Film and Animation

In this article we propose a new ontology for games, synthesising phenomenology, Latourian Actor-Network Theory and Goffmanian frame analysis. In doing so we offer a robust, minimal and practical model for the analyst and designer, that clearly illustrates the network of objects within the 'Black Box' of any game, illuminating how each object (from player to memory card to sunlight) may move between three levels of the Game Event: Social World, Operative World and Character World. Abbreviating these worlds, a shorthand for the model is SOC (Social/Operative/Character).

In this article we propose a new ontology for games, synthesising phenomenology, Latourian Actor-Network Theory and Goffmanian frame analysis. In doing so we offer a robust, minimal and practical model for the analyst and designer, that clearly illustrates the network of objects within the 'Black Box' of any game, illuminating how each object (from player to memory card to sunlight) may move between three levels of the Game Event: Social World, Operative World and Character World. Abbreviating these worlds, a shorthand for the model is SOC (Social/Operative/Character).

Pacific people in New Zealand (NZ) have the highest rate of obesity (66%) in the world as defined by having a body mass index,
BMI > 30 kg/m2, thus they experience a 30% higher incidence
than the general population (33%) (Ministry of Health, Annual update of
key results 2014/15: New Zealand health survey, 2015). In NZ, there
is a critical need for effective, sustainable programmes that can be selfmanaged by indigenous communities in order to enable independent
health and wellbeing and to reduce the prevalence of non-communicable
diseases. Previous research programmes have shown that community based and community-led programmes that are “fit for purpose”
and relevant to the social–cultural environment are advantageous for improving the health and independent living of certain communities
(Kaholokula et al. 2012b; Sinclair et al. in Annals of Behavioral Medicine:
A Publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine 45:24–32, 2013).
The omnipresence of mobile, smartphone and wireless technologies provides
an opportunity to explore new methods of engaging communities
and sharing knowledge (Berry and Schleser 2014).

This chapter outlines the framework of workshop-facilitated
documentary as a collaborative method for developing digital literacy, self-representation of local communities, and the creation of “sociability” in documentaries about place. By means of utilising mobile, smartphone and pocket camera filmmaking techniques, these workshops question notions of authorship and extend our understanding of creativity.

Creative Mobile Media II: Making a Difference provides an
overview of the edited collection and outlines its structure in the three
sections: Story-making, Making spaces and Making change. This introduction frames the book theoretically and illustrates the continuation from Creative Mobile Media in an Age of Smartphones. While our previous volume focused on creative projects as inspiration for debates relating to aesthetics, space and place, knowledge and stories and the self, Creative Mobile Media II explores how smartphones may influence to social change and can further expand the definition of creative practices relating to the field of screen media. Story-making can contribute to formulating democratic processes and equity, which are imperative to create change and challenge traditional models of media production and consumption.

This chapter examines the recent phenomenon
of ‘selfies’ as a starting point to discuss self-reflexive and
self-representation as a narrative strategy within mobile
filmmaking. The presented analysis argues that creative
mobile media practice can produce representations, which
have intimate and immediate characteristics, allowing
filmmakers and citizen users to establish new connections
with their audiences through digital storytelling. This chapter
also establishes a link with the proliferation of mobile
filmmaking and the use of mobile camera phones, pocket
cameras, and smartphones for self-representation and selfreflexive
approaches in mobile filmmaking. It explores mobile
devices as a tool for creating self-representation and looks at a
user-based interpretation of the autobiographical discourse.

This chapter elaborates on the creative dimensions
of mobile media practices point at prospects to further
expand the field of creative arts and design. It contributes
to existing debates around co-presence in networked media
and the impact of smartphones on our understandings
and interactions with space and place; emergent socialities
associated with social media to contextualize the notion of
‘sharing’ and how this concept is replacing ‘community’; the
aesthetics of mobile media; and how storytelling shapes and is
shaped by mobile media.

Camera rolling, sound rolling, action. Within this chapter, ‘action’ will be understood as a collaborative approach creating opportunities for social change. This chapter will analyse mobile and smartphone films  in connection to self-representation and questions of identity. Moreover, the role of digital moving images in the creation and promotion of new forms of agency and identity within the wider field of visual culture will be examined. Mobile and smartphone filmmakers are connected internationally through screenings and festivals such as MINA, the Mobile Innovation Network Australasia, and social media such as communities of interest on Vimeo, YouTube and Twitter. This chapter surveys the past six MINA, International Mobile Innovation Screenings  as a case study and outlines the developments and directions that frame our contemporary understanding of mobile and smartphone video, film and moving image productions in the context of political action and the digital self.

