It’s a snap today to publish movies online as .3gp files ( an export option in quicktime ), thereby making them accessible and viewable by anyone with a mobile phone capable of playing video. Similarly, with a few steps, movies can be exported as compatible for Sony’s portable PSP console. While she is also developing a pilot show for broadband users ( Jupiter Green ), Melbourne film-maker Kylie Robertson fully recognises both the market opportunities and interactive potential available with mobile media, and is the project director behind Girl Friday, a ‘live action interactive sitcom series’ aimed at both the broadband and mobile platforms.

“The mobile screen should be viewed as just another canvas for filmmakers to explore,”says Kylie,”Mobiles.. give us an opportunity as storytellers, to encourage an intimate connection between the user and live action characters.” Girl Friday then, will feature direct SMS communication, allow public submitted mobile video content, and give access to Girl Friday’s voicemail.

Worth keeping in mind is WiMax – which is a high speed wireless technology coming onboard over the next few years which will allow users to stay online within a 10 mile range. Wimax will be to adsl and cable, what cell phones are to landlines. Obviously the networks are only going to get faster, and more mobile oriented – but the jury is out on whether people will really want to watch films on small devices – and whether the experiences of immersing in music and video require fundamentally different concentration.

Nonetheless, on the more home brew front, hackers are busy carving away at the PSP in particular, both figuring out ways to run linux on it – and thereby turning it into a very flexible portable machine, and figuring out how to run home-made games on it.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/howto_run_homeb.html
http://www.psp-linux.org
www.girlfriday.tv
www.jupitergreen.citysearch.com.au/launch.php
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/3gpp
http://spinach7.com/molife/index.php ( Australian mobile media list via Spinach)

Californian net theorist Mark Pesce argues that the rise of peer to peer will inevitably destroy television as we know it – or at least force it to morph considerably to deal with our capacity to draw up TV episodes on demand via peer to peer networks online. Television he argues will return eventually to being predominantly a news and live events medium. For anyone wishing to create some sort of film or audiovisual entertainment, the accessibility of the peer to peer networks is an exciting ground leveller and worth thinking about more deeply for both creative and distribution purposes.

One example of decentralised video distribution is with videoblogs. Keen video netizens have begun hijacking the power of rss and automated blog tools to pump out video blogs that can be subscribed to, and embraced the shared bandwidth of P2P to feasibly distribute larger works. For VJ Falk, harnessing the power of the blog to distribute video made immediate sense.

“I wanted the blog to force myself to create new loops, and become an avenue for projecting socially aware loops that reflected my personal interests,” he explains. Using a combination of RSS and software called FireANT ( www.antisnottv.net ), anybody can subscribe to VJ Falk’s near-weekly creation of video loops and have them automatically downloaded as he publishes. Like podcasting ( the automated audio equivalent ), videoblogging is increasing exponentially. For RMIT lecturer Adrian Miles, videoblogging still has a way to go until it reaches the malleable and fluidly referential state of text blogs. To that end, his blog features examples of experimental ‘videblog quoting’ using quicktime, as well as plenty of critical analysis about videoblog possibilities.

With so much video data shuffling from user to user, it makes sense that some are interested in re-shaping cinema through database access of these clips. For RMIT masters student David Wolf, the combination of quicktime authoring software and RSS allows him to access and utilise photos from the www.flickr.com photo database, and text headlines from anywhere, within his custom-made VJ application – all during a live performance~! Those keen to explore more in the line of database and video, might want to check out the ‘Soft Cinema’ book and DVD by theorist and artist, Lev Manovich.

http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/~dpwolf/blog – David Wolf
http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vlog/ – Adrian Miles
www.videoblogging.info
www.antnottv.net

( Succinct BBC explanation of RSS)
http://vjblog.prototypen.com ( VJ Falk )

Aye Aye, Tony Hawk as Talking Head, Rodney Mullen as Talking Feet, and Talking Head as Wandering Feet. In other words: 3 new DVDs through Stomp films ( stomp.com.au ).

Video Game Invasion:
The History of A Global Obsession.
Probably more famous now as a virtual character within his skateboard games, Tony Hawk makes an ideal choice as the lead wooden narrator for this documentary ‘chronicling the rise of video games from

While Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably the world’s most famous bodybuilder, it’s little known that he is also one of the world’s most famous TOFU advocates. His passion for healthy, environmentally and ethically sound meat alternatives doesn’t stop him from making bad movies though. And when it comes to bad movies, Australia’s VHS capital is probably Trash Video in Brisbane, home to the ‘Christian-gore-film’ lover, Andrew Leavold.

