Mobile-mentary: Mobile Documentaries in the Mediascape

This research investigates the potential of and prospects for mobile documentary filmmaking. In the first chapters the book maps out the early mobile mediascape in the years 2004 to 2007 and analyses cinematic technology through user-based histories. Furthermore, the theoretical framework explores the city films of the 1920s and the concept of motion in film. The final chapters examine the new emerging mobile aesthetic in the research time-frame from 2004 to 2007 and further develop the argument that innovation in mobile filmmaking occurred, both in the domain of the gallery and the film-festival context before the media industry realized the potential of mobile media. The particular mobile resolution adds new elements to the emerging Keitai Aesthetic: the experience of location, notions of personal, immediate and intimate qualities. This research documents the alternative approach offered by the mobile-mentary (mobile documentary) and explores its potential as an intervention into the industry dominated discourse.