MINA was set up in 2011 to showcase creative approaches and innovation in mobile and smartphone filmmaking. Following an open call for submissions I curated the annual MINA screening program in collaboration with fellow mobile and smartphone filmmakers . Elsewhere I outlined the alternative approach offered by the mobile-mentary (mobile documentary)  and examined its potential as beyond an emerging technology and now an emerging industry. In 2000 mobile camera phone technology was introduced and this allowed for a new mobile media aesthetic to surface in the timeframe from 2004 to 2008. These key characteristics, the experience of location, notions of personal, immediate and intimate qualities, still resonate in the works discussed in this chapter . In order to continue to investigate the aesthetic refinement and continuous innovation in mobile specific production processes, MINA as a research project endeavors to map out this dynamic field and explores new directions in smartphone filmmaking.

For this chapter I choose three works that address the construction of the digital self in relation to political engagement as exemplified in three smartphone films: Reel Health: Tanzania (2012), Spirit of Rangatahi Mobile Filmmaking Workshop (2014) and In Response We Closed Flinders (2015). In order to further develop the argument of mobile media and smartphone’s positioning in an alternative space and to provide a case of collaborative approaches creating opportunities for social change, Reel Health: Tanzania by Tigo, Remedee, Think/Feel and Touch Foundation exposes how smartphones as a communal tool can create smart actions through filmmaking. The context of a community engaged workshop model and its development towards smart actions for a Pacific community is further explored in the Spirit of Rangatahi Mobile Filmmaking Workshop that I conceptualized and conducted in New Zealand/Aotearoa. Alex Dick’s In Response We Closed Flinders provides a paramount case of a local community taking political actions in Australia and illustrates how social media can be used to engage and embrace digital communities. These three films are not chosen to represent the MINA screening programs with its diverse international backgrounds, inspirations and influences, which range from video art, ethnography, interactive documentary, experimental filmmaking as well as activism, but to address more specifically the evolution of images in the context of digital communities. Furthermore, the three mobile and smartphone films characterize the key term in this chapter, namely smart action , and the theoretical underpinning, which will be explained in further detail in the last section of this chapter, Towards Smart (Political) Action.

As a matter of course, self-representation was present prior to the proliferation of mobile and smartphone filmmaking, but this emerging filmmaking form that developed from independent experimentation to an international movement, embraces diversity and provides access to creative tools for self-representation. Smartphone filmmaking more generally as much as the chosen case studies, developed through the creative drive of filmmakers who also believe in their agency and passion to capture voices from around the world. Writing in times were ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’ create a public discussion, smartphone filmmaking can be seen as an intervention to repressive and elitist discourses. As I seek to establish in this chapter, smartphone filmmakers demonstrate an emerging form of agency which critically interrogates representation and brings images from the periphery to the center.

In 2000, Sharp launched the first mobile phone equipped with a camera in Japan. The
SH-04 for J- Phone1 instantly matured from a gadget2 to a standard feature in mobile
communication. The advances in mobile-camera technology—six mega-pixel cameras
with high resolution in native video format, such as Nokia’s N86 (2009), LG Viewty
Smart (2009), or Sony Ericsson C905 Plus) (2008)—were driven by a marketing strategy to advance mobile phone sales. While the first generation iPhone was launched in 2007, it was only with the update to the iPhone 3GS two years later that a high resolution video feature (QuickTime 480p recording format) was introduced. Prior to the iPhone, handset manufacturers like Motorola or Nokia were dominating the market in terms of volume and innovation. Nokia’s N6680 not only featured a 1.3
megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss lens, but also had video editing capabilities. In 2012
Nokia launched the PureView and Lumina Smartphones, which ship with forty-one
megapixels and full high definition (HD) 1080p video. The omnipresence of mobile
camera phones and smartphones means that accessibility to moving-image technology has significantly increased; however, as yet, the development of visual literacy has not reached this level.
Prospects and possibilities for mobile filmmaking changed also with the launch of the
app store in 2008. With the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010, iMovie for smartphones
and tablets became available. Other applications now commonly used by smartphone
filmmakers are Splice or 1st Video Net, video-editing applications that are available for
smartphones and tablets. There is also a number of special effects apps, such as iMotion HD or iSupr8, which provide various video effects for post-production “on the go.” For instance, the academy award-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man,3 made use of an app to create a Super 8 look for the iPhone video. Smartphones that incorporate high-resolution and HD digital stills and video cameras have arguably made film production more accessible for “non-professional” and “professional” filmmakers. In turn, this is shaping not only new modes of film production but also modes of consumption, distribution, and exhibition, by embedding these digital stories in network media. The emergence of mobile filmmaking, and its entrance into a public discourse, was also facilitated through the launch of video-sharing websites and platforms such as Vimeo in 2004, and YouTube in 2005.

