Have phone, make movie

1 Aug 2010

Last weekend was PuntCon VI – the annual tech conference on punts. It was a fun time, and I got to hang out with old friends and make some new ones, and huge thanks to Bill as ever for organising it.

If you’re thinking a conference on punts doesn’t make much sense, then why don’t I let Bill explain what it is:

So, shaky camera work aside, I had one of those reality check moments when putting that video together in the evening after PuntCon – I recorded, edited, and published the entire thing from my mobile phone. I think sometimes we get a bit blasé about things like this, so let me repeat: I recorded, edited and published a movie from my mobile phone.

So yes, the video is a bit naff, but that’s down to me – it’d have been just as naff had I had an HD video camera, Final Cut Pro, and my own broadcast satellite. The point is that I don’t tend to have those things to hand, but at times I’m out and about and do want to capture and publish a little video to share with friends, and now I have all that capability with me all the time.

When MMS first appeared, I didn’t see the fuss at all – why did we need pictures with our text messages? What value did they add? This is technology for technology’s sake surely? Then my sister, Karen, who lives a long long way away, had her first child. Karen doesn’t always have a camera to hand, but she does have her phone, and she’d send me MMS photos of my new niece at random moments, and it meant that despite being a long way off, I got to share in the magic of our family growing, in a way that text messaging or emails wouldn’t.

So, sure, I don’t need to be able to use my phone as a movie studio, but there will be times when it lets me or someone else share a moment that’d otherwise be lost (or at least transcribed poorly). To me, jaded to technology as I am at times, makes me think that this is a fantastic feature to have. Technology is only useful if it enriches our lives, and I think that just like MMS messages enriched my life all those years ago, this can do the same. And that’s before you think of citizen journalism and other cool things this enables people to do.