Trash Video in a nutshell?
For some, a home for the cinematically disaffected and disenfranchised, an oasis in a desert of cultural mediocrity. For others, an elitist hornets nest of anal scumbags and the cinematically retarded.

Which I understand is now the focus of an SBS doco?
Amazingly yes! I’ve known the filmmakers Kris Kneen and Anthony Mullins for years. They rang me up and said ‘We have an idea for a doco – anything on the horizon?’ That was JUST before we shifted the shop to West End and started our plans for national domination. They captured every moment over a three month period, including the time I was ready to throw in the towel. Once SBS bought the project as a half hour program they filmed a series of 16mm black and white scenes to link the doco together, me being kidnapped by an sinister Man In Black, chased through the woods and abducted by a UFO, which are just incredible to look at – Kris and Anthony’s filmmaking abilities come the fore. There’s still about 100 hours of footage on the cutting room floor, so I can’t imagine what they’ve left in (shudder). I guess I’ll have to wait till it screens in April.

What makes you nervous about the rental industry these days?
Nothing. Our main competition are chain stores who are clearing warehouse-loads of good old VHS to make room for their shiny new digital toys. Which means thousands and thousands of good, old, classic and forgotten films will disappear from the shelves of 99% of Australian video shops. And that leaves Trash as the only place to find these gems. It’s kinda sad that we might be the only alternative to a wall of shithouse new releases and the same 1500 DVD titles on EVERY video shelf in Australia.

Ever had any run-ins with the censors?
Censors, no. Customs raided the house ten years ago, long before I had a shop. Literally caught me with my pants down, getting ready for work! Took a mountain of Italian splatter films and fined me with importing and possessing ‘indecent material’. That’s nothing – Kami from Factotum Books in South Australia almost went to jail for having a tape of ‘The Young Ones’ TV show (Customs thought they’d hit the pedophile jackpot)!!

What attracts you to amputee kung-fu films?
It’s one of the most insane genres I’ve discovered – most people don’t believe these films exist! I like the patronizing tone of the filmmakers; who knows, they may actually believe they’re making a film about people with disabilities overcoming all odds. I see it as pure exploitative freakshow cinema. There’s a few offshoots too: an American 70s gangster film called The Amazing Mr No Legs, and the sleazy Swedish rape-revenge film They Call Her One-Eye ‘They raped her! They took her eye!!’).

With more finely developed bad-taste buds than most, what films do you refuse to screen at your Film Club?
Pointless meandering art films. You need to keep me, a room full of drunks AND college bozos entertained. Our biggest nights so far (130 plus in a small bar) have been a September 11 Conspiracy Night – on September 11! – with the Mu Mesons guys, and our Filipino midget spy festival.

Pitch your “LESBO-A-GO-GO” film in a few lines?
‘An innocent girl’s descent into drugs, depravity, delirium and damnation!’
A fake 60 minute black and white 60s exploitation movie – a ‘porn’ without porn! But lots of ultra-sleazy elements – rapes, murders, hallucinations, go-go girls, predatory lesbians, you name it baby! Should be finished mid year in time for MUFF and a quick cross-country screening tour.

What is it about Mexico and MUTANT WRESTLING?
Every boy grows up wanting to be a goodie or a baddie. That’s what playing soldiers or cowboys and injuns is all about. With Mexican Wrestling you can stick a mask on and do the same thing in a wrestling ring with hundreds of drunken hooligans cheering you on! We’ve done five Mutant Mexican Wrestling shows now – it’s always with local music hacks and minor celebrities in the cage – and it keeps getting bigger. I get to be the Baddie – I am El Stumpo the accursed, El Stumpo the profane. ‘Babies’ bones snap when they hear the sound of El Stumpo in the ring when his opponent hits the ground!’.

Become friends with the TrashVideo mailing list and giant mail-order-able archives at trashvideo.com.au.

Wrestling Update: File-sharing vs the movie moguls, the saga continues. Failing to see online demand as an opportunity rather than threat, the studio heads continue their futile attempts to bring file-sharing to it’s knees.

Hollywood
“Precious, precious, precious!… My Precious! O my Precious!,” – 3D character in a recent trilogy which emptied pockets of US$4billion worldwide.

Blockbuster films have come to symbolise the modern movie making machine, and one of the biggest blockbusters of future months will undoubtedly be ‘King Kong’ being directed by Peter Jackson. Alongside a suit filed in February against New Line Cinema for underpaying him US$100 million for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson is also taking unprecedented cautions at every stage of production to protect the King Kong remake from being copied and leaked on the internet.