Multimedia Guide

The multimedia guide, created by young people for young people and families, was the result of a three-year pilot project. One goal was to learn from the young participants how they perceived the museum and its contents. The results of this project have been incorporated into the museum’s educational activities.

In the first phase of the educational project, the aim was for the students to have an understanding of what a museum is, what the departments are, and what the jobs are. To this end, the 21 fourth-grade students from Frankfurt’s Gallus district had long conversations with many of the museum’s employees. The young researchers took a close look at the museum team and conducted in-depth interviews with staff members about topics such as how the cinema program is put together and their day-to-day work. They also videotaped the interviews themselves. Every Friday for a period of six months, the children swapped the classroom for the museum.

A second group of young people, this time aged between 16 and 18, explored the building between January and July 2016. They focused on the second part of the permanent exhibition, which deals with “cinematic storytelling”. They took part in workshops on acting, images, sound and editing. They watched films together in our movie theater and discussed and analyzed the films. They explored the DFF’s archives and talked with experts to deepen their knowledge of selected exhibits. Highlights included an interview with actor David Bennent (DIE BLECHTROMMEL, BRD/FR 1979, director: Volker Schlöndorff), who came from Berlin to talk about his profession. Three of the teenagers were so impressed by the camera work in Wolfgang Petersen’s DAS BOOT (BRD 1981) that they went to Munich for a talk with Jost Vacano, the film’s director of photography. An important result of their work was a series of videos, audio, photos and texts for the multimedia guide.

A third group of participants, aged twelve to fourteen, focused on the first part of the permanent exhibition on “Cinematic Perception”. This group also engaged with the themes of the permanent exhibition in a series of in-depth workshops, and independently researched background information on the exhibits they had selected as their favorites. They took part in a workshop with Academy Award®-winning animator Thomas Stellmach, attended a magic lantern performance by the illuminago ensemble in the DFF cinema and, at the end of a two-day “Music and Silent Film Workshop,” scored three early silent films live in front of a large audience. In April 2017, this group also created their own audio contributions in the sound studio of the Frankfurt Opera.

The finished multimedia guide with the children’s and young people’s contributions and further in-depth information, photos, film clips and an interactive photo game has been available since September 2017 and can be borrowed free of charge at the DFF box office.