Introduction

Today, we live in a world characterized by the massive flow of information, both through traditional and digital media. In recent years, the content of the International Information Network has grown ever more sophisticated.

It is now impossible to control the content, distribution and dissemination of the content, as the medium and the message are available in every place and place, and their effects have affected all fields and media, including newspapers, radio, television and cinema.

Cinema, for example, is today undergoing a real revolution in concepts, practice and visualization after the first revolution brought about by the emergence of a film that is speaking over the shortcomings of silent film, and the entry of dialogue and sound effects as a key factor in the narrative and construction of the film. The enormous evolution of the cinema world today is due to the emergence of digital cinema, and then mobile cinema, and the theses, ideas and intellectual debates that this has triggered, especially after the digitization process has brought about changes that have touched the cinema industry in its classical alphabets and made photography, production, installation, mixing and acting professions accessible to all. With renewed and promising prospects, as everyone can practice cinema art and creativity, which threatens Hollywood, Bollywood and the world’s leading film production companies, especially given the evolution of the means of production, the distribution of information and the ease of access to it, it is enough for a person to carry a camera and walk the streets in search of filming, montage, mixage and others.

This article takes care of the serious questions and challenges of cinematography in the digital environment. Are we really in a global production wave where the features of audio-visual culture are recreated, with its tenets and aesthetics, so that, together with the digital mobile camera, we go beyond the limits of visual creativity as we have done it, and whether the accelerated forms of digital creativity in the film industry are separated in their theories, their boundaries from classical cinema?

1. Digital photography and the concept of digital cinema

Digital photography in its comprehensive and accurate sense refers to taking a picture without a film, or scanning a photograph whether on a film or a sheet through a scanner, to produce digital image data, and Kelly defines digital imaging technology as keeping images in digital format and reading them via a computer, that is, in the form of files that can be reviewed using a computer1.

Digital cinematography is based on the recording of specialized clicks of graphic data on a magnetic tape or frozen cylinder, which converts photovoltaic energy into photovoltaic energy recorded on the tape and consists of pixels, which are less uniform in digital photography.

Digital cinema is defined as a technological phenomenon through which films can be made, cut by viewing, distributed through an electronic medium (Manovich, 2019) .In technical terms, digital means the conversion of images and sounds into digital data (single and zero) that can be stored, processed and transmitted by computers2.

Digital cinema is based mainly on the use of bitcoin and Bitcoin to record, send and broadcast images instead of chemicals. This method is of great use in storing and preserving an enormous amount of data as if it were first depicted through, for example, several CD-ROMs (Nicolas, 2019). The digital cinema, then, includes the set of transitions that have taken place in the image technology Capture, the Ealing montage, the Distillation and Display Project, when it became a DVD with a hard disk, a DVD, or a satellite route.it goes to cinemas or home television, and the show is done by Digital Projects3.

Data, information, images and sounds can be represented by a large number of beats, and the house has no color, size or weight, can move very quickly to the speed of light, which is the smallest component of the information’s DNA, and has important benefits including: Data compression, and technical correction of errors, can be distinguished between classical symmetrical imaging and digital imaging, since classical symmetrical cinematography was done through celluloid tapes and turned into blacksmiths (appeared in 1828), a process that was later mechanically developed by camera cameras, acidification detectors and various projectors. So film is a special kind of text, a visual and audio script, which, in one aspect like opera, is an art that derives its existence and mixes with other arts, such as theater, painting, music, sculpture, dance, etc., and the film can resort to all or some of these arts, but on the other side is the development of photographic art and image animators in technological terms. The film today is called collaborative art, in the sense that it requires technological talents, which are jointly performed by a number of specialists. It is this collaborative nature of cinema that not only stops with the known technology, but also expands to include innovations that contribute to the development of the artistic aspect. Technological developments may lead to new creative spaces in the art beauty itself4.

In this regard, it can be said that the computer and its technological changes represent a second revolution in the cinema world, where the digital language has entered the film industry at its various stages, both before and during filming and in the subsequent stages. It is a language that expresses a new information-based, digitally encrypted technology, which began to be used in video, and then intermingled with cinema, to produce together what we see today: digital cinema; and mobile cinema5.
The transition to digital media at the beginning of the current century has revolutionized the media “environment,” thanks to the power of digital technology, and every time digitization overcomes traditional means of communication, we notice significant shifts in the making, sending and receiving of information messages, so that these new and evolving manifestations of traditional media have become a new system (one in the middle of another, in the words of Edgar Moran).

2. Trajectories from digital cinema to mobile cinema

In the film area, the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) emerged in March 2002 as a joint venture with a number of cinema studios, including: (Dizney, Fox, MGM, Bramont, Sony and Werner Brothers) With a view to developing digital cinema specifications and standards, a comprehensive evaluation of the standards has been issued by the American Society of Cinematographers and a number of films have been produced according to the data obtained and called DLP. Created about 10 years earlier by , Walt Dicentenial Man, 42 gigabytes on hard disk drive, DCI was a co-founder of six major American film production companies, which put together open specifications for the digital cinema system, many parts of which were adopted by SMPTE. Then it will be Converted into standards by ISO International, this technical development has contributed to the easy and widespread spread of film work, via DVD hard drives that represent a technology medium for easy storage as well as availability to all users6.

