OF GEEKS AND ARTISTS

Why all of this interest in using cellphones to capture stills and video? There are numerous digital cameras and digital video cameras available that are small and inexpensive, yet take superior pictures. Why, then, all of this interest in cellphones? Convenience, pure and simple. To shoot a short movie, all I have to do is pull out my phone (which I carry with me everywhere) and start shooting. Total spur-of-the-moment filmmaking. As close to video stream of consciousness as one can get. Yes, the resolution isn't great and I only have 15 seconds to shoot, but these are limitations that can be overcome. The main idea is that having the phone with me where ever I go frees me to film whenever the mood strikes and if I film something striking I can possible repeat the shot using higher quality equipment. Cellphone filmmaking can be about spontaneous as one can get short of wiring a tap into one's visual cortex. Tags: filmmaking, cellphone

One of the first things you will notice about the film, Breakfast, is that a number of the shots have framing problems and this is true. I found that framing a shot using the small cell phone screen is difficult, especially since I had icons cluttering the top edge of the screen and buttons cluttering the bottom. To check this out I shot a short video of a stationary object and created a jpeg file from one of the frames. The object, a small tube of CD-Rs, should have been centered in the frame both vertically and horizontally. The frame cap shows that it is centered horizontally, but offset vertically by about 12%. I cannot explain this, but I can adjust for it by appropriately offsetting my framing during filming. Now, whether this is a quirk of my camera or systemic of video-equipped phones is anyone’s guess. What this does illustrate, though, is the absolute need for the fledgling filmmaker to become intimately familiar with his/her equipment before using it to shoot actual footage....