Letter to Steven Spielberg

Over the summer, Steven Spielberg shot a music video on an iPhone.

Over the summer, Steven Spielberg shot a music video (above) on an iPhone.

The winner of three Oscars shot a video for the song Cannibal by Marcus Mumford. The artist talked about this on his Twitter page.

In the Twitterverse and in cyberspace, this was big news.

Nice, but rather banal and mediocre, at least when it comes to using an iPhone to shoot video and tell a story.

Here’s another video done around the same time.

This one was not done by Steven Spielberg but rather by Rick Villaroman during one of our Video Storytelling Bootcamps. — in this case, for KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco.

You tell me which one is better? And Rick did not have Kate Capshaw working as a grip. He did it all by himself — found the story, shot it, edited it, voiced it, and produced it — all on an iPhone and all in one day.

iPhones may not be the future of feature films, but in my mind, they are certainly the future of the television news business.

Now, ironically, after I read about Spielberg’s adventures in iPhone video, I actually sent him a link to Rick’s video. I suggested that here was an example of what a talented person (with the right training of course) could do with an iPhone.

Still waiting for his answer.

But one never knows.