Historically, cinematography cameras have undergone a lot of developments, but they have not been radical changes. In the late 1920s, the speed of camera capture changed from 16 cadres per second to 24 cadres.

Through that change - from the speed of normal time and commercial talking sound, in the 1930s some pieces were officially added to the camera to enable color photography, and in decades ago film cameras were constantly being improved electronically to be easily tuned once certain buttons were pressed, as well as improvements to celluloid in the tape itself in order to present a clearer image and stay longer. Although these developments are very important, but - and yet - the movie camera is the same in principle and the basis for the one that existed a century ago, the reels are still spinning and the rolls of the precious long ribbons go endless.

And this, in fact, is not a flaw or a shortage, but what’s odd is that this massive digital revolution that we’re going through, which has swept into every modern human home, never seems to have affected the cameras of cinematography. In our daily lives, we watch hundreds of stations on TV that come with digital devices, and we’ve come to see movies “digitally” by regular CD-ROMs (VCD) or DVD and by content suppliers or digital viewing platforms7.

The digital cinema revolution is slowly beginning, and interest in its development has not stopped, however, with Hollywood studios and major camera manufacturers, and in Joan 1999, George Lucas announced that the second episode of the Star Wars trilogy will be digitally filmed, and the thrill is that most movie theaters have demanded that the distributed company turn the final score of the film into the traditional version because galleries don’t have digital projectors that display digital films through them, and providing them is expensive for the gallery, yet Lucas also digitally portrayed the last part of the film, and the directors continue to announce that they will deal with the film digitally, announcing that digital cinema has become an inescapable reality, such as: Steven Spielberg and Robert Woodergs, as well as young directors who have themselves made their own independent films through special digital cameras, participating in various festivals8.

The digital camera has a number of features that are defined as follows9:

2.1. Low costs and low budgets on more than one level

The price of a conventional film camera is often around $ 100, while the price of digital cameras is much lower. The standard tape is very expensive, of which one-hour costs about $ 25. The ease of creating and making the film and controlling its footage, and the existence of shortcuts for many stressful processes. In today’s traditional system, the director portrays the film scenes and when the reel is filled, he sends it to the montage room without knowing what’s inside, but the digital camera is like (HDW F900), on which Lucas worked, the director - when he finished filming any scene - was able to recast what he had just recorded. And that’s very comforting for him. He’s gonna re-see what he filmed right away to notice that there were mistakes that might have gone wrong, and then complete the shoot.In digital cinema, there is no need to convert from one image to another - as in ordinary cinema - but from the beginning to the end it is done in the digital medium itself, and if that means something, the director can film in the morning and transfer information to the montage room on the same day and then complete the filming, in other words, Photography and montage will run in parallel lines at the same time, which means the movies will be done quickly.

• Eliminating the problem of high distribution costs for digital cinema, which does not require hundreds of copies to be printed for distribution, the film’s transmission will be done electronically without any physical action other than moving the mouse and pressing one of the buttons.

• After distribution, it comes to the cinema stage Here it is clearly shows that film screenings in traditional cinemas today are better, more quality, and the image and colors look very clear, while digital cinemas are probably less good.

2.2 Mobile culture and the spread of mobile cinema

The new medias have penetrated the details of our lives, become an effective broker in our practices for various daily activities, and are needed in many areas, such as industry, education, economics and other areas. But what we are interested in here are the creative uses of these means and techniques, especially mobile technologies, which have brought with them many activities and practices and have established talk about new terms and concepts in the field of information, communication and the arts as well.

Among them, electronic games and social networks, pocket cinema or what has become known as mobile cinema, mobile cinema is defined as a new artistic and aesthetic phenomenon, with its extensions in social and economic life, because of its connection to technical development. More specifically, with the development of mobile technology, it is also called: Pocket cinema, small cinema, or mobile cinema, foreign language: Pocket cinema, Cinéma de Poche, P cinema10, is closely related to the characteristics of mobile phones, particularly those relating to photography and viewing of motion pictures.

According to the Al Jazeera Media Center’s Documentary and Feature Film Production Guide, Mobile is the film generated entirely within Mobile, photography and montage, sound recording, graffiti design, dissemination and broadcast, which makes maximum use of Mobile in artistic production, bringing its owner closer to the audience, enriching creative content, and renewing syntactic narrative method11.

As the academic Laurence Allard points out, today we live in a unique world, where human beings connect to various social networks, practice digital hobbies like video games, share videos... Using iPad and mobile phones, it contributes day after day to a youth culture, starting with the daily activities of a wide cross section of these users on social media using their mobile devices, and ending with the professions that they develop through this use, such as content making, motion picture production, special video games, blogging, filmmaking... Although it raises concerns about the negative implications of technology penetration and its negative effects, especially on adolescents, it is clear that every day we have become embroiled in the new culture offered by mobile phones and various Internet applications, moving to virtual interfaces of social and creative practices.

