'Phoney videos'

Nokia aired a commercial which focused on how mobile technologies could potentially change film-making. The url www.mobifilms.net appeared at the bottom of the screen.


It was a pretty nifty site, with "lessons" for first-time film-makers. There was 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 linked to "First Time Filmmakers", an initiative by Discovery Channel which first debuted in 1995 in Europe. FTF commissioned and showcased the work of emerging film makers, and had two successful runs in China. India was next on their radar.

Of course, although the initiative was being 'supported by Nokia', those films were not made using mobile phones. But I don't doubt, a day will soon come when much better filming would be possible. Not television broadcast quality but definitely for mobile and internet viewing.

So yes, becoming a Bollywood director was 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 and what not. 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 was in the news was quite different. The 'point and shoot' killer application it turns out was porn.

The chart-topper of the week was the Mallika Sherawat video/ MMS. The amusing thing was how many of us watched it just to confirm whether it was 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 the ordinary, girl-next-door videos which are really scary. It started with the DPS MMS clip but there seemed to be hundreds of other foolish girls who had let their boyfriends/ husbands film them in various states of undress. And, these clips are floating around everywhere.

There were clips titled 'AmitsGF', 'Policeofficersdaughter' and even 'Suhaagraat' (the woman is wearing mehndi and the chooda traditionally worn after marriage...). In some cases, the women appeared to be unaware they were being filmed, but wasn'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 could change the business of film-making. Not just pornography.