FILMTERM

The goal of the “FilmTerm” project is to create an audiovisual multilingual film art term base, merge international film terminology expertise, prior research and audiovisual examples, unify production standards for creating the audiovisual examples, determine the common features in the film terminology of the partner school countries and map out the differences, develop and put into practice a term base viewing web-platform which would take into account the nature of film art and the requirements of a film school (e.g. would enable displaying of audiovisual examples, the creation of illustrative lecture materials, gamified study materials and tests).

The project will address several inadequacies in the field of film terminology:

• The lack of terminological clarity, caused by the uneven fusion of traditions from different European and US practices of film making, research and criticism, is a common feature in most of the European countries. In the Baltic region the terminological confusion is even more prominent because of the historical influence of the Soviet film terminology.
• The terminological work is fragmented between various film schools and film industry organizations, without any obvious center. As a result, the schools and organizations tend to duplicate each other’s terminology work and the production standards for creating learning materials vary greatly between schools.
• Currently, the greater part of professional literature for film students in smaller European countries is in a foreign language. Textbook translations are infrequent and the creation of original learning materials is slow going.
• Commonly used term base platforms (e.g. Termeki, created by the Institute of the Estonian Language), although appropriate for general terminological work, do not take into account the nature of film art and the requirements of film schools, ignoring a strong need for embedding and/or viewing visual examples in the form of a short audio or video clip, photo or a schematic.

“FilmTerm” project will bring the film schools and film industry organizations of different countries closer together by creating a comprehensive audiovisual multilingual filmart termbase, aiding film students in their studies, making the exchange of lecturers and students more effortless, facilitating large-scale international projects, and contributing to the free movement of film professionals.

Additionally, the film term database will aid carrying out collaborative projects in film research and theory, as well as writing and translating academic articles (and film criticism) and textbooks.

Furthermore, the project will provide a versatile termbase viewing platform tailored for film art terminology and the audiovisual examples. The innovative term base platform will enable the integration of the term base it to the film studies and also to web-based learning.

Thus, the Project aims to increase the quality of film education by facilitating cooperation and combining of resources between schools. It also brings the digital classroom to underprivileged – film art term base is an effortlessly implemented and free to use Open Educational Resource.

A multilingual terminology database will ensure the endurance of a national professional film terminology, preserving diversity without impeding collaboration.

This project was selected to be funded in Erasmus Plus Programme.