The most important factor in the penetration of mobile culture in our lives is the existence of mobile phones as an important means of communication in our diaries, their connectivity to the international information network, their dependence on the various applications offered by the Internet, as well as the quality and accuracy of cameras in these devices, and their appropriate prices, which have enabled the user to share details of his or her daily life and various experiences through fixed images or videos, and through different social media.

Thanks to the ease of taking pictures and distributing them on the Web, today we see a great many different films in their purposes, in their techniques of making and publishing, such as videos, music, feature films, short films, documentaries... And the best example of this is what’s happening on YouTube, which is striking, the user’s need today to express themselves in the digital environment, especially through the image and video. The latest statistics show more than 100 hours of videos downloaded through YouTube per minute12.

Many researchers believe that the culture resulting from social networking entering our lives, turning it into a familiar activity that prints the details of our diaries, has facilitated our integration with the digital characteristics of mobile phones and viewing platforms, and different Internet applications, and others go further by asserting that illiteracy in the digital media era is no longer related to literacy and arithmetic, but is mainly about the knowledge and learning to use digital media13.

Current technological developments have contributed to guiding individuals’ social practices and vice versa. While we are learning to master new media technologies, we are also re-using traditional media formats in ways that are different from old practices, to optimize them, and thanks to visual content industry platforms, such as : YouTube and Vimeo, leading up to the social media applications of smartphones (Vine, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter), featured video as a popular and effective communication medium, and developed creative expression arts and entertainment content. 

Video and film production are no longer generally seen as a specialized area exclusively for professionals, but the emergence of relatively cheap and accessible video-capture and editing programs has provided many individuals who have not received formal media training with opportunities to participate in the creation and participation of a wide range of digital media, from which the mobile film industry has evolved to often outperform classical cinema.

2.3. Flexibility of viewing is a key factor in the evolution of mobile cinema

On the other hand, it should be emphasized that digital media, content platforms and social media networks not only influence the production and broadcasting processes of videos and films, but also change viewer practices by offering more flexibility to audiences, when, where and how users interact with film or video content?

One doesn’t need to understand how viewing behavior has changed, except to travel through public transport or walk through a city street to watch people watching digital media content on mobile devices. Thanks to it, the TV screen has been released from its static location in the living room, and it’s on the rest of the hand. Our screens are today mobile in the form of smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. In a new media environment?

In contrast, watching the film on phone screens from the very first glance - as anti-mobile filmmakers point out - shows us that it’s quite the opposite of watching a movie in movie theaters or on television, with the screens looking small, the images and sounds showing less quality, and the action of viewing being done in a closed environment, mostly subject to external conditions in the environment, such as the Internet and the light on the street, video operators on the phone.

David Lynch insists that watching mobile movies will never be a substitute for cinema, as he believes that they are not true movies in the customary sense, and that it is nothing more than a parody, as well as health damage on the eye, and lack of a lot of familiar aesthetics.

Despite the above, today’s mobile phone is part of the cinematic communication space. Mobile operators understood that it had become part of people’s everyday culture and habits, and that they had to rely on it (especially since some communication companies were also involved in film production), in the cinematic industry in response.

Its users’ desire to receive film content through it, and production companies on this basis have, from the outset, initiated a series of promotional presentations for films that are or are about to be shown in cinemas.

Through its Internet connection, mobile phones also provide unlimited opportunities to learn about filmmakers and their critics, to know where the film is shown, and to reserve a seat beforehand. first, the film and its reception increase smartphone fame and sales ; On the other hand, mobile phones are an excellent promotional tool for cinema content in the digital age, increasing its fame and contributing to maximum viewership worldwide14.

2.4. Digital video platforms, mobile movies, and the global production company crisis

For nearly 100 years, Hollywood studios have ruled the world’s cinema industry, and although they have not always produced the most critically acclaimed films, they have not been dominant in all countries of the world. However, its strength in the global production market and its box office returns were very high. However, in recent years, new Internet content providers have been challenging the continued power of the five major Hollywood studios that remain in operation - Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, and(After its merger came into effect on March 20, 2019) Walt Disney-Fox Studios for the 21st Century, prominent streaming platforms Netflix and Amazon have become involved in billions of dollars in investments in visual content production, and these notable changes in the film industry have led to the recognition of the fact that “Hollywood” is a reality. (As with other global companies) in a crisis of full identity15.

Digital video platforms are one of the newest and most famous digital technology and media outputs of the current era. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, for the user, which is a means of consuming and receiving digital content, but for cinematographers and media it seems more complicated. Although it is an easy and accessible technology option, at the same time it requires research into good ways to finance and license the use of such content, especially in the cinematic field, where it takes effective ways to acquire audiences and communicate with them and charge them for film content16.

The digital video platforms refer to the “streaming service,” which provides a large list of audio-visual materials and content available on demand via the data network, and most of their services charge a subscription fee from their viewers, although some such as YouