Creative Execution

We promoted them like real films with movie trailers and movie posters in cinemas and universities. We even got real film critics to write film reviews for each one. All these led people to the website, where viewers could access all four films easily by choosing a film, inputting their number, and in seconds, the film would be sent by text to their mobile phones. We also text-blasted the films in the top six universities in Metro Manila. Every film ended with a call for entries.

The Text Message Films were sent to more than 384,000 Filipino students which resulted in 1,190 films submitted in 2013,compared to just 680 films in 2012 – giving us a 75% increase in entries All this, with zero production and media budgets. But the most unique result was that we discovered a new generation of filmmakers with a new form of filmmaking.

In 2012, Metro Manila Film Festival launched a mobile phone film category, inviting students to enter the most creative films they can make using their mobile phones. In 2013, our brief was to increase participants. But we had close to no budget. To show students how creative filmmaking could get with the most high-tech functions of their phones, we showed how creative they could get with the most low-tech. Because if we could be creative with the most basic, imagine what they could do with the most advanced. And we did it, for almost no money. We created mobile phone films with no high-tech effects, no production nor media budget. Just a story using just visuals and dialogue, using a function of the phone not even designed to create films. Text Message Films. The first films that turned text characters into film images, that you watch as a text message.