The Young musicians of CuxAire (2013)

Winner of the MEDEA Special Prize for European Collaboration in the creation of Educational Media: The young Musicians of CuxAire is the first Comenius funded film. It is a joint project between the Titus Salt School in Bradford, UK and the Amandus-Abenroth Gymnasium in Cuxhaven, Germany which started in 2010. The film is a mix of live action and animation. It builds on the cultures, resources and imaginations of both schools. The students and teachers involved worked closely together to create not only the film but also the music for this entry. 

The aim of the MEDEA Awards is to encourage innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education. The awards also recognise and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources.

Four troubled teenagers, with little musical talent, from Saltaire in England and Cuxhaven, in north Germany, enter a magical world triggered by images of the German folktale ‘The Musicians of Bremen’. The journey they take, through the vibrant and unusual world of CuxAire, changes them both personally and physically.

Inspired by The Brothers Grimm classic story, this is a modern twist of the 200 year old classic borrowing the philosophy of the two schools figureheads, Titus Salt (1803-1876) an industrialist who attempted to control pollution and created the first new town, the model village of Saltaire.and Amandus Augustus Abendroth  (1767- 1842), a jurist and mayor of Hamburg who counseled, “If you start something with courage and hope, it rarely goes wrong”.

Titus Salt School and Amandus-Abendroth-Gymnasium began working together in 2010. This is the first Comenius funded film and it sets out to use the process of filmmaking with a story that embraces both cultures.

22 students and 3 staff from the German school are paying a return visit to Bradford for 10 days in March, when they will be joined by professional Animators and Musicians in order to complete the film they started in November when Titus Salt School students visited Cuxhaven.

Inspiration for the storyline came from regional Folk Tales, and in particular a north German tale called ‘The Musicians of Bremen’. The script has been written by the students, who have updated the story to incorporate elements of the history, culture, music and language from both places whilst adding their own creative style to the animation.

David Bunting, lead Animator, said “this is a fantastic way to teach the students about the language, culture and history of a different country. The students are bonding, and forming lasting friendships, through the process of film making”

The core focus of the project for both schools is to improve student language learning in both German and English, and to enhance student knowledge of other cultures. The successful application included a number of proposals which would support our main aims.

• To improve student language learning in both German (for TSS students) and English (for AAG students)
• To enhance student knowledge of another culture to promote greater understanding
• To enhance student knowledge of local history in Saltaire and Cuxhaven
• To include and encourage the participation of the wider staff and students at both schools as much as possible
• To include and encourage the participation of parents
• To include the participation of the wider community as much as possible
• TSS and AAG to work as a partnership, and to establish a long lasting working relationship which will form the basis for future projects
• To learn new skills
• To develop life skills which will enhance enterprise skills andemployability
• To develop new friendships
• To collaboratively produce a blog of the project
• To collaboratively produce an animated film

"Schools from Germany and UK created a partly perplexing and as such outstanding video that boasts a refreshingly unusual combination of traditional fairy-tale story-telling, music, an insight of young people's lives and different kinds of digital animation art, a little bit in a kaleidoscopic way. But there is speed and good alternation which makes it attractive to watch. There is very creative use of animation and live action, sound and music."