Tomorrow night, (March 14th), Al Jazeera is going to air a documentary shot entirely on an iPhone by a journalist working in Syria.
Syria is a very dangerous place to work and the iPhone gave him access to film without being noticed.
It also speaks volumes about the potential of iPhone (and iPads) for serious video journalism that is fast, simple and allows incredible access.
This, direct from the Al Jazeera press release:
“In this episode of People & Power, an undercover Al Jazeera correspondent takes us inside the lives of Syria’s anti-government demonstrators.
During his two-month journey through the Syrian uprising, he meets resistance fighters, protesters, Syrian army deserters, footballers-turned-revolutionaries and cigarette smugglers who have joined the fight – ordinary Syrians showing extraordinary courage. He stays in their homes and on their streets.
And with Al Jazeera cameras banned inside Syria, he must use only his mobile phone to document their lives, their anger and their fears.”
As we have said many times in the past, the trick here is not to use this new technology as a cheap and simple substitute for conventional betacams and crews. Â this is something completely new. Â iPhone video cameras, when used properly, can be to video and television journalism what Leica stills cameras were to photography and photo journalism. They allowed incredible intimacy and access and produced a powerful personal product.
What Cartier Bresson and W. Eugene Smith did for LIFE Magazine and Magnum in the 1930s and 1940s, now, I think, Â properly employed, iPhones and their like can do for video journalism and the web, as well as television – as Al Jazeera clearly shows.
*and many thanks to @zabriskiepnt for a head’s up on this.
