The 57

BACKGROUND The Screening featured pocket films, mobilementaries and smartphone film from 13 countries and was curated by the MINA Screening Committee and Max Schleser in collaboration with partner film festivals iPhoneFF (USA), SEISFF (Korea), Cinephone (Spain), Mobile Film Festival (Macedonia), Mobil Film Festival (USA). Three factors informed the research in The 57. First, the essay film as an increasingly prominent form of screen production (e.g. Corrigan 2011) and exhibitions (e.g. 2013 BFI season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film). This is driven in part by accessible digital technology. Second, emergence of high quality smartphone cameras that can be used professionally and academically, and third, screen production practices and methodologies as an emerging field of academic research. These factors led to the research question for this project examining if an essay film shot with a smartphone camera can offer a sustainable model for academic screen practice, effectively integrating creative and academic practices in screen production. CONTRIBUTION The 57 is an essay film shot entirely with a smartphone. It employs an auto-ethnographic creative practice method to explore social and cultural dimensions of everyday life, using the screen to link public experience with academically-informed private reflection. It contributes to the field of academic screen production and is located within discourses of vernacular creativity and mobile media. SIGNIFICANCE The film screened as part of the 2013 MINA International Mobile Innovation Screenings, an international, peer-reviewed series of exhibitions. A refereed journal article on the use of 'The 57' production model in a research context was published as part of a screen production special issue of Interactive Media Journal (Berkeley, L 2013, Reflections on a post-doctoral career in screen production).