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ProDigi (2007-3672-0710TR020018PT)
ProDigi – Lessons in film production for a digital collaborative environmentThe Project ProDigi configures itself as a training programme aimed at the dissemination of digital film production techniques amongst students from three different European Film Schools. The project is centred on three main aspects:
- The acquisition of technical and artistical skills by advance level film students;
- The development of collaborative working techniques amongst the students and teachers involved in the project. This results, not only from the use of an online collaborative platform, but mostly from the fact that all tasks foreseen in the project demand for a collaboration between all interveners.
- The promotion of the European dimension through the development of 3 productions grounded in a common denominator: the fact that all stories have the same theme, take place in 3 different settings each one corresponding to a
different school’s location. Besides these, the internal dramatic coherence of the stories should also articulate a common dramatic thread that links all these physical locations. The common conceptual theme is always a voyage of a European younger through the settings of each on of the countries involved in the consortium.
Voyages have been a common theme in European literature for ages. From the classics “Peregrinação“ de Fenaão Mendes Pinto or Cervantes Don Quixote to the contemporary writings of Bruce Chatwin in his book “Patagonia” or Pedrag Maitzevic “Mediterranean”,
man has travelled through Europe discovering new cultures and different ways of life.
In this project we intend to bring the best creative skills amongst our students by challenging them to develop from scratch a film production that uses this powerful dramatic leitmotiv. But this is not a scriptwriting workshop. This common dramatic structure will only be the pretext that will support the acquisition of the technical and artistic skills we intend to convey. Though, we get a training project that not only conceptually articulates all participants through the promotion of one common goal: the production of 3 shot fiction films that depict a common single reality; whilst at the same time promotes the acquisition of all skills involved in the new digital film production value chain.
The production process in it self will be a central aspect of the training project since all stages of production will be organized as lessons covering different topics essential to industry standards film production.
Digital has been a buzzword for long. All digital imaging uses computer technology to translate images which are visible to the naked eye into bits and bytes and back again.
That is also the case with digital cinema. But the transition from analogue to digital has been a slow one in the case of film.
Without doubt, film has proven to be the longest-lasting and most adaptable of any
medium yet devised for storing and reproducing a series of photographs as a moving image sequence. Nowadays film is still used extensively both for cinema and television production, and film is still the main carrier used for projection in cinemas.
But slowly that is changing. Digital processes have started to make inroads in the areas
of intermediate duplication, visual effects and compositing, and today we can already foreseen that in the near future all technical areas that converge for film production –
image acquisition; image printing and post-production and image exhibition – will be fully integrated digital processes.
Structure
The course is organized along 3X3X3 structure. This means:
- 3 schools;
- 3 workshops;
- 3 films;
New Media Technology College, Ireland, and Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
3 Workshops – Each workshop takes place in one different school. Scriptwriting and Production Skills, Dublin, Ireland); Digital Cinematography (Santiago de Compostela, Spain); Post-production and Digital Intermediate (Lisbon, Portugal).
3 films – each film is produced by a team of 15 elements, 5 from each partner school plus
3 groups of 6 elements. Each group of 6 is divided in a partnership of two that writes the portion of the script that takes place in each different location and cultural reality. The team of the 15 elements is divided according with this general organization: 5 elements for production and direction (these 5 elements from each team, plus the 18 from the scriptwriting teams, will take part in the first workshop); 5 elements for digital cinematography (a total of 15 for this Worksop) and 5 elements each team for post-production and digital intermediate (15 total for this one).
Timetable
The timetable for this project is the following:
The course is organized along 6 different stages.
In the first stage tutors from the 3 different schools involved in the project will launch an internal application amongst all students in the partner schools under the general theme “telling our stories to others – a voyage between X and Y - that bring us together in different parts of Europe”. This 1st stage will end with a selection of a total of 3 ideas accordingly with the quality of synopsis and letter of intentions presented by all candidates.
In the second stage a workshop will be organized in one the partner schools, NMTC, Ireland, with a group of students whose concept ideas and synopsis have already been accepted on scriptwriting techniques, pitching techniques and conceptual development for film namely under the new technological production and distribution scenarios.
On the 3rd stage a pitching session will be organized to select the 3 projects that will go
into actual production. This will be conducted online using the course’s platform video conferencing based on VOIP potential.
On the 4th stage a new selection procedure will be open to select the technical team to each one of the productions. These technical teams must include equal members from each one of the partner schools. This stage of the project will then include a 4 days wk in digital cinematography to take place in Spain.
The 5th stage involves the actual production of each one of the films with the students acting as actual independent film production teams. Each team shoots in its own country the part of the script that takes place there and follows up online through the exchange of info and daily rushes the work of the other two teams that are shooting at the same time.
The 6th stage of the project is devoted to post-production and visual effects and, inline
with previous stages of the project, involves both training in pp, digital intermediate and composition techniques for digital film and the actual post-production of all films. At this stage a final workshop on post-production techniques and visual effects will be conducted in Universidade Lusófona’s AVID Centre, in Lisbon Portugal.
The project will conclude with one session in each one of the partner schools where a presentation and discussion session will be organized and both films and training material resulting from the course will be presented. All films resulting from the course will be spoken in the country’s original language and subtitle in English. Each film will have 3 different versions: one version in MP4 format to be available online and on mobile; one version in HD-DVD to be sent to festival and other viewing opportunities and one version in 2K to be used for public screenings in theatre houses in the different partner countries namely with the support of the official offices involved (i.e. ICA in Portugal).
The course involves original collaborative techniques deriving both from the use of an online tool for training support (moodle) and the use of one online platform for the distribution of all contents involved in the course and the support of the actual production work (U-on – an online video jukebox available at http://u-on.ulusofona.pt).