Viral effects of cellphone videos
LAHORE: It’s not just music videos that are being shot on cell phones these days. Short films, too, have come in vogue. Even full-length films are being shot on mobile devices.
The Annemarie-Schimmel-Haus (German Cultural Centre) yesterday organised a mobile phone film workshop on ‘Micro Moves: Human – Urban / Surviving Strategies in a Mega-City’ with renowned German filmmaker Till Passow from Berlin.
Ten students using ten cell phones made 10 short films.
Every short movie was having around 5 minutes duration.
Students of different universities participated in the mobile phone film festival.
The aim of this three-week film workshop was to produce high quality short films by using mobile phone cameras.
The films must reflect the difficulties of urban survival and may reveal strategies of how to get along with these difficulties.
The participants were told to make documentaries to impress by their narration and reflect the overall theme of the workshop.
Interesting thing about the event was finding new themes so that the audience may not get bored.
Different short movies were shown at the festival with titles like “The love of Lahore”, “Colour of Death”, “Dry Run”, “Who am I?” and “Happiness”.
Dia Malik, student of National College of Arts, made a short film titled Dry Run.
The movie was based on the problems of girls which they face when they are harrassed by the auto rickshaw drivers.
She said the government should allocate more resources to depute more force so that such incidents may not take place.
“This was the reason I selected this topic and made a short film on it,” Dia shared her viewpoint.
Who am I? – This movie was directed and shot by Aqdus Shah of Beaconhouse National University.
The movie was shot at Heera Mandi near Bhati Gate on the problems of eunuchs.
The mastermind behind the idea was Till Passow, who is a renowned German filmmaker.
He was born in 1968 in Munich.
He studied at the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich and graduated from the Konrad Wolf Film and Television School in Potsdam.
His short documentary films ‘Mast Qalandar’ shot in Sehwan, Pakistan and ‘Howrah’ shot in India have won numerous prestigious awards and honours.
His recent work ‘Mor Sahib – The Crocodile Saint’ was shot in Manghopir, Pakistan.
He motivated the students to make short movies, which create awareness among the people.
Talking to The Nation, Mr Passow said no one makes professional films with cell phones.
“Mobile phone has tremendous technology but most of us do not utilise it in a proper way.
HD technology in mobiles nowadays has opened new perspectives for filmmakers.
It was a wonderful experience was for me and I have been invited in many events also.
“Cell phones of today have lot of potential.
You can send e-mail, download music and on some new phones, you can even capture videos.
This is the reason I selected this medium,” Passow explained.
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