Framework curricula for primary education

Motion picture and media

The primary objective of teaching this subject is therefore to prepare pupils for an independent and critical attitude with respect to texts seen and heard in the media, and to be open to using traditional and new media. This, however, requires a basic level of literacy in the language of motion picture and in the history of arts, as well as a certain transformation of naive consumer attitude. With pupils in the eights year, the necessary skills may be developed through situations which provide them with experience, through working with works, TV and film products, by participation in a series of individual and group activities focusing on relevant themes, enabling children as viewers to differentiate between news and commentary, author’s works from products in the same genre, and to recognise ownership and political points applied to the making of art works and TV and film products.

In the course of teaching ‘Motion picture and media’, pupils must be made to realize how and why the motion picture form of communication is suitable to capture the world’s occurrences and to deliver a personal message at the same time. Pupils need to realise how and why communication in the media (e.g. in entertainment) endangers high culture and, at the same time, personal autonomy (e.g. addiction to information, obsessional consumption), but also the possibilities provided by technical reproduction of images and network communication together for the preservation of our cultural heritage and for the enhancement of free choice (e.g. digital archives, publicity).

When developing the skill to understand audiovisual texts, care should be taken to help pupils to recognise cultural patterns in media texts. One layer of interpretation therefore recognising the author’s or genre’s dominance in representation (personality, style, conventions) and the role of the recipient, the viewer (expectations, identification), while the other fundamental layer is recognising the underlying, often tacit system of values and interests influencing media texts.

For this reason, the school must enable pupils to learn more about their own personality, to learn about historical, social and cultural correspondences through the study of appropriate motion picture products, and to be able to use mass media in a critical and sovereign fashion.

Classes of ‘Motion picture and media’ must also be occasions where pupils have the possibility to develop their expressivity through suitable creative exercises, thus helping them to formulate their personal, polished audiovisual messages.
New activities

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  Viewing products, TV programmes and parts thereof in groups or small groups (due to the duration of motion picture texts (film, TV, video, computer games, web), it is normally only possible to discuss and analyse texts with the help of excerpts in the class; the products themselves must be viewed outside class time).
  
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  Working with motion picture texts individually, in small or larger groups:
  
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  creative practical exercises (e.g. recalling, association, selecting, grouping and re-editing scenes and pictures).
  
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  discussion (e.g. formulating statements, contrasting assumptions, interpretation).
  
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  Study of the tools used for representation: individual or small group exercises (e.g. grouping pictures, making collage, adding texts, making story-board or scene plan, making living pictures, shadow-play, creating the main title (for example, for a TV programme), making commentary, dubbing).
  
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  Brief report, demonstration or description (e.g. description of the background in terms of cultural history or technology on the basis of technical literature of self-information, making and demonstrating optical devices).
  
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  Project work: individual or group tasks and activity forms which continuous also outside class, last for a longer period (3-6 weeks) and can often be selected from several options (e.g. research, finding, organising and processing data, facts and information about press products, movies, radio and television programmes, web pages, marketing campaign; making case studies, self-portraits, photo or video etudes, writing a screenplay, making interviews, designing and creating a trailer, designing logos and cover pages, writing work logs).
  

Pupils are introduced to / and gain some practical experience in representation techniques of technical mage reproduction and image transmission. They learn about the elementary aspects of analysing films and TV programmes. They learn to distinguish between image and reality, as well as between various media, representation techniques, genres and programme types.

Pupils become aware of the exceptional influence of audiovisual media on everyday life and the development of personality. They learn of aspects and correlations which enable them to be self-reflective and critical towards views and behaviour patterns presented in the media.
New activities
Discussion of programmes, films, press releases in the classroom and working with them individually.

Playful exercises to ‘try out’ various tools of expression, processes of interpretation and effect mechanisms.

Animation, montage, photo and other creative exercises.

Seeing a movie, discussion.

Introduction to the use of CD-ROMs as a source of information.

Audiovisual capture of individual and common events, as allowed by the technical apparatus available.