WORTH WATCHING

Watch: Clever Mobile Phone Short '#eyewitness' Shot in Single Takes

by Alex Billington
December 3, 2020
Source: YouTube

"Dude, so many comments." Whoa. Ever since mobile phones were implemented high quality cameras, the world has begun to respond and change. We can now capture anything and everything (good and bad) as it happens - sometimes unexpectedly. This short film, titled #eyewitness, is one in a series of shorts made by the Amsterdam creative agency Vertov Media and founder / filmmaker Martijn Winkler. Swiped (aka #tagged) is "a seven-part drama series about the influence and unforeseen consequences of smartphones on the lives of several twentysomethings, told from the perspective of their phones." This particular short film is about a young man capturing a car accident which turns out to be an attack. It follows Karim as he deals with the aftermath of recording and uploading the video, including threats from the man perpetrator. This short stars Roy Kaneza and Samer Fahad. All of the shorts were made in The Netherlands and shot in single takes, without any VFX (so they claim), with a camera rigged attached to the phone. A must see short.

Thanks to Short of the Week for debuting this. Brief description from YouTube: "Shot in single, continuous takes with no VFX, #eyewitness follows a man who accidentally captures a crime (and its aftermath) with his phone camera." #Eyewitness, part of a video series called Swipe, is written and directed by filmmaker Martijn Winkler - a founding partner of Vertov Media, a creative agency based in Amsterdam. View more of their work on their official website. Produced by Mandy Lim. Featuring cinematography by Diderik Evers. So how the heck did they make this? "With Winkler keen to stress that there were 'no VFX used in this film', the question of how they made #eyewitness is almost as interesting as the film itself. With a 4K camera (with huge lens) rigged to a smartphone, each scene is a one-shot take, which may have made the editing process simpler, but on the day of the shoot, everything was meticulously rehearsed." Impressive work. For more info on the short, visit SOTW or Vertov's Swipe page. To watch more shorts, click here. Your thoughts?

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