My Latest Film

I've been having more fun with Youtube, but this time I've also been combining uploading the videos with editing them together with the latest iMovie on the Mac.

My little Sony Ericsson Cybershot mobile phone also takes video, as well as being a phone, 3 MP camera, radio and MP3 player. Previously these videos were normally pretty useless, as there was no easy way to edit them. So the new iMovie allows you you to import these little clips and edit them together.

The possibilities of this technology is pretty amazing. I always have a phone in my pocket, therefore I always have a video camera in my pocket too. Lots of potential to make little movies.

So the little film below was cut together from around 12 individual files, taken on Saturday night. This was Moe's 30th birthday party, he wanted people to come with wigs. I managed not to bother bringing a wig, but much to my regret, some people had spare ones and I ended up looking like a Scottish Jimi Hendrix! Some people went a lot further and came dressed up to match the wigs.

I decided not to spend a huge amount of time editing this movie together, as the resolution on the camera phone video is pretty low, so this will always be a bit of a throw away. But it's a funny little reminder of last Saturday night. My little Leica takes much better video, but Moe lives in a particularly rough part of Oakland, so I didn't fancy having $700 worth of camera in my pocket walking through that area.

You can see Craig taking the above pic of me in my film, as I had my camera phone phone pointed at him when he was taking it.

Who can spot Lara in her different wigs? They were borrowed too.

Coming next, Bay Area Friends of Europe - The Movie. Taken on the little Leica.

Technical note (for anyone who may be interested): the ".3gp) video format that the camera phone uses needs converted to something more regular, like a ".mp4" file format before you can import that to iMovie, but there are loads of good converters around that'll do that.

Farewell Old Friend

This has been my only mobile phone (or cellphone as the Americans say), since January 2004. If I don't count the one that BT gave me in 1996, which was my only "company" phone, I have only owned five mobile phones, since 1998. I think that's not many, compared with most people. I'm particularly fond of this one. It was one of the first camera phones, and it seems like it is practically indestructible. I dropped this phone in Bangalore airport in India and I thought it was done for. The two parts to the cover split in two, the battery flew in one direction, the sim card in another. A nice Indian lady picked all the bits back together again for me, I put the phone back together again, and it worked first time! I then proceeded to drop it again and had to go through the whole routine again. I think I had to pick the bits up myself the second time, the nice Indian lady had given up on me by that time. But after being dropped and falling to bits twice, it worked again twice too!

I also like the fact that this was the same 'phone that Rose Tyler used in the first series of the new Doctor Who. Chris Eccleston's Doctor, did something really strange with Rose's phone, and enabled Rose to call her Mum through time, in episode 2. Mine is not that clever, I wish it was, there are loads of people I'd love to call in the past. John Lennon would be top of the list.

Nokia phones just seem to go on forever. I didn't realise how out of date this phone was getting, until I kept producing it in company in America, and people were laughing at it. It is only three years and 5 months old after all! That would be quite new, if it was a car.

So, the only reason I have upgraded it now though is the wonderful phenomenon of the 3 mega pixel camera phone. Imagine that, having, what was only a few years ago, a state of the art camera, in a phone. I've been having fun this evening, testing out the new phone. It really shows how powerful these multi function phones are, that I have not even heard it ring yet, but I took about 50 pictures with it the evening. It is so small, that you can just put it in your pocket - so you always have a phone. I had some spare time when I was back in the UK, and I was able to research the new phones. I'm just amazed at how much has changed in the best part of three and a half years, such functionality in such a small package.

Always having a phone, means I can record much more of my life, like......



This is the pint I had in the Mission this evening.



This is a rather surreal shot I took out of the train window this evening, it was meant to be the nice sunset, but there were too many reflections. It produced this rather surreal effect of a back to front train.



And this is the train I got home, at the station near my house. Now if this capability to take photos, more or less, all the time is not worth $320, I don't know what is!

The photo of my old phone was taken with my Leica, which is my regular compact camera.

Now, what else can I take pics of......