Home >> Global Organizations >> Activism, NGOs, Charities, and Non-Profit

     Email   Print 

Project:Filmbox

Andreas Groke - 11/16/2011

Sending cameras around the world to everyone who wants to be part of an international film project to create a film from a lot of people in different places around the world is probably one of the best ideas this year. Project: Filmbox is doing exactly that. Since November students and creative people from all over the world can become part in producing a film that is reflecting a new spirit among young people by sending in their film clips. Everyone feels connected to each other somehow and that international feeling of unity is what the final film of this project is going to be all about.


Project: Filmbox is the final project of four students of a master class at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany. All four students study in the same program with different majors. This particular master class gives very few students the opportunity to develop further into their individual fields of interest and graduate as Master of Arts in time dependent media: Sound/Vision.


The students wanted to do some sort of film for their final project. After long discussions about what kind of film and what sort of story it was going to be, it became clear that just another ordinary graduate film was just not going to cut it. It took quite some time until the feeling everybody was trying to put in words and therefore the content of the project became clear: Since everybody around the world somehow feels connected to each other and is wired to feel empathy even for total strangers, why not shoot a film about this feeling and do it in a way that is actually reflecting this attitude?

The cameras that are going to be sent all over the world come in a box that is at the same time prop for the first and last scene of every clip: Since every clip, no matter where it has been shot or who did it, starts with the point of view of the camera getting unpacked by someone in the beginning and ends with the camera getting put pack into the package again, the box and the camera itself turn into a symbol of unity in the edited full length film.



One can apply by downloading and sending in the application form from the website of the project in addition to a summary of an idea to get a camera or, if one already has that exact kind of camera, can just shoot an up to 10 minute film and submit it. All contributions are going to be filmed with the new GoPro Hero HD 2 camera. Not just because it is small and easy to be send around the world, but also because it is not the usual film camera and it cannot be handled like one. When filming with this camera a certain level of creativity is demanded by the filmmaker and since the creators of Project Filmbox are all about content with creativity, that camera was the obvious choice.



Everybody can send in their ideas up until March 2012. That is when the last cameras are going to be shipped out. The edited film clips need to be submitted by May 2012. The project team is then editing everything together to a full length film that is going to launch in summer.