Spike Lee, Nokia and You(Tube)
Fresh of the pages of dead-tree media elite NYT comes news of a new media partnership:
“Mr. Lee, the director, is teaming up with Nokia, the cellphone maker, to direct a short film comprising YouTube-style videos created by teenagers and adults using their mobile phones.
By hiring Mr. Lee for the project, Nokia is seeking to combine the populist appeal of user-generated content with the power of a famous director’s pedigree. The film will have three acts, each three to five minutes long, with the theme loosely based on the concept of humanity.”
This is far from the first time a mobile carrier has tried the filmmaker approach. I remember watching a bunch of shorts made for VCast by well-known filmmakers.
Obviously, Spike Lee’s involvement ups the ante, but the big question is whether or not this kind of social-network/crowd-sourcing method can lead to truly entertaining content. It is all well and good to have a cool method for creation but the creation itself has to live up to the process.
April 24, 2008 6:38 pm 
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