A Story Told Through A Smartphone Camera Makes An Impact with Alexandra Guillossou

Before we all had access to an exceptional camera built right into our smartphones, we could not share stories like we do today. Our Community Stories program for mobile film was created to fill that need. Episode 63 of the SBP Podcast: The Voice of Mobile Film™ shares the story of Alexandra Guillossou, the Second Prize winner of IMFF 2019. People from all walks of life, people who are not professional videographers or filmmakers, or even those who are, simply did not have access to their cameras when the opportunity arises to capture our stories. Community Stories is about sharing stories through filmmaking using smartphone cameras as a participating member of a community or culture. Alexandra Guillossou was on vacation spending time with her family. Her brother has Multiple Sclerosis and as a member of the family, Alexandra began to record her family out by the lake. As she did so, she began to think about focusing on her brother and capturing her brother who is dealing with MS. Later, as she watched her footage, she decided to make documentary to share her family’s story. When she submitted the film to the International Mobile Film Festival in San Diego it was a film with a good story that we decided to select and screen in the festival. So I contacted Alexandra and notified her about how her film qualified as a Community Story and offered her the opportunity to present her film as such, in San Diego. Alexandra Guillossou won Second Prize at the film festival and also won an Honorary Award from a selection of judges made up by winners of the Global Mobile Film Awards™, Matteo Tibiletti who won Best Experimental with “Yes, No” and Brian Hennings who won Best Cinematography with “Focus.” The films participating in the GMFA Honorary Award contest were only short films from attending filmmakers participating during the film festival in San Diego. We asked Alexandra to share the experience of going back to visit with her family and telling her brother his story won. During this episode, we discuss a topic I hope our listeners find informative and motivating. We address the power of how our films should be focused on storytelling because it can bring people together. We find ourselves spending most of our time connecting with technology and stories help us feel human emotions and I believe stories help us connect to our humanity. We also discuss the trend in mobile filmmaking where people are sharing formulas and processes for making films with smartphones at the risk of destroying the opportunity that mobile filmmaking brings to storytellers without filmmaking experience to realize their dream. The democratization of mobile filmmaking is worthy of preserving and it has many different genres, and creates new genres too. Alexandra inspires us. All of us. Alexandra made a film with her phone without filmmaking experience and her film touches people in ways that it has been selected in different film festivals and has already won awards. Most of us create things and we do not realize the potential of our creations. Some of us don’t even believe something we create can have an impact in some way or win awards. But after listening to her story, I hope you are inspired to go for it. You will never know your potential until you complete it and put it out there. If you like what you made, don’t hold back. SBP Podcast: The Voice of Mobile Film™ is for everyone who ever wanted to or is curious about making movies and videos using smartphones. International Mobile Film Festival in San Diego is open for submissions right now for feature length films and short films. If you shot your film with a smartphone, submit your film to our film festival, and if you can, make a point of attending in beautiful San Diego. Watch the trailer for “The Deepest Cut”: https://youtu.be/cm-kLe74om4 Follow Alexandra and her film online: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deepestcutdoc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/onemousecreativ Our Links: Submit a short or feature length mobile film to IMFF 2020: https://internationalmobilefilmfestival.com/mff/rules Subscribe, support and listen to bonus episodes and more on Patreon: http://patreon.com/sbppodcast SBP Podcast Blog: http://sbppodcast.wordpress.com SBP Podcast Website: http://sbppodcast.studio iTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sbp-podcast/id1296673665 International Mobile Film Festival Website: http://internationalmobilefilmfestival.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/sbppodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/sbppodcast MFTV (Mobile Film Network Distribution Channel): http://MobileChannel.tv Hashtag: MobilizeStories Mobile Film Community Website: http://mobilizestories.com Susy Botello on Twitter: http://twitter.com/susybotello SBP Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ISEF0SZOLyRpw20loXzlo#upsell Smartphone Filmmaking Publication on Medium: https://medium.com/smartphonefilmmaking Are you starting a Podcast? Create a new podcast or network and use the code sbppodcast to apply a 25% discount and save: https://pcast.link/sbppodcast/ © Copyright 2019 S. Botello Productions™. All rights reserved.