Short shorts

Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman, AB'09, uses his cell phone to create small video moments.

Just as big-screen film jumps blindly into the third dimension, adding pop-out pyrotechnics to every new release and even 3-D-ifying old favorites, Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman has brought video production to just about the smallest scale possible.

His new blog, Cell Phone Videos, includes samples of spiders crawling, dogs patrolling rooftops, and cow skins rolling off the slaughterhouse dissembly line. Some are heavily cut to produce surreal movement effects, others simply admire the way an overcast sky looks from a moving car. The medium is something of a break from the hard work of watching busy big-budget movies. "Like a warm rhubarb pie or a cup of coffee at daybreak, cell phone videos will always be there," Hurwitz-Goodman wrote in an e-mail to Fire Escape Films, the University filmmaking club.

In the spirit of Cell Phone Videos, a certain University of Chicago Magazine intern has produced a couple shorts with his LG Versa. Feel heartwarmed.

Burke Frank, '11

revolving door   intern

caution   hair

waste management   countdown

August 6, 2010