Fancy entering a movie in a competition that might mean your film being shown on the small screen? No, not that small screen, the smaller one…mobile phones.
The Scotsman is reporting that Scottish Screen is launching a competition to encourage filmmakers to make movies especially for mobile phones. Mmm…this reeks of the 3G Mobile Phone companies realising that they’re not selling enough handsets and they’re looking at pulling people in, still, it would mean exposure for younger filmmakers so that’s surely not bad is it?
The eight winners of the competition will receive a grant of up to £3000 each to produce their 60-second film for a mobile phone…The winners will have their work premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival next August.
“What we are interested in is finding ideas for films for the mobile phone that you can only really watch on a phone,” said Jason Hall, organiser of Pocket Shorts Scotland. “A lot of stuff currently shown on phones is lifted off the TV and it is just squeezed and punted off on to the phone market, but it is a completely different medium.”
He added: “The films you want to watch on a phone are different. If you are standing at a bus stop, shorts are ideal because they are short and snappy. You don’t want to start watching a whole film that is really meant for a big screen, or a 30-minute drama series.
Mmm…I still can’t fathom the idea of watching anything on a mobile phone other than a short video you took of your friend when they were drunk the night before and lying naked on the neighbours car cuddling their cat. I really can’t see me having the interest to purchase and watch a short clip while I’m waiting for the bus.
“Some of the ideas people came up with were fantastic. One, called Telephone Tennis, was a conversation between two people, and to hear the whole thing, you had to get together with a friend and watch each half of the conversation on two separate phones. That is the kind of thing we are looking for as a way to use features that are unique to phones.”
Especially not that! Is anyone else of the same mind, or could you see yourself purchasing clips and watching them in this way?
