Thursday, July 14, 2005

'Phoney' videos

Nokia is airing a commercial which focuses on how mobile technologies can potentially change film-making. The url www.mobifilms.net appears at the bottom of the screen.

It's a pretty nifty site, with "lessons" for first-time film-makers. There's an example of how 30 seconds of planning can transform a point and shoot video ("a rag-tag collection of boring jerky shots") into something watchable.

The site also links to "First Time Filmmakers", an initiative by Discovery Channel which first debuted in 1995 in Europe. FTF commissions and showcases the work of emerging film makers, and has had two successful runs in China. India should be next on their radar.

Of course, although the initiative is being 'supported by Nokia', these films are not made using mobile phones. My 1 megapixel Nokia 6670 allows 10 minutes of video recording - of awful quality, even to view on a phone.

But I don't doubt a day will soon come when much better filming will be possible. Not television broadcast quality but definitely for mobile and internet viewing.

At JAM, we use a 2 megapixel camera phone to make short films which are hosted on our website. The section is called JAM TV. We've even had a 'hit' - our Rabbi Shergill film has been downloaded over 7000 times.

So yes, becoming a Bollywood director is still a long-shot but I see a day when a few creative individuals - armed with next-generation camera phones - will be able to make a living by selling short films shot and even edited on their phones.

Take a simple example. Today phone providers offer restaurant listings. What if u could actually view a 1 minute video of the restaurant - see what it's like? You might pay 5 bucks to see such a film, before spending 500 bucks there.

The possibilities, really, are endless. 'Interestingly shot' and 'nominally priced' would be the two key factors in success.

Boon or goon
Unfortunately, the reason mobile phone film-making is in the news is quite different. The 'point and shoot' killer application it turns out is porn.

The chart-topper of the week is the Mallika Sherawat video/ MMS. The amusing thing is how many of us are watching it just to confirm whether it's really "Mallika or not".

But celebrities inhabit a different universe. At the end of the day, they come out of these scandals (self-created or otherwise) unscathed.

It's ordinary, girl-next-door videos which are really scary. It started with the DPS MMS clip but there seem to be hundreds of other foolish girls who've let their boyfriends/ husbands film them in various states of undress. And, these clips are floating around everywhere.

There are clips titled 'AmitsGF', 'Policeofficersdaughter' and even 'Suhaagraat' (the woman is wearing mehndi and the chooda traditionally worn after marriage...).

In some cases, the women appear to be unaware they are being filmed, but that can't be true for all. Mobile phone cameras have to be used at a fairly close range.

So the bottomline is they trust these cads. These women are in love and can't imagine their guy would ever do something as disgusting as forwarding a video of a private moment. These women are idiots.

When will the porn clips come to an end? When women stop co-operating with the filming , I should think. Hopefully all the media publicity given to MMS sex clips will drum some sense into their silly heads.

Of course there will always be available bodies , but then they'll be doing it for money - not love. Which makes it cold, commercial and far less exciting than peeping into someone's privacy.

Hopefully, we will eventually tire of all this. And the focus will then shift to how mobile phone technology can change the business of film-making. Not just pornography.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:52 PM

    When will porn come to end?
    Well, when ppl, will start talkin freely abt it and understand that it(sex) is just natural thng..and when we will not act as hypocrites

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:57 PM

    believe me, mobile filmmaking is the next big thing. being in a tech savvy country i can see what nokia is trying to do. every person here, has a camera phone (atleast 1MP) with dual LCD and multimedia support for TV and internet. every person. be it the small street vendor or the cook in a small restaurant or even the sweeper of a office building. mobiles are gonna go crazy in india too. and this thing is going to be wildly popular soon. atleast in the cities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6:58 PM

    Hi Rashmi,

    Nice posting.

    Though in this case, I would disagree. Theres no way that these "dumb women" will stop trusting the idiots who indulge in this. Secondly, however wierd I feel saying this, laws could help. We saw what happened to the IIT student caught distributing pornography.

    Keep posting.
    Cheerio.

    Rohan

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7:22 PM

    Wer prepared to live your life in public. The day isnt far away when your every move will be broadcast on net. BTW i have seen desi MMS shot by women themselves. They didnt look like pro either.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I dunno about mobile filmmaking as of yet, I like the idea of using little cameras to do preproduction planning, or if I were shooting miniatures in a special effects shot. If you're shooting vids on a mobile phone, you're probably not a filmmaker in the first place.
    Also, having video on a mobile is inherently detrimental to its basic use, which is to make calls.
    I work as an editor for a broadband television company, called Desivision.tv and the direction I would point in for future filmmakers (for the next 5-10 years or so) would be to use the internet as a showcase for their work. A 10 minute video shot on a good camera will be far superior to a pixellated video that's no larger than the palm of my hand.
    That's my two cents.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Grand daddy Saudi Arabia has banned camera phones....
    South Korea will pass a legislation which forces manufacturers to install a feature in the phone so that it beeps loud whenever a photo or video is taken - to warn people nearby...

    ReplyDelete
  7. 6 years after Kargil.
    Please remember the heroes

    http://www.kashmir-information.com/Heroes/

    ReplyDelete
  8. mobile phones with camera have been on the nuisance list of many for a long time now.
    but the london blasts really brought their good usage to the fore.
    today police is requesting for these footage from people to put the pieces together for their investigations.
    theother usage, ofcourse my friend keeps pushing for, is the localised journalism. being in mag biz u can understand how the high quality cam mibile device woudld chnage the instant journalism.
    ciao
    krishna

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12:01 PM

    hey Rashmi, we want your opinion on HT Mumbai which came out yesterday. I think it was a rocker of an edition, which completely blew away all Mumbaikars esp. the Salman-Ash story which was SHOCKING to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous2:07 PM

    Hey.

    I was expecting that you would be posting something on Hindustan Times or Salman vs Dawaood today.

    Tripti
    15.july.05

    ReplyDelete
  11. hmmm..my 2 cents..
    http://adeology.blogspot.com/2005/06/mms-multimedia-messaging-sex.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous9:38 AM

    Maybe the girls want to be filmed...

    ReplyDelete
  13. I don't think Porn can end unless SEX itself disappears! And let's not forget it's a big bad world out there - We have no idea what's the next big thing coming around the corner Scary but TRUE.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous1:14 PM

    Even the latest Nokia phone has a Movie Director! :)

    ReplyDelete

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