The search is on for people who have graduated in the last five years and live in the North of England who want to make short films to be shown on mobile phones. Potential filmmakers can apply for up to £2,000 production funding to create short films less than a minute in length. Pocket Shorts is the brainchild of Lisa Roberts and Andrew Wilson whose arts project company, Blink, is based in Huddersfield. Andrew explains what makes these Pocket Shorts so innovative: "We’ve developed something called the Bluetooth Vending Machine which looks like a vending machine though we don’t charge for it. It’s a wall-mounted unit which allows people to download films to their mobile phones. It had its world premiere at this year’s Edinburgh Festival and this weekend it’s at Brief Encounters, a short film festival in Bristol. This coming year’s Pocket Shorts will be previewed at next year’s Edinburgh Festival and will then tour other film festivals around the country.  | | Filmmakers wanted! |
"Quite a lot of people download short films to their mobile phones now but these come from large commercial media companies or are music videos. Pocket Shorts is about getting new filmmakers to create independent mobile phone films, not only independent but a bit more innovative than you would get from downloading clips from Big Brother, or whatever. They are intended for people who are more interested in more cutting edge films. They are distributed in an independent way using the Bluetooth vending machine so we don’t need to get permission or co-operation from phone networks." For the time being you need to catch the Bluetooth vending machine at a festival to download any of the films but eventually they will also be distributed by WAP. Andrew says: "We are kind of interested in them being precious objects for want of a better description, things that people collect from a visit to a place rather than something that comes from an unspecified phone network. They are meant to be shared face to face. Bluetooth is a sharing technology which only works at five or ten metres so it is about people giving gifts to each other as much as anything else."  | | Andrew Wilson |
Andrew believes that Pocket Shorts do provide something not found in traditional cinema: "If you happen to find a mobile phone film that you like then you can pick it up and watch it there and then. Traditional films are in traditional cinemas. You have your mobile film with you all the time and that has some implications for the sort of films people might want to make. One of the films made last year was silent which is useful given that people might be watching them on public transport." Andrew and Lisa have been working together in Huddersfield for five years. They started off by putting on a short film screening night at the Huddersfield Media Centre. This expanded to become Short Circuits, regular screenings of short films around Yorkshire. Mobile phones with video facilities presented new opportunities including the idea for Pocket Shorts for which they secured funding through the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. After a successful first year Andrew and Lisa are hoping to commission up to ten more Pocket Shorts.  | | From a Pocket Short by Andy Sykes |
A Pocket Short, Evil Fun With Zimmy, made by Andy Sykes from Leeds, was shown by the BBC and also shortlisted for a prize in Ireland. Lisa's message to potential filmmakers is: "Why graduate and follow the masses working as a runner for a film company when Pocket shorts offers an alternative? This is your chance to be a pioneer in mobile phone fimmaking, a genre demanding a kind of creativity that can keep up with the pace of technology." Meanwhile, according to Andrew, Huddersfield is one place that really is keeping up with change: "I'd say it's got the most interesting mobile technology pervasive scene in the country but I’d be biased. It’s known as an innovative centre for creative applications of mobile technology nationwide without a doubt." The deadline for applications for this year's Pocket Shorts is November 30th, 2005. | 
