From Mashups to Pocket Cinema…

As a fan of short-form user-generated content, I have a real fascination with pocket cinema a.k.a. mobile phone films a.k.a. productions for the Very Small Screen. The first camphone appeared in Japan in 2000, and within a few years mobile phone films festival started to appear, such as Pocketfilm in France and Japan, alongside dedicated streams at festivals like Sundance (US) and Raindance (UK). YouTube launched in 2005, in 2009 the iPhone 3GS launched and this saw YouTube uploads increase 400% in one week (1700% in 6 months).

There’s a certain aesthetic to many mobile phone films which can often be shaky and pixelated (termed the ‘Ketai Aesthetic’ by Max Schlesser) and yet some of the most powerful images of recent world events have been captured using these personal, consumer devices. The mobile phone camera is intimate, discreet, and allows us to ‘shoot from the hip’, recording events as they happen in real-time.

“I Need Nothing – a nearly useless odyssey” and “Sound”

Loving this video from Cãoceito, which I came across thanks to Maria Popova (@brainpicker), who says:
“Charming music video concept, where every lyric line of the song becomes an album cover”

Another nice find from @brainpicker is “Sound” by… SoundCloud! They say “We love sound. Hear from sound experts and friends of SoundCloud why sound is so important to the way we connect with the world. Enjoy.