The video camera you might find in your cell phone (or in your next cell phone) is typically associated with jerky video clips of drunken parties. But lately, cell phone video has taken on far more serious tasks – capturing everything from human rights abuses to the death of a young woman in Iranian street protests.
The latest sign that mobile video is growing up: a course in cell phone video filmmaking at Vancouver’s respected Emily Carr University of Art and Design:
Students in this class will get a crash course in the art, science, and theory of the “pocket production” – in other words, how to make extremely short, low-tech, low-or-no budget dramatic and documentary films using cellular telephones and/or disposable digital video cameras. Included in this intensive combination skills/studies class are sections on cinematic storytelling, scriptwriting, editing theory, and visual literacy. Approximately half of the class time will be devoted to making a “pocket doc”.
