Originally published January 24 2006
College dean offers prize to best cell phone movie
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Short films shot on cell phones are becoming increasingly popular, as exemplified by an Ithaca College dean offering $5,000 for the best 30-second movie. The winner will be selected from 10 finalists.
An Ithaca College dean is encouraging students to instead think small --- and she's offering a $5,000 prize to do it.
The school has invited high school and college students across America to submit a 30-second movie shot entirely with a cell phone.
It may come off like a gimmick, but Dean Dianne Lynch has no doubts about the contest's academic value.
In today's media marketplace --- where cell phones can take pictures, play music and games and connect to Web sites --- it's all about thinking small and mobile.
"Historically, we've always had students thinking bigger and bigger.
One of the topics was the future of mobile delivery of content.
Disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the July bombings in London showed what cell phone cameras are capable of, as everyday people used them to provide TV stations and the Internet with vivid images of the devastation.
About 130 million Americans own cell phones with camera capabilities and approximately half of those camera phones also shoot video, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum, a Boston-based technology consulting firm.
Last year, Zoie Films, an Atlanta-based producer of independent films and festivals, ran what it billed as the world's first cell-phone film festival.
We were discussing this last year in film club," said Sasha Stefanova, an Ithaca College junior from Kazanlak, Bulgaria, who is majoring in photography and visual arts.
Sudhanshu Saria is a senior in filmmaking and likes the novel challenges presented by working with a cell phone and a 1- to 2-inch screen.
Saria's initial reaction was that the contest "could be gimmicky ...
To ensure fairness, all submissions will be judged in basic VGA (video graphic array) quality, Lynch said.
The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of film students and faculty, who will select 10 finalists.
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