MobiTV and Palm are sponsoring a Treo Mobile Comedy Film Festival for 60–second (or less) videos designed for mobile devices (see below).
The contest began on July 18 and the deadline for entries is September 24 (so boo on me for not knowing about this sooner). The contest is open to residents of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada (but not, strangely, the Province of Quebec).
Videos may be shot with any recording device, not only a cellular phone, and edited with image editing software. The video file size must not exceed 100 MB and the content must be the equivalent of a G or PG rating, as designated in the U.S.
Categories of winners
There will be three winners in each of three categories plus a grand prize winner. The categories are Mobile Life, Animation and ReTake.
Mobile Life’s content should be about “mobile romance, mobile manners or the lighter side of life as a mobile warrior,” the festival’s Web site says. The Animation category is a “made-for-mobile comedic animated short on any topic you choose.”
Rewrite is to “rewrite the ending to a famous movie. Shoot your own version of a scene from TV. Here's your chance to parody that film, TV show, or commercial.”
Good prizes
The prizes are pretty good. The winner of each category receives $2,000 and the grand prize winner receives $5,000. The four winners also get a “mobile filmmaking toolkit” (includes a Treo, editing software, memory cards and memory card reader) as well as free travel and accommodations to the showing of the videos at the awards ceremony on October 18, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. in Hollywood at Grauman’s Theater.
Sussie Esman and John Henson will host the ceremony and Penn & Teller and Adam Ferrara will judge the entries.
You may attend the ceremony for $10 and the proceeds go to Comedy Cures (see below). You may also donate more to Comedy Cures as part of the ticket purchase. If tickets are purchased by October 1, five people (with one guest each) will be selected to attend the VIP party after the ceremony.
Tips for filmmaking
MobiTV provides some good, basic tips for taking mobile videos, such as “don’t depend on sound to tell your story,” “Use closeups. Wide shots and group shots often have less impact on the small screen,” “Rapid motion and pans and zooms can create video compression artifacts (fuzzy stuff) on the final mobile movie” and “Watch your movie on a phone.”
These are good suggestions, although they also include “Ignore all of these rules. This is new territory and there are no hard and fast rules.”
MobiTV also includes information for “shooting video on a Treo,” but it really isn’t Treo-specific, such as “Take videos in bright lighting conditions. Low-light or night images may be grainy” and “Make sure that the brightest light source is coming from behind you, the videographer, so that it lights the subject’s face. Don’t take indoor videos with the subject in front of a window or light.”
Rules made to be broken
Although these are good general suggestions, it’s also a good idea to remember the previous “ignore all these rules” comment. Breaking the rules about movement, lighting, closeups, etc. can make sense. Greatness sometimes involves breaking rules.
A general rule for photography, for example, is “don’t shoot directly into the sun,” but sometimes the effect is rather interesting.
All the festival’s entries are posted on its Web site and I wouldn’t be surprised if they also were available on some cellular phones through MobiTV. I have to check.
[Update (9/28/07): I looked at the mobile TV offerings on an Alltel phone I’m testing and there indeed is a “Treo Film Festival” channel for watching the entries. The videos are the same as on the Web site, but you’ll probably get a better viewing experience on the Web where the video is larger and there’s less of a chance of it “stuttering” or breaking up because of reception problems.]
Sign of the times
A few years ago, when videos on cellular phones were quite the novelty, a video festival for cellular phones was a big deal. Now it’s not quite as noteworthy, although it certainly is interesting to me and the many other people who not only follow the wireless multimedia industry but also filmmaking in general.
In fact, MobiTV’s festival information on the Web notes “the growing number of mobile film competitions worldwide.” If you search on the Web you can find many videos made for cellular phones.
The Treo Mobile Comedy Film Festival is obviously going for the highest possible video quality. That’s why it is allowing entries shot with camcorders and other non-phone devices.
Much better quality videos
But it’s also very interesting — and in some ways more interesting — to see videos taken only with camera phones. Sure, many cellular phones produce awful video quality. But many of the newer phones offer recording at 30 frames per second.
Indeed, LG’s new five megapixel “Viewty” camera phone can shoot video at 120 frames per second — an amazing resolution for a camera phone, and extremely high end even for a traditional camcorder. The handset also can accommodate DivX videos and features manual focus and image stabilization.
Videos shot with camera phones could be as important — perhaps even more important — than videos shot with camcorders for mobile devices.
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