Research
- SMARTPHONES AND CINEMA -
HISTORY OF THE MOTION PICTURE CAMERA
Since the invention of cinema at the end of the 19th-century technology has been constantly evolving and adapting to be smaller, faster, and better. From huge cameras that had to have film delicately placed into it to tiny cameras that fit in the palm of our hands, we have clearly made huge advancements in technology.
In 1895 french photography equipment developers (and brothers) Louis and Auguste Lumière developed what is regarded as the first-ever 'cinema camera', the Cinematographe. This machine would record film, develop it and project it all in one and paved the way for cinema as we know it. Only 450 Cinematographe's were made and very few are still in existence. But these machines only recorded moving images. There was no sound recording equipment until 1929 when Dorothy Arzner, an American film director, created a boom mic to give one of her actors more freedom to walk around a stage. This is a significant moment in history as now not only were films visual but also audible without an orchestra playing along.
Decades passed and eventually, the use of film was abandoned and in 1996 the first-ever digitally shot film was created. That film was Windhorse (1998, dir. Paul Wagner). slowly but surely more and more films were starting to be shot using digital cameras and edited using digital means.
Not long after the 1998 release of Windhorse came the first-ever commercially available camera phone, the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210. The idea that you could take photos on your phone shocked the world. It was the start of phones being more than just a method of talking to people and conversations about 'what else can we do?' started to arise.
Examples of smartphone films
Be me (2019)
INVASION (2020, Dir by Pete Majarich)
I choose these films as examples for good smartphone films for a number of reasons. I think the cinematography is incredibly professional and beautiful for rather simple films. Although 'Be Me' contains no dialogue whatsoever and INVASION is accompanied with a voice over they both convey an incredibly strong narrative with cinematography alone. They both share a similar colour palette of very washed out and low saturated blues and greens and have an overall quite dark aesthetic. If I had to pick a personal favourite between the two I think that INVASION would reign superior.
INVASION (2020, DIR. PETE MARARICH)
We fade into this shot in a car park with an ominous one-note sound playing in the background. The cinematography of this shot is extremely interesting. The Lighting of the scene interests me a lot. The shot is almost entirely dark with a sliver of light that can be seen on the far right of the screen. This small sliver represents the little remaining human life that there is after what has been a clearly dramatic apocalypse. This is further proven by the small gathering of people in the very back corner of the car park.
The dark represents the invasion taking place however what we can see is that even though dark holds the majority of the shot, our eyes are still drawn to the fluorescent lights dotted around the carp park. This presents how life, human or other, will always somehow find a way to survive.
We then cut to this shot; a backlit figure with everything hidden in darkness barring the light source. I think this is to show that the protagonist (or victim of the invasion) could be anyone.
The shot below it is extremely similar in the way that the subject is completely hidden in darkness compared to the rest of the shot. This could also link back to my previous point of an all-encompassing darkness that traps everything it can in it's abyss.
We then cut to a time-lapse of clouds moving by. The use of the time-lapse is a storytelling device to show the continuous passing of time and to bring us to the modern moment. It is also significant because although the recording of this may have been an hour it goes by in a couple of seconds which can portray the metaphor of time running away and feeling as if it is slipping through your fingers.
It is also an extended metaphor for the darkness taking over. As you can see the clouds are a lot darker than the rest of the sky, and the time lapse is portraying the progression from day to night. It portrays that time, no matter what, can never be stopped and what is set in the course of history to happen will always happen without prejudice or discrimination.
This is the first sight we see of the 'invasion'. Hidden, half in light and half in darkness, we see our entity. This floating monster that from afar seems rather docile and almost harmless. This is quite obviously some sort of an oxymoron. And may subvert the audiences expectations if they expected to see some ultraviolent being.
We cut to this shot of a hospital hallway; empty, lonely. There is a certain chill about this shot and how the camera slowly creeps forth to give this illusion of someone, or something, always watching. There is an interesting juxtaposition in finding discomfort in a hospital, which should be seen as a place of healing and care.
We cut to a view of a book from far away. Open, lair bare on a hard wooden table on a page. We slowly creep towards the book attempting to decode what is on the page; this aids in building tension and is a carry over from the previous shot of the hospital waiting room.
