Cell Phone Video, What's The Skinny?

Rosestar

Rosestar

Well-known member
Does anyone have the skinny on cell phone video? I want to experiment and was looking for some info. What cams offer the highest quality/most time. What resolutions are we talking about? What file formats are used and can the footage be captured to NLEs for editing (I use FCP). Do you have to have service on the phone or can it be used as a stand alone device?

I know I need to do an internet search, but am lazy tonight. Any info will be appreciated.
 
I'd be happy if they made a celphone that didn't drop calls all the time! Putting video cameras in cel phones is as useful to me as home theater in the outhouse!
 
Dudes...

I'm still using some old school Nokia from Mid 2002.

kyocera_kwc_2325.jpg


Kyocera KWC-2325 (Qualcomm / Verizon)

Now my brother and my wife and my brothers irritating wife all have the latest and greatest...

31126659-2-120-0.gif
31264926-2-120-0.gif


...internet and email access, PIM, cool ring tones and still and video camera and this and that all so they can.............................

Talk on the phone

Crazy people.
 
Damn Wells

I had to actually Google that. One day (and I say oonnneee dddaaayyy) we will have HD and PC Quaility Games on our Cell Phones/PC/Palms/GPS/Whatever else....
 
One day we'll be flipping the lid, looking up at the stars and saying...."beam me up Scotty"
 
Yeah, I know it sucks. However, I am interested in experimenting with it. The media coverage of the London bombings has included quite a bit of cell phone images, both stills and video. I know that most of the folks that contribute here are very particular about video quality. So am I. However, I think that the development of cell phone video (and stills for that matter) is significant. I see it as a new aesthetic that can be used for artistic effect.

Think about what we consider as "real" images. From the invention of cinema to the 1930s, the newsreels were the most common form of moving visual news and they had a specific aesthitic or look. They were flatly lit, sometimes handcranked and looked speeded up and were usually shot on tripods, so very little camera movement was associatied with the "newsreel" look. Orson Wells exploited this aesthetic in the opening, "March of Time" sequence in "Citizen Kane", to great effect.

With World War Two came the Arri Reflex (which was copied, with poor qualty in the US) and the Eyemo. These light weight cameras, and the massive amount of footage they shot during the war, changed the "real" footage aesthetic. Now the frenetic handheld, shakey camera work became the standard for "real". This aesthetic was exploted for artistic effect, most effectively, IMO, by Stanley Kubrick in "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" during the Burpleson Airforce Base attack scenes and by Gillo Pontecorvo in "The Battle of Algiers".

Cinema verite was spurred on by the development of light weight, quiet, sync sound cameras and sound recording equipment and the evolution in quality and varity of 16mm film stocks. This equipment evolution also was adapted by television news. So, for twenty years, "real" was defined by hand held, sync sound 16mm. This aesthetic has been exploited to artistic effect many times, with the most effective examples, IMO, being "This Is Spinal Tap" by Rob Reiner and 84 Charlie Mopic by Patrick Shean Duncan. I also believe that this Cinema Verite aesthetic is part of the reason that "Night of the Living Dead" (B&W documentary feel) and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (16mm color reversal) have the power they do. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has the same look as Vietnam War footage did, which the audience of the time was very familiar with and I think this contributed to the power of the film.

Super 8mm film, introduced in 1965 and widely accepted for home movie use, has also been exploited for the "real" footage aesthetic, most notably by Oliver Stone, in his films "JFK", "Nixon", "The Doors" and "Natural Born Killers".

And Then came video. The video revolution that started in the late 1970's, continues to this day. Video has taken over as the prime source of "real" event documentation, from home movies to tv news and more. This aesthetic has also been widely exploited for artistic effect, most notably by the "Blair Witch Project", where the use of the hand held consumer video camera provided almost instant suspension of disbelief.

Now we see the evolution of the video aesthetic. Web cams have become old news and the news coverage of the war in Afghanastan introduced us to the video phones. Now we have video cameras being introduced into cell phones. I know, the video quality is, currently, not very good, but that is not, IMO, as important as the main quality that cell phone video can offer, ubiquity. I believe that cell phone video will quickly become the prevalant imagery of current events. The London bombings are, IMO, just the begining of this. I just can't help thinking about what if cell phones with cameras were in Dealy Plaza on 11-22-63.

This is why I want to experiment with cell phone video. I will not be shooting a feature with a cell phone (well, never say never), but I think that video using the cell phone video aesthetic could be a valuable tool to help tell a story. My first thought is that I would shot the footage that I wanted to look like cell phone video with regular mini-DV (60i, I would think) in available light with no in camera signal processing. Then edit the footage, export it out as a highly compressed, lower frame rate QT file, then re-import it for inclusion in the final project. However, I just do not know if that will replicate the look. Anyone else have ideas about this?

Sorry for the long post. It is just that I was taken aback with the prevalance of cell phone imagery from the London bombings that was posted on the web in just a matter of a few hours. I have feeling that this represents a historical precedent and is ushering in a new aesthetic. Personally, I want to stay current and some of the projects I am developing would be a good showcase for this.


So, again, I ask, cell phone video, anyone have any info?
 
thisiswells said:
This is NOT an endorsement, but "LE NAPKIN" was filmed on a Treo CamPhone 650.
Click to expand...

Why the disclaimer Brian? Are you not endorsing the quality or the content?

I dig the video. Definitly part of the evolution of a new aesthetic.

One of the things I worry about trying to replicate the look with a palmcorder DV cam is the phone form factor and how that affects the image. I would like to see more CPV, and how the "great unwashed" shoots with it.
 
lol.. my wife and i got free phones when we renued our contract. the whole color and camera and all that jazz.. never really use it...maybe once when i had to take a picture of something to remember it. im just glad its small so it doesnt swing around too much in my pocket and rack me in the jimmy if i decide to run or jump up and down. and thats enough for me.
 
Wow, getting technical info is a chore. Most of the searches I do come up with discount stores or articles about using a cellphone for video playback. Just think, you can now have commercials on your phone. I'll keep looking.
 
I finally cracked and got a Treo 600. Found a ton of free apps to improve still camera capabilities, also got a free video recorder.,....painful quality...

Great to be in the middle of nowwhere to get DVXuser emails though...
 
Rosestar said:
I was wondering if anyone has any idea about a workflow to include camera phone video into a video project?
Click to expand...
Many "media" cell phones come with software that allows copying the media to and from the phone. My Motorola came with siftware to do just that. I can capture video and then copy it to my computer. The video is small (128x96 for my V600 phone) and compressed as MPEG-4. Other phones capture at higher resolutions and compress to other formats. Therefore, using cell phone video in a DV project will start you off right away with low quality, poor sound, and already compressed video for the source.
 
HansK said:
Many "media" cell phones come with software that allows copying the media to and from the phone. My Motorola came with siftware to do just that. I can capture video and then copy it to my computer. The video is small (128x96 for my V600 phone) and compressed as MPEG-4. Other phones capture at higher resolutions and compress to other formats. Therefore, using cell phone video in a DV project will start you off right away with low quality, poor sound, and already compressed video for the source.
Click to expand...

128X96, wow that is low, what framerate is that? what interface is used to capture the video?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top