First Feature Film Shot with Cell Phone Camera

The theme is familiar to many independent movies - explicit chat about love and sex - but the tool used to shoot an Italian feature-length documentary is unique - a standard cell phone camera.

Italian directors have completed a 93-minute documentary they claim is the first feature film to be entirely shot by such a technique. Called ”New Love Meetings,” it was filmed in a MPEG4 format with a Nokia N90 - a regular, higher-end cell phone on sale around the globe, documentary co-director Marcello Mencarini said.

”With the widespread availability of cell phones equipped with cameras, anybody could do this,” Mencarini said in a telephone interview from Milan. ”If you want to say something nowadays, thanks to the new media, you can.”

What about technical difficulties?
When it comes to movies cell phone cameras present limits, such as the difficulty to film in darkness or the lack of microphones. As a result, the movie mostly features close-ups, and the image, while overall clear, is slightly shaky. Directors said Tuesday that no post-production manipulation was made on the image.

Although no professional lighting was needed, a pocket flashlight was used at times, said Milan-based Barbara Seghezzi, the other director of the movie.

The approach offers the advantage of being intimate, leading people to open up a little more easily, directors say. In a documentary about love and eroticism, that doesn’t hurt.

For two months last year, the directors interviewed some 700 people across Italy, at bars, open markets, on the beach. About 100 of them ended up in the movie.

”To use a small instrument that belongs to people’s daily routine allows you to establish an intimate dialogue, instead of using a regular camera,” she said. ”The interview becomes more like a chat.” link

This is likely to open a floodgate of feature films made with cellphones. You too can become a director.