This shot is interesting. It draws our focus onto a particular word, 'oncology'. Oncology is quite simply the study of cancers and tumours and is usually divided into three sub categories based on treatment: Medical oncology, radiation oncology and surgical oncology. This is key as we begin to understand what the film might truly be about.
We are told of an invasion but we are never told of what. Usually, when people hear the word 'invasion' they jump to great science fiction like War of the Worlds or Independence Day. However, we don't always consider invasion to be closer to home. Something more personal. Such as disease. Like myself, I'm sure most people started this film thinking that this was a science fiction film about aliens landing on Earth and taking over but it's so much more nuanced than that. The world that we have seen (the car park, the city, the ocean) is not an actual world but a metaphor for someone's body.
This shot is accompanied by the line 'our weapons were useless against them.' This is significant because although it is delivered in what seems like a sci-fi context it carries connotations that refer to sickness cancer. This is done by the use of the radiation sign. It refers to radiation therapy*.
*Radiation therapy or radiotherapy, often abbreviated RT, RTx, or XRT, is a therapy using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells
These two shots are extremely significant, especially with the context that we have just gathered. There is a personal aspect to this photo. The obvious assumption to be made is that this is clearly a mother and a daughter. The photo is bright and warm, actually the brightest thing we see in the whole film and yet it is within a sad context.
We cut to this shot. An extreme close up on the mother; so close we can see the grain on the photo. This is a way of the audience being forced to feel what our protagonist is feeling and what they lost. "I LOST MY MOTHER, NOW LOOK AT HER FACE. LOOK AT HER! SHE DIDN'T DESERVE THIS! I DIDN'T DESERVE THIS!" This is a huge plot device that forces the audience to feel remorse and guilt.
This shot of the flowers is incredibly symbolic. Flowers represent so much. You receive them during valentines day, anniversaries and celebrations, the bride at a wedding throwing the bouquet as luck for who will be next to tie the knot. But they also represent grief and sorrow. They are a way of saying 'I am sorry for your loss'. and it is evident that in this context they are for loss.
This is the final sequence of the film. This slow panning-out aerial shot of our protagonist, now in full view, not hidden by any shadows. They slowly and slowly become smaller, signifying lonely it can be to lose a member of the family. We get further and further away from her as the guilt begins to pile on and on and on.
We then see the sky again. But it is no longer all-encompassing darkness but a bright hopeful blue with white clouds. The darkness is no longer in control of her life but she is now in the next stage that succeeds the darkness, the aftermath. The timelapse continues and shows the passing of days, weeks, months after. And although all this time has passed the aerial shot continues to move outwards, portraying a paralysed position in which or protagonist cannot escape.
- VICTORIA MAPPLEBECK -
Victoria Mapplebeck is a british BAFTA winning filmmaker who gained significant notoriety after the release of her 2015 iphone shot short '160 characters' which tells the story of her brief relationship with an ex partner, resulting in a pregnancy. She has been creating films for the last two decades and has been creating her iphone short for the last seven years. Each of them have been significantly hard hitting, telling incredible true stories about her life.
'Missed call' acts as a sequel to 160 Characters and tells the story of Jim as a teenager looking to meet his father for the first time, after finding out he has a family of his own. Her most recent film In the Waiting Room documents her journey with breast cancer and how it effected her and her family dynamic. I really like her films as they're incredibly raw and say a lot without necessarily showing much. 160 Characters does this perfectly. As everything that takes place in the film had already happened and was very much in the past tense everything that was seen in the films (barring the texts, which were 100% real) were recreated, but not with actors but by giving clues and visual metaphors to what was taking place. The ending was extremely hard-hitting in that respect as it did a fantastic job of leaving the audience on the hook, with the last text her recieivng from her ex being "I'm moving to Spain."
160 CHARACTERS
Shot entirely on an iPhone 6, Victoria Mapplebeck’s film tells the story of her brief relationship with an ex partner after she discovers that she is pregnant with his child. It is told through a series of text messages that (in the style of the old nokia 8310) only contained 160 characters.
missed call
Shot on an iphone X. The sequel to 160 characters shows Jim as no longer a baby but a teenager looking to speak to his father for the first time. But how do reconnect with a lost relative? How do you start such a conversation?