Filmmakers today have 2 new tools -- security cameras & cell phones -- at their disposal. What's new about that? It is the way they are being used.

In this first article, security cameras provide the content for the film. Yes, the film uses actual footage from various security cameras.

Film Shot From Surveillance Camera POV
 
Dec 6, 5:52 PM (ET)

By JAKE COYLE
 
NEW YORK (AP) - Adam Rifkin was walking down an aisle at Target when something hit him: at that moment, he was the star of his own movie - albeit a boring one.

"Every aisle I would walk down, there were multiple cameras on me," the 41-year-old director said in a recent interview. "The filmmaker in me started to piece together the various shots. I thought to myself, 'If I could obtain this footage and cut this together, this could be a scene.'"

Rifkin's curiosity has led to "Look." Opening in limited release Dec. 14, it's a film shot entirely from the perspective of surveillance cameras. For the low-budget movie - intentionally cast without stars - Rifkin placed his cameras wherever surveillance cameras already were or would likely be: above ATMs, around high school grounds, in department store changing rooms (yes, it's legal in some states).

The film follows several characters across a handful of days as they move in and out of the purview of surveillance cameras. The obvious question is: How do our lives change if we're being constantly watched?
 
"Look" suggests the cameras that increasingly blanket society are both a blessing and a curse. Rifkin's cameras catch people cheating on their spouses, criminals murdering a police officer and attractive women farting in elevators. Sometimes the video evidence brings about justice; other times, it tells only a fractured version of the truth.

"To me, it's such a complex issue," says Rifkin. "I believe that in many instances these cameras provide a valuable service. They help deter crime or they help solve crime. I also think conversely that in many, many instances, they're a complete invasion of privacy."

It's an issue that lawmakers, police departments and civil liberty advocates are increasingly wrestling with. Better technology and the pressing threat of terrorism have made video surveillance a popular tool, particularly in cities.

London has been at the forefront of video surveillance and is widely considered the most camera-covered city in the world, with an estimated 4 million cameras doting its streets. Their closed-circuit television found a world stage in 2005 when it helped identify the bombers of the July 2005 terrorist attacks.

It was a lesson taken to heart by the Department of Homeland Security and American police departments. The area below 14th Street in Manhattan - an area considered one of the most likely terrorists targets - reportedly has more than 4,200 cameras.

Other cities have also increased surveillance, including Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia.

And that still doesn't account for the large amount of business and personal cameras stationed (often secretly) in offices or outside homes. Also to be factored in: cell phone cameras and nanny-cams.

Just in recent months, the news has been littered with stories where surveillance cameras played a key role. In October, very clear photos were captured in a Cleveland high school of a student gunman who wounded two teachers and two students before killing himself. Hotel video surveillance has even had an impact in the O.J. Simpson case of alleged kidnapping and armed robbery of sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas.

The American Civil Liberties Union, believing the country is headed toward a "genuine surveillance society," has recently posted a symbolic clock reading "23:54" on its Web site - six minutes before the midnight of total watchfulness.

"Policies to protect individual privacy are desperately, desperately needed," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Video surveillance can be overused and its potential benefits inflated."

Debates about privacy recently have centered on the National Security Agency's warrant-less monitoring of phone calls, and on companies like Yahoo Inc. that have handed over personal information to foreign governments.

While such instances have produced cries of "Big Brother," the issue of video surveillance has often passed without debate. Polls have shown the majority of Americans support the use of video surveillance.

But civil liberty and advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Cato Institute say video surveillance is an urgent matter. Privacy advocates argue there's little regulation or oversight in the recording and archiving of video shot by the government or by companies.

Lieberman cited that during the Republican National Convention in 2004, an NYPD surveillance helicopter shot nearly four minutes of footage of a "romantic tryst" on a building roof - video that later ended up online. (In February, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD must cease routine videotaping of people at public gatherings unless there's reason to suspect unlawful activity.)

"Even in public, I think people have legitimate privacy claims when they move about," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at Cato.

"The thing to do is to strike some balances," said Harper. "Soon enough, they'll have the ability with optical character recognition and facial recognition to really provide extensive tracking of people in cars and things like that."

It's unlikely territory for Rifkin, who previously wrote and directed 1994's Charlie Sheen car chase flick, "The Chase," and co-wrote this year's "Underdog" for Disney.

