The pocket film that started it all...

I can't believe our little short 'Mankind is no Island' is still traveling the festival circuit globally, 3 years after we filmed it on a very tired Nokia N95. For those keen to know a little behind-the-scenes on this one, we shot just over 1200 words on signs around the streets of Sydney and NY... then blue-toothed them to my MacBook, then cut them in Final Cut Pro to the amazing sound score by John Roy.

I can still remember Shane writing up lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives and us sitting around a table with blank stares, trying to fashion some kind of script out of the random assortment of words we'd filmed.

It started to come together with a line in the middle of the film, then gradually, day by day, the other lines came to us and the story (as you see it now) took shape. It was a painful creative extraction, but so worth it.

By the way, for those of you super keen to spot it, there's several shots throughout when i'm shooting signs in windows, and you can actually see our reflection holding the Nokia... further proof (for the doubters out there) that this was genuinely filmed on a mobile phone only.

This film won 'Best Film' and 'People's Choice' at Tropfest NY in 2008, then scored an IF Award for 'Best Short Documentary' in 2009 along with numerous other gongs at film festivals both in Australia and overseas. It's been used in colleges, universities, film schools and even exams I'm told!

For old time's sake...

Anyone shooting a Tropfest (mobile) film entry?

For the 3rd year running, Tropfest's Telstra Mobile Masterpieces is back. In Trop's 20th Anniversary year, the traditional balmy sunday in Sydney's Domain will be expanded to feature 3 days of filmic action.

I'm keen to see how many people are using the new iPhone 4S - with HD video capacity - to shoot their entry? If you need some inspiration, here's a short I shot on my iPhone3 2 years ago... it's titled 'Design Crimes'... enjoy!