Idea And Form

The Animated Debate project is an educational project, using artistic forms and methods. The term "animated" means just the choice of the form. The assumption of the project was to develop the form without any limits, to make the form depend only on participants' creativity. But one has to remember that no artistic even can be created without an idea.
The main goal of the project was the development of knowledge about the use of new technologies and artistic talents of children and youth, cooperating with peers from other countries. The content of this "debate" was strictly determined. There were a few themes. Each of them allowed for confronting and comparing creative solutions in each country, so in each of different culture and society. The comparison of these sources of inspiration, or more precisely, interpretation, is a very important result of the project. Here, we present reasons why the producers of the project decided for two themes: the myth about Hercules and the story of Romeo and Julia.

HERCULES

The most frequent reflections, which are offered by the myth about Hercules are the triumph of the good over the evil, the weak's redemption, inclination for changes, persistence in the fight with adversary, and religiousness of a hero, who saves god, not being one. The myth was chosen for the reason that, apart from typical associations, the story of Hercules depicts almost every situation, in which a man can be found. The target of the workshops was to make young participants to interpret by themselves the particular scenes of a forming film.

Termini Imerese
Children who worked in the workshop group in Termini Imerese took notice of strength, beauty, boldness, and initiative of the myth hero, stating that these are notions they identify with. storyboard "Hercules"
Other examples can be associations brought by children working on the scene of the Hercules" fight with a seven-headed Hydra - each of Hydra's heads symbolizes the worst evil which every man has to face. For the young creators of this adaptation, Hydra's seven heads stood for: crime, unemployment, anxiety, pollution, drugs, discrimination, and violence.

From the strictly pedagogical point of view, the aim of the reference to the myth about Hercules, planted directly in Italian realities, was to draw pupils' attention, through the play, to rejecting "Mafioso" culture, so powerful on Sicily. And at the same time, it was desired to give them the opportunity to show other values, such as the respect for the law and social norms, which are essential for the proper functioning in a society. The story of Hercules shows also the value of respect for human dignity and it brings up in the objection to violence.
Thanks to Hercules, these "restless boys" have the opportunity to appreciate the value of resistance during the fight with all life adversities, and above all, they can state on their own if only being god one can commit great deeds.

Bielsko-Biała
In the Polish group there was one of the stories about Hercules" labours selected - the story about golden apples. It is worth to notice this particular selection out of the whole myth about Hercules, on the basis of which there was a film made. All Hercules" labours were analyzed together with the whole group. As we know, in the majority of these labours there is a lot of fight and violence. Young people immediately snatched up this concept, what was visible in the drawings presenting staging ideas. But the solution was the proposal of a different approach to Hercules and his labours. Hercules is a symbol of intelligence, cunning, wisdom, and force used in the justified circumstances. Persuading the group that Hercules" idea, and not the way of accomplishing it, was the most important in the story, took a lot of time. Nevertheless, during later work workshop participants themselves paid attention to Hercules" cunning and to it the staging ideas were subordinated. The selection of the final animation form was also a quite long process. The first common idea was the animation of figures cut out from paper, figures which were found in the Internet or albums - of Greek gods or Hercules himself. scene from myth
For a group making this film, it was the most important to use experience, gained in the first year, the experience of "playdough" and moving objects animation. It was crucial to create a script, to work in task groups, to use new skills of working with the camera and light. For Polish group, the part of the story about Hercules was used to create a complex plot and accomplishment of a complicated animated film.

ROMEO AND JULIA
During the work on animated adaptation of the Romeo and Julia's story, there were two problems encountered. In Polish workshop group it turned out that the play and its author, although it is the canon of the world literature, are almost completely unknown to the youth. After a few hours of presenting the story of two lovers, it was hard both for Polish and British groups, to find in this story some associations and inspirations. In Polish group, one of the reasons for difficulties in finding the inspiration and response to the story was the fact that only two persons were able to understand the presented text, their disability affected also the ability do think abstractly. Working with people with limited mental ability, even a light mental handicap, one has to take problems with adapting even simple stories into account.
Film adaptations, which were shown to the youth, were used as resources. In Poland it was one of many costume, faithful film adaptations, while in England it was a modern adaptation by Baz Luhrmann. In the latter case, a film version takes lovers' lives into the reality of conflicts between Mafia's families. Generally, only transmitting Shakespeare's story into modern times, brought a number of interesting ideas and animations. Therefore it made the story more legible for the youth.

Inspirations:

London
One of the workshop participants answering the question, what the story about Romeo and Julia is for him, said, "I don't think the love between Romeo and Julia was born because of the conflict between the families of Montequi i Capuletti. If this conflict had any influence on lovers, it made their relationship deeper and more passionate. "Romeo and Julia" is first of all the story about the conflict ad its influence on people. Romeo and Julia did not know each other, did not see each other, but they fell in love with each other within a few seconds. To me, this story shows different forms and kinds of love. This love was so powerful that lovers risked for it everything they had".
For British group, the most important element of the play is the conflict, not only the particular discord between families, but the conflict of feelings, honesty, and loyalty. The film adaptation, watched by workshop participants, had an unquestionable influence on created animations. Here is where all symbols and "characters" of animations come from. "Conflict"

Bielsko-Biała
In Polish group it was much more difficult to invoke associations and inspirations, deriving from Romeo and Julia"s story. The work was more efficient when it was decided to focus on the universal plot of two young people"s love and of the generation gap. Animations which were being created had also very individual character, and very often as staging ideas they were made without the instructor's support. One should take notice of particular symbolism, introduced to the animation, which had not occurred in the original story, but close to the animation creators, the way how the characters are dressed, background music used, the comparison of Romeo to a rock musician "Romeo and Julia" , or the presentation of Julia as a blind person "Romeo and Julia"