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Pocket Cinema Program Guides Hollywood

Wired reports that art-house flicks for cell phones and iPods might teach Hollywood a thing or two about mobile entertainment if the movie bigwigs would just pay attention to the tiny screen, experts say.

At the San Francisco International Film Festival, 20 movies made for mobile devices with 2-inch-by-3-inch screens were shown as part of the festival's Pocket Cinema program. The program highlights the art world's contribution to mobile video, which the entertainment industry hopes will be the next big content boom. Fox, for example, is releasing mobisodes of the TV show Prison Break, while Touchstone Television Productions is producing a version of Lost just for mobiles.

The entertainment industry could learn a lot about mobile film from the art world, said Joel Bachar, founder of Microcinema International, which has been distributing independent and experimental films for more than a decade. Bachar said videos that use less movement and fewer edits are easier to download and watch on a mobile. Also, mobile art videos that combine the use of sound and images to convey a nontraditional type of narrative are a lot easier to consume on a cell phone than a TV series.

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