The significance of such mobile media has been the subject of several recent cultural,
audience, and media studies,4 taking communication and media theory perspectives,
sometimes combined with the tradition of cultural studies approaches. Farman’s Mobile Interface Theory5 and Hjorth et al.’s Studying Mobile Media6 combine accounts of projects that expand the interdisciplinary study concerned with an analysis of mobile maps and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies, location-aware social networks, urban and alternate reality games that use mobile devices, performance art, storytelling projects, consumer culture, and networked communication in the twenty-first century grounded in critical theory and cultural studies. In Studying Mobile Media, Hjorth et al. point out that the interconnected fields of media production, distribution, and consumption, the relationship to technology, and media practice require rearticulation. In this light, this chapter aims to define mobile moving-image practice, a field within Mobile Media Studies that seems to have been overlooked so far as an area of study. Similarly to the way in which iPhone Photography8 explored “the start of a new wave of computational photography,” this chapter expands this recognition of a specific mobile film form with an emphasis on mobile moving-image practice—a topic of considerable importance.
Consider, that in 2006, mobile phones outnumbered the volume of digital video,
film, and still cameras sold worldwide and now smartphones are quickly becoming the
world’s dominant computing device, with more than one billion currently in use—and
the market shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.9 Considering the “iPhone
moment” not as a starting point, but rather as a switch point in the development of
mobile moving-image as situated media practice, this chapter will critically evaluate
the various discourses and directions that emerged in this field of mobile media studies.
As Farman notes in his examination of a similar current cultural shift in mobile media
(namely locative media), “it is less about the devices and more about an activity.”10
Thus, this chapter aims to provide an overview of a very young history of the international phenomena of mobile moving-image practice and its pioneers. The chapter also outlines the distinctive character of creative mobile media, as well as new methods of making and consequentially establishing representations and new forms of expression afforded by this practice—such as the use of smartphones by independent practitioners.
Furthermore, the chapter explores the continuous innovation, refinement of aesthetics, and ongoing theoretical and methodological developments in mobile filmmaking, a field now also recognized by the creative industries. While the industry maintains a conservative and commercial approach, this article points to mobile filmmaking being a cultural practice and argues for a case to embed mobile filmmaking in academic discourse to illustrate possibilities for change in the current mediascape. This chapter concludes with the trend towards mobile filmmaking 2.0, which points to the potential of mobile filmmaking as a new form of participatory video.

Mobile filmmaking entered the mediascape from 2004 onwards and not only introduced a new aesthetic but also established prospects for cultural innovation. The paper will point a t the development in mobile video towards the sociability (de Souza e Silva 2006) and ‘connectivity’ of mobile filmmaking. The transformation of audience in creating these new documentary practices as an alternative cultural practice (Schleser 2009) is an indicator for not only a transforming art and design environment but also the emergence of a new understanding of creative processes. I I n the recent study Documentary and New Digital Platforms – an ecosystem in transition , one of the key elements outlined in the report by the Documentary Network is the dynamic new relationship with audiences. The current work - in - progress 24 Frames 24 Hours investigates the new forms of “cultural mediation” (Houle 2011). 24 Frames 24 Hours is an international collaborative mobile documentary capturing the life in 24 hours in 24 different cities. The project kick started with an internat ional collaborative mobile film making workshop in Paderborn (Germany) and Wellington (New Zealand) and one in New York City (USA). The proje ct examines collaborative practices and applies Cinéma vérité and Kino - Pravda practices in the digital realm. The study draws upon new paradigms of participation and simultaneously analyses creative processes. Besides the aesthetic refinement, the research project functions as a prototype for community involvement through creative practices. The paper will review contemporary crowd - sourcing film projects and will analyse the emerging distinction between collaborative and co - creative practices. Moreover t he paper points at the industry pr ecedents and will argue that process driven and participatory approaches require new frameworks to evaluate these media text. The paper will relate these developments to the bigger picture of innovation through a user - base d interpretation of technology (Edgerton 2007) and will examine collaboration as a creative process (G auntlett 2011 ).

Digital storytelling – a method used to create short audio-visual narratives that describe personal experiences – has been embraced by researchers and community workers as a means of enabling members of marginalised communities to share life experiences. Co-design is an important element of this approach. Digital storytelling functions as a narrative framework and research method to create compelling personal narratives. This approach has been popular in health and community advocacy work since the 1990s, but in recent years, the advent of the smartphone and social media has made it possible for people from all walks of life to create their own visual narratives and share these widely with a global audience. This raises the question: will the personal mobile digital storytelling tools that are now prevalent make the co-design process redundant? In this chapter, we draw on our experiences in a number of digital storytelling projects to consider the role of co-design in the creation and sharing of digital stories with people from marginalised groups. We argue that co-design is still important in these spaces, especially when the process of creating stories provides opportunities for people to explore complex life experiences and the product – the digital story – is used as a tool for raising awareness about sensitive issues. Co-designing and sharing digital stories with people from marginalised groups requires careful consideration of the context in which digital stories are created and where and how they might be shared in order to ensure an engaged audience response.

