The present manual was made during a one-year educational training programme in the field of filmmaking, intended for the members of vulnerable social groups. Through the process of non-formal learning, we introduced the participants of the project “Naj se vidi” (Let it be seen) to the medium of film and in this way enabled their broader social engagement. Often faced with a negative media image of themselves, the disadvantaged social groups were given a chance to co-create this image according to their own perception of themselves and their reality.
We have also trained mentors, who can now continue with such work. In addition to the created pedagogical learning material, this ensures an increase in the durability and usefulness of the project.
Concurrently, this manual was created in order to share our experience, after more than a decade of work in the field of film education, with a broader circle of lovers of the seventh art. In a time, when the technological revolution has thoroughly changed the filmmaking conditions (affordability of filming equipment and post-production tools), we as well wish to contribute to the democratisation of this medium. It is not our intention to enter the academic sphere, although we will shed light on a few segments taught at academies and film schools. Neither do we wish to put on the market a manual that would offer beginner filmmakers a magic formula for filmmaking. We wish to offer knowledge, as well as film and educational experience, which often lead to results through unconventional ways.
Throughout more than a decade of pedagogical work in the field of film art, hundreds of filmmakers from all over the world have made numerous films under our mentorship, so many we don’t even count them anymore, since they exceed three-digit numbers. There are just as many different approaches, filming and educational, that were responsible for the making and success of these films on festivals all over the world. That is the reason this manual is the starting point of basic knowledge, which we think will be of great help to every young filmmaker.
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