Featured Projects

“A Homeless Woman Was Given an iPhone to Share Her Experience”

Homelessness is a worldwide problem. You can find plenty of articles and videos on the topic. The challenge: how can you keep the homeless issue alive so that people pay attention? The title of this post reveals the answer. Instead of reporting on homeless people from the outside, UK-based director and producer Giulia Gandini created…

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Contained Music Video Wins at Dublin Smartphone Film Festival

“Tell You Tell Me” is a daring rap music video that goes beyond entertainment. The film, featuring IMPS, reveals the singer’s inner conflicts witnessed by a mysterious woman who might be a mental health provider. For the first two-thirds of the video, the action is confined to a room, which acts as a kind of…

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Selfie-style Documentary Captures the Plight of Asylum Seekers

When the Taliban threaten Afghan filmmaker Hassan Fazill, he, his wife Nargis, and their two young daughters flee the country. Filmed over the course of several years, “Midnight Traveler” thrillingly documents the family’s escape and subsequent search for a safe haven. A creative wrinkle is that Hassan, his wife (also a filmmaker), and their children shoot…

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Prize-winning Drama Explores OCD

When making documentaries of living people, filmmakers typically arrange for their subjects to talk about themselves. Although used less frequently in fiction films, the same technique can provide intimate and dramatic moments. Self-revelation in a drama is usually done in voice-over while the character carries out a defining activity, such as running a marathon or robbing…

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Tutorial Review: How to Film Underwater Using a Fish Tank

If our current Mobile Movie of the Week “Submerged” makes you want to shoot underwater, here’s a BBC Earth Unplugged tutorial to help you get started. While the 6-minute video offers a variety of clever, low-cost tips, the most interesting one is to use a small fish tank. This will enable you to get split…

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Tutorital Review: “Shooting a Mini-Doc”

The mini-doc rests on the truth that every single person is worth getting to know. In practice this means that if you want to make mobile movies, there are plenty of subjects in your world. If you’ve never shot a mini-doc and want some basic tips, check out Bud Simpson’s “Tutorial One.” In 6 minutes, he…

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