"I would say to anybody, go out on any given day and just start looking around for the cameras," said Rifkin. "And you will be shocked at how many of them there are and how often you're being watched."

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/
http://www.nyclu.org/node/933
 

This time around, the filmmakers are using their video-enabled cell phones. In fact, this has even spawned a traveling film festival.

Films Shot on Camera Phones Get Showcase
 
Dec 7, 6:15 AM (ET)

By YURI KAGEYAMA

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) - Masked and demure, she speaks from the tiny screen of a cell phone like a thumb-size fairy forever trapped inside. "Welcome home," she says softly to the viewer. "Speak to me about anything."

The minuscule video is among the works on display at a film festival that opened Friday in this Japanese port town, featuring 48 movies - all shot on camera-equipped cell phones.

Hazy and raw but urgently personal, these pocket-size statements on film, like Yuka Kojima's five-minute "Thumb Girl," were selected from more than 400 entries in an international contest.

The works, streaming on monitors of cell phones strapped to tables, are filled with everyday shots, some literally taken on the run with streets and cars whizzing past in a blur.
 
They have a voyeuristic feel because the cell phone is so unobtrusive. Devoid of the typical grandeur of standard films, they offer grainy but patiently taken close-ups that don't rely on zooms and other fancy editing techniques.

The Pocket Films Festival in Japan, which organizers say is the first in this nation, marks yet another use for the omnipresent portable phone here, already used to exchange e-mail, surf the Internet, read novels and navigate on miniature digital maps.

Making movies with them was simply a logical next step.

The works also point to an important emerging art form, says Masaki Fujihata, film professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and one of the festival's judges.

"The cell phone is something you always carry around and so you can roll the camera on a whim," he said. "There's such an intimacy between the work and its creator. It's spontaneous."

Fujihata said he was particularly fond of the nine-minute "Walkers," whose main character is a pair of sneakers that takes a trip on a train.

Whether such works hold appeal beyond film buffs is still in doubt.

Yukio Anagawa, an employee at a telecommunications company, who came to check out the festival, was baffled by "Walkers."

"It's not that entertaining," said the 28-year-old fan of Hollywood movies. "It's sure different from regular movies."

But Fujihata and other experts say the medium is opening up the world of film-making to masses of amateurs.

Unlike regular films that require lots of money, people and time, the cell phone film is an easy cheap one-person operation. Even its relatively poor visual quality can be an advantage, often making for arty imagery, they say.

Many of the works, including "Thumb Girl," was edited as digital files on a personal computer.

"I wanted my work to highlight the cell phone as interactive - something that people talk to," said Kojima, 20, a university student and "Thumb Girl" director.

The woman in her film is a fantasy companion who eases human suffering by always being a willing listener, she said.

"It's so painful to feel pain but not have anyone to talk about the pain," Kojima said.

The festival has attracted some entries from outside Japan, including "Seeking Truth" by Weilong Hong from Singapore, which shows a young man with a cell phone walking in an alley, except everyone around him is walking backward.

In "Remember," by Yang Duck-kyue from South Korea, layers of sepia-toned photos are torn on the footage, one after the other, like a collage of fading memories.

The cell phone film festival debuted in France in 2005. It's the first year Japan is having a version of the festival, which is showing some past French works in homage.

"The cell phone is an extremely personal tool. It's almost part of your body," said Jean-Louis Boissier, a French media artist and professor at University of Paris 8, in town for the festival.

"Half the world's population owns a cell phone," he said. "Art that comes from such numbers holds potential for historic change. "

Boissier said the cell phone is unique in not only working as a camera but also as a projector that shows video on handheld screens.

"Passerby," a witty puzzle-like piece by Michiko Tsuda, 27, a graduate student, uses a split screen to show images taken on two cell phones - one held by a man in the men's room and the other by a woman in the women's room.

They each take video of their own image in a mirror, wander into the hallway, where they meet and then switch cell phones, all the while recording video.

"We are usually not so conscious about who is taking an image," Tsuda said. "But an image is always intentionally being taken by someone."

http://www.pocketfilms.jp/en/

One thing is for sure. Budding filmmakers have no shortage of options. We have had the camcorder and even web cams. Now, they have 2 more options.

Seriously, I have seen some cool videos shot entirely using web cams. And we all know what the camcorder can do. So, why not use your cell phone?

- Paul