14 DAY TRIAL // Most of you have probably made some kind of movie using your cellphone's digital camera and the lucky ones of you that have a handset with a more advanced technology (therefore a much more advanced camera in most cases) surely thought about making a full length movie. But, until now, none of you has completed this task.
There is a man, the film-maker Aryan Kaganof from South Africa, that thought about it and, guess what, he actually did it. The resulting movie is called SMS Sugar Man and from its director's statements the entire motion picture has been filmed using a Sony Ericsson W900i.
As he mentioned when SMS Sugar Man has been entirely completed "after choosing the camera phone for the film (Sony Ericsson W900i), we sent some test footage to Rekorder in Denmark for transfer to 35mm. When I viewed the material on film it exceeded my expectations. The pictures looked nothing like anything I have seen before. Highly saturated, dense, warm painterly pictures that hit you right in the stomach. I knew that we're onto something very special".
And you know what this means, don't you? Most probably, the era when movies were all about high tech gear and expensive equipment is approaching the day when the amateur guys with a 10 or 12 megapixel camera equipped cellphones will make films ready to compete with the much more expensive ones filmed by the big production companies.
The SMS Sugar Man movie is expected to be launched somewhere around March and to enter distribution channels like Mobile TV, Internet, cinemas, DVD and even television.
Want to give it a try and make your own movie after reading this article? Here is what you need:
- Mobile Phones: 8 x Sony Ericsson W900i - Memory Sticks: 12 x 512KB Memory Disks - Lights: 1 x LED by Litepanels - 2 x ELD by Eletricvinyl - Grips: 2 x Camera Platform Cellphone Heads - 1 x Suction Mount - Offline/Online: Apple Mac Duo and 16" Powerbook G4