realize thanks this non-formal empiric approaches all film making process in much wider perspective. Of course, in our case it was compromise between lack of high professional abilities, the size of our crew and possibilities in equipment. The journey was not easy, but we learnt very much. I want to underline that the process is more important than the result.
Our film consists from two main scenic spaces, one was shoot in abandoned bungalow and one at the wild beach. The plot in story is based on conflict between the ignorant people’s behavior throwing the trash, and on the other side nice almost artistically poetic beauty of seaside landscape. This duality is graduating in usage of horror dreamer elements which are following two guys after they made a mess at the beach. Artist as the creator and as the protector of heritage is drawing all the scenes too. From my position of creator and actor I wanted to bring strong message about human behavior and active citizenship. My motivation was also to try to mix different genres together. You will have opportunity to see our and other films soon.
The whole shooting process with postproduction took us four days. During this time, we had some weak moments and got deeply to multi proportionality of film process with all the typical director small crisis. „How typical, the film is like live, you must live it, not act!” That became my new phrase. These insights are exactly the additional values of non-formal learning and Erasmus+ projects in general.
The third phase was about evaluation of whole project and final projection of all our films. During this phase we found many aha moments and points how to save time and be more effective. But most of these things you realize after the process. There were many nice films using different genres and methods.
As I said this project was part of the big series of projects under the frame of GYOP. I hope it will be next another opportunity to continue under this brand. I think in the next one we will be more experienced, and we will take new challenge with even stronger power. In conclusion, I would like to thank to Czech team and all the organizers for their gained passion and unforgettable experience.
Vít Votroubek
