pangea day

Third text post in a row??

What can I say? I haven’t had five minutes to myself for days – let alone any time near internet. There was no wifi for me to use during any of my days there, and the US doesn’t have 3G. So. No mobile films could be uploaded at the mobile filmmaking event. Very irritating. Even cool new media event organisers still don’t understand the power of letting people use their wifi to live blog/twitter/stream.

Anyway, it’s now 2.30am on Tuesday morning and I’m back home, warming milk for Amy in the kitchen…

Thank you *so much* for all your messages and votes. Eduardo Cachucho’s The Game won the comp – very deservedly: it’s good for lots of the reasons that make so many of us love videoblogging. A little moment from the other side of the world that we otherwise would never get to see.

As you can see from the letterboxing on his video, it was the only one *not* shot on a phone. It was an outtake from a longer doc he shot on a Panasonic DV camera, which is why the picture is so much better quality than the other finalists. So much for the power of Nokia mobile video. I told all you talented videobloggers out there that you should enter, and that it wasn’t just a competition for phone geeks, but did you listen?

By the time the winner was announced, though, I’d pretty much figured that I wasn’t going to win and had even got beyond thinking about it. The whole experience was so overwhelming – so many good people, so much fun stuff to do (and all of it free!). All of us finalists hung out for days and had a lot of fun together, along with 100 other filmmakers from around the world. It had the same friendly vibe as a videoblogging festival or meetup. But with 5 star hotels, drivers and celebs. Weird.

Right. Better give my girl her milk. Though she’s gone back to sleep now. See you tomorrow, with video. I shot a *lot*.

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Today’s the day!

It’s Pangea Day. I’ve been doing things non-stop – with no wifi, so no chance to upload video – but it will come! The winner of the Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Award will be judged later – my money’s on “Rounds All Around Us” by Kayoom. You can see them all here.

But after meeting the 100 or so filmmakers who’ve been flown to LA for the Pangea Day Filmmakers Retreat, I’m psyched about the quality of the films that will be showing today. They’re calling it “the first global campfire”, but essentially it’s the worlds biggest ever short film festival. I think it’s going to be AMAZING.

Right. I have a taxi downstairs waiting to take me, Kate and Amy to Sony Pictures, Stage 15. My life at the moment is totally random. Where will I wake up on Monday? Who knows.

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Pangea Day – Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards in LA, Day One

Pangea Day, May 10 2008

Nokia have flown me to LA today for the Pangea Day Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Challenge, in which I’m one of five finalists.

Update: I didn’t win, Eduardo Cachucho did, but the event was extraordinary and they laid on untold luxuries for me, Kate and Amy. We had an amazing trip.

Pangea Day was the largest film festival ever – all around the world, people gathered to watch films chosen by the Pangea Day judges. Both in officially organised events in cities on each continent, and in thousands of small community-organised clusters. The idea of Pangea Day is to bring the world together through film. It was a TED funded project granted to Jehane Noujaim, director of the documentaries Startup.com and Control Room.

The day before Pangea Day, I attended the Pangea Day Filmmakers Retreat, for which they flew dozens of emerging documentary makers to LA from around the world. It was a day of presentations from prestigious documentary makers and collaborative exercises, with group mentors. I had Matthew Modine as my mentor… So it was quite hard to resist doing my best Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Especially as the atmosphere was relatively humourless. 100 documentary makers. It was a bit like a pre-natal class. That kind of setup always presses my Naughty Boy button.

Anyway, it was a great experience. And it was all free.

Next Pangea Day – May 2010? They say they will try to do it every two years. It can only get bigger and better. Viva Pangea Day!

Formats available:Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)
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WOOO HOOOOOO

Sorry for the interruption in service there…. it was rather hard to do any videoblogging with a broken N93 while trying to move house AND emigrate. I shot stuff every day for videoblogging week, but making the time to transfer clips & edit on my computer was out of the question. I’m lost without my in-phone editor! Cheryl Colan was also too busy to edit during vbweek, so we agreed on Twitter that we’d have our own delayed shot-during-vbweek-but-edited-later week sometime in May.

ANYWAY, I’M IN CANADA NOW! We just arrived last night. It’s incredible. Videos to come. I’ve also just been told that I’m one of the five finalists for the Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards, and they’re flying me to LA on Pangea Day, May 10th, to see the finalists judged by a celebrity panel. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who rated and commented on my videos!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Right. I have to go explore my new town. See you soon 😀

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Country Colours & Remix

Shot, edited and sent with Nokia N93.