While the idea of VR is not new and has been surfacing since the 1990s, accessible omnidirectional video cameras that integrate with standard video production workflows launched in 2016.
One of the new VR enterprises is Humaneyes, who believes that virtual reality will “become a major communication platform in a ‘VR echo system.’”1 Beyond online viewing experiences, film festivals, independent exhibition, and art spaces are adjusting to the 360° and cinematic VR
domain. VR can be created in entirely digital environments ranging from computer- generated imagery (CGI) in animations to games to Mobile Cinematic VR, where the focus is on live action and 360° videos. As there are a number of different interpretations and understandings of what
Virtual Reality (VR) is, this chapter will define cinematic VR as a VR/360° video camera that can be operated or synced via mobile apps or are add-on cameras onto the smartphone itself. This chapter looks at small-scale VR cameras2 that can be compared to mobile, smartphone, and pocket
filmmaking’s mobility and accessibility. By embracing these qualities and mobile specific media practices over technical video standards and camera resolution choices, MCVR reveals one of the possible creative futures of smartphone filmmaking. The innovative element is twofold: it includes the participatory element of mobile media art and gives independent filmmakers and anyone with a smartphone3 and a 360° video camera the opportunity to create stories and experiences. Furthermore,
this chapter links early mobile media art aesthetics4 to the realm of MCVR and mobile media art more generally.
This chapter explores Mobile Cinematic VR (MCVR) in the context of mobile art and examines the directions that this dynamic field is taking. In an MCVR environment, viewers are performing the mobile. Mobile Cinematic VR—MCVR creates synergies between the aesthetics of mobile media art and MCVR. In 2018, the SF3 Smartphone Flicks Fest6 in Sydney and the 8th International Mobile Innovation Screening7 in Melbourne introduced mobile cinematic VR categories and showcases to their
festivals. SF3 finalists Vega Island8 and [Mynd] Journey9 premiered at the Sydney Opera House. At MINA Before I Sleep,10 PND,11 A Little Negor Boy’s Prayer,12 and Interwoven: Veganism, Ethics, Economics were featured as part of the longest running mobile and smartphone film festival with a focus on mobile (moving-image) art internationally. This chapter discusses MCVR projects in the context of mobile media art and explores the relationship between mobile, pocket, and smartphone filmmaking’s specific qualities and MCVR’s emerging characteristics. Mobile Cinematic VR—MCVR outlines intimacy, presence, and imaginative encounters as key considerations and characteristics for MCVR.
A proliferation of scholarship re-engaged with this new cinematic form and format—including Rose (2018),14 Nash (2018),15 McRoberts (2017),16 and Ross (2018)17 among others.18 In addition, there are a number of industry-led investigations such as Storyliving by Google News Lab or Max Schleser research labs engaging in this domain such as Columbia Journalism Review, MIT Open Doc Labs Virtually There conference, or Virtual Realities Immersive Documentary Encounters research project. While all of these initiatives bring very relevant work to this emerging field, one gap appears in the form of MCVR. Furthermore, the context of creative arts and mobile media arts is not well represented. Bucher’s Storytelling for Virtual Reality (2017) only very briefly references
“Experimental Art Installations” as a storytelling principle for Immersive Space, and Virtual Reality Filmmaking (2016)25 provides a summary of the alternative approaches to VR through immersive theater, dance, or sculpture. This chapter will explore Cinematic VR in the context of mobile
art, with a particular focus on experimental mobile, pocket, and smartphone filmmaking as well as mobile moving-image arts.

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Drawing from a conceptual framework that problematises and redefines the digital lives of older people aged 65 years and over, this panel explores how older people engage with digital communication tools and skills, and the way this plays out in their everyday lives. Each paper situates older people as experiencing a rich social life integrated with digital technologies and understood in terms of multi-faceted disparities in internet use, skills and modes of digital participation. How older people’s digital lives are negotiated and developed, and the particular frustrations and barriers to their digital participation, are situated as particular to their cultural context for use of communication tools. This panel thus contributes new understanding of how older people’s digital lives are emerging, moving away from simplistic descriptions of skills, to the multi-faceted and complex negotiations occurring when older people make decisions about connecting with digital tools.