We already use our mobile phones to store and listen to music, play video games and watch YouTube clips so it’s not hard to picture a day when all of us are also using the mobile phone to watch movies. New announcements in the industry indicate that downloading full-feature films to mobile phones is an area of cell phone entertainment that is poised for serious growth. That’s not the only way that mobile phones and movies go hand-in-hand; there are also a lot of people out there who are using their mobile phones to make short movies of their own. And even those traditionalists who want to see professional movies on the big screen can’t escape the influence of the mobile phone since there are quite a few movies out there in which mobile phones play a key part in the plot of the film.

Watching Movies on Mobile Phones

The hottest aspect of the relationship between mobile phones and movies right now is the possibility to download and watch movies on many mobile phones. There have been several recent announcements in the industry which suggest that making movies available on phones is one of the next big trends from handset makers. Major announcements in this vein are coming from Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the iPhone.

Sony Ericsson recently generated a lot of media attention with an announcement about a new service called Play Now Arena Movies. This service will allow people with Sony Ericsson phones to download up to five dozen movies per year to be watched on their smartphones. The movies will have to be sideloaded to the phone (meaning that they’re downloaded to your PC before being moved to your mobile phone). The purpose of this is to avoid the varying data charges associated with downloading immediately to the device. At the same time that the company announced its new service, it also announced the release of three new entertainment-specific phones. Two of those phones (the Satio/Idou and the Aino) are compatible with the Play Now movie service. Additionally, Sony Ericsson plans for some of its phones to come preloaded with the Play Now Movie Service in order to make their handsets more attractive to consumers.

The announcement from Sony Ericsson comes just a couple of months after a similar announcement from Samsung. The company launched a Samsung Movies site in March of this year which offers movie downloads to all Samsung customers who have a phone that is capable of playing movies. They have deals with all of the major motion studios to make feature films available for sale or rent for those Samsung customers who want to watch mainstream movies on their mobile phones.

The Samsung store was immediately compared to the iTunes store. It is already possible to download movies to the iPhone from the online store. However, the iPhone may be taken to the next level when the new version of the phone is released this summer. Rumor has it that it will be capable of direct movie downloads which would allow users to bypass the process of using the iTunes store and syncing downloads with the device. This rumor is unconfirmed but it’s certainly true that people are increasingly interested in using their mobile devices to watch films.

Making Movies on Mobile Phones

People aren’t just watching movies on their mobile phones; they’re making them. In fact, there are several established mobile phone film festivals for those indie film makers who create their movies specifically on their mobile phones. The first of these film festivals, called the Pocket Films Festival, has been going on for about five years now. In the time since its launch, mobile phone technology has significantly improved and these films have continued to get better in quality.

In addition to this most well-known of the mobile film festivals, other popular mobile phone film festivals include MobiFest, the Global Mobile Awards, Viva La Focus and the CNN Screening Room Competition. Additionally, some of the other major film festivals (such as Sundance) have a mobile film festival category. The majority of the films that are shot on mobile phones and screened at these festivals are shorts that average between five and fifteen minutes. However, there have been some much longer films at these events including films of feature length.

Novice filmmakers typically find it fairly easy to get started with making mobile movies. Many of the rules for making a good movie apply to the making of a great mobile film. For example, it’s important to have great content and good actors for your mobile movie. However, there are things that can be done with a mobile movie that differ from that of a big screen feature (such as getting into positions and spaces that a larger camera isn’t capable of getting into).

People who are interested in making movies on their mobile phones will want to choose the right kind of mobile phone for doing so. The ideal option is to choose a phone that is capable of recording in VGA quality at 30 fps. Top choices among mobile film fans include the LG Renoir KC910, the Nokia N96, the Motorola Z10, the Samsung Pixon and the Sony Ericsson W595.

Watching Movies About Mobile Phones

Watching and making movies on mobile phones are acts that are getting increasingly popular particularly as phones get more and more capable of providing high quality viewing experiences. However, there are always going to be some people who just aren’t interested in the experience of movies on a mobile phone. Even those people may find that they can’t get away from mobile phones when watching their movies though since there are quite a few films out there with mobile phones that are intricate to the plot. One Missed Call, I’ve Got the Hookup and the popular Japanese horror film Chakushin Ari are top examples of this. Furthermore, marketers of major mainstream movies have realized the importance of the mobile phone and have started using it for marketing in various ways including the development of movie-specific promotional phones (like last year’s Iron Man phone) and tying-in movies with interactive mobile content. Whether mainstream or independently-produced, movies are now inextricably linked with mobile phones.