This was our last weekend in the English countryside before we emigrate. I wanted to capture and cut together some quiet little moments to take with me on my phone as a reminder.

But after it was done, I thought it could do with a bit of tightening to improve it. Maybe cut a few seconds here and there. So I opened up my phone and started fiddling. You know when you’re doodling or sketching, and you make something you’re vaguely pleased with, but then you just have to add one more line… and then another… and then another…?

Oh – and my last week in England is also the fourth annual Videoblogging Week. So I’ll be churning out my egocentric mobile rubbish every day this week! Hurray! To join in, just make a video every day this week and tag each video ‘videobloggingweek2008’ and post a link at: http://videobloggingweek2008.blogspot.com/

Original MP4 file

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Amazing Rainbows! London Says Goodbye As We Emigrate

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Or click here to play/download higher quality Quicktime (MP4) file

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I hope this rainbow brightens people’s days all over the world. Please share this with any of your family or friends who’d appreciate a little magic in their day 🙂

And I’m making films for the Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards at the moment, so if you like this film, I’d love it if you could rate it and/or comment on the Pangea Day channel to help me out, and I’ll return the favour on your videos/blog/podcast.

Of the 200 or so films that I’ve made with my phone in the last year, I think this is the one I like the most.

We went on our favorite London walk for the last time yesterday with our friend Lucy – along the River Thames at Hammersmith.

In two and a half weeks, we’re moving to Canada.

So I started filming a plane in the clouds with my phone, thinking about making a video about us leaving, and suddenly something magical happened…

…and kept on happening! Instead of fading, they got brighter, and more intense!

In mythology, religion, art, literature, music and film, the Rainbow is a powerful symbol – a sign of hope and life and new beginnings.

I grew up in Christian boarding schools, so usually the first thing I think of when I see a rainbow is the rainbow that God sends Noah after the great flood in Genesis:

“And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

Yeah. It’s either that or The Wizard Of Oz.

See you on the other side 🙂

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Mrs Patel

Shot and edited on my Nokia N93 phone – excuse the lip sync – combination of the phone editor and Ovi’s flash video conversion.

“The next person to inspire me”: Mrs Patel from our local Post Office, about to be closed down by incompetence and greed in government and the privatised Post Office. After 35 years of service to our community – what does she get? An OBE? No. Termination.

This is today’s entry for the Pangea Day Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards.

The brief is to make 2 minute films about:

– The next thing that makes you smile.

– An act of kindness.

– The next person to inspire you.

– The best part of today.

They don’t stipulate in the rules that it has to even be shot on a phone, never mind a Nokia, but I’m doing what I always do and shooting AND editing on my N93. Hopefully that’ll give me extra brownie points with the judges! (if I get that far)

Please go here to the Pangea Day channel on Ovi and give me views and comments and favorites to help me out. You need to sign up for an Ovi account to comment, but if you have a spare two minutes, *please* do (also, you should upload your own)! It’s only the most popular films that will get a chance to go in front of the judges.

I should say that aside from the main competition at Ovi, the remarkable Mr David Howell has been appointed by Nokia to run his own Pangea Day competition at http://davidhowellstudios.com – post a link to your film in his comment section by May 2nd.

ANYWAY, enough selling

as for today’s film…

The Government are currently engaged in a disgraceful act of cultural vandalism. I believe that in 10-20 years – and beyond – they will be remembered for two things: The Iraq War, and the loss of the Post Offices.

For the sake of a mere ¬£200m per year, they are closing the last remaining centre of community in thousands of towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods. This is a brief interview with Mrs Patel, who has run our Post Office for 35 years. Two posts offices within half a mile of here are closing. Seven in our Borough. (and of course thousands throughout the country.) We have a higher density of older and disabled people in this ward than anywhere else in the borough Рpeople who will lose vital services.

I’m glad that I’m not going to be in the country at the next election. I’d be in a real dilemma at the ballot box. I couldn’t bring myself to vote Tory, but nor could I bring myself to reward the current bastards for everything they’re doing. Every day, more reasons to emigrate.

The Post Office issue is a classic case of everything that’s wrong with a) blind Privatisation and b) our party-based representative democracy. The local MP, Andy Slaughter, who lives opposite me, was fiercely against the closure of the Post Offices. But he couldn’t express that view in Parliament, where he represents us, or he’d lose his job. He was forced to vote for something he knew to be wrong, because his weak, venal party leadership had decreed it as policy.

Anyway, you probably came here to watch me making my usual arse of myself, not listen to my political opinions, so I’ll stfu and let you meet the lovely, inspiring, discarded Mrs Patel.

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