Mobile Moving Image Culture & Smartphone Filmmaking Past, Present & Future

Abstract

Over the last decade, smartphone filmmaking evolved from an underground and art house into an egalitarian filmmaking practice and moving-image culture. In an international context mobile, smartphone and pocket films can provide access to filmmaking tools and technologies for a new generation of filmmakers. Max Schleser will review the developments and directions in mobile, smartphone and pocket filmmaking through the International Mobile Innovation Screenings (www.mina.pro). During the last ten years, he curated the screening and smartphone film festival, which captures and celebrates smartphone films about communities and cities from around the world. Mobile, smartphone and pocket filmmaking expands the tradition of experimental filmmaking, expanded cinema and documentary making. Smartphone filmmaking facilitates experimentation. This presentation will outline how early mobile filmmaking aesthetics still resonate in contemporary smartphones films and documentaries that screen at major festivals such as Berlinale or Festival de Cannes. Furthermore, mobile moving image aesthetics now influence filmmaking more generally.

As Creative Arts research in screen and digital media, Max Schleser’s research projects are also disseminated via non-traditional research outputs. He applies practice-led research to examine novel film forms and formats. His creative practice focuses on filmmaking and curation. Max Schleser has demonstrated how mobile media can drive social innovation in interdisciplinary research projects. To establish a conversation on mobile media’s potential for transdisciplinary research, he co-edited Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones and Mobile Story Making in an Age of Smartphones. His monograph, Smartphone Filmmaking: Theory & Practice will be published by Bloomsbury in September 2021.