The new iPhone records video, and now everyone that has a cell phone is a filmmaker. Since the dawn of video, filmmaking has been watered down by anyone who has a piece of ground glass between their eye and a subject. This frustrated me. I am sure that musicians feel the same way about the boy who buys a $100 guitar and learns American Pie from guitar tabs online.

Film is art, and although I am quick to point the finger at cell phone cinematographers – it is really Hollywood that has perverted the integrity of the art form.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has been called a two and half hour action sequence with no story. As a collective audience we have become enthralled by explosions and surround sound, we have forgotten what film as art can look like

Maybe we should pay more attention to the cellphone filmmaker? They probably do a better job of capturing raw joy and emotion than Michael Bay. At the end of Hearts of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola makes a strong statement, an almost anarchy declaration against the Hollywood system:

“The great hope is that now these little 8mm video recorders and stuff comes around, some people who normally wouldn’t make movies are going to be making them. Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart. And make a beautiful film with her little father’s camera recorder and for once this whole professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever. And it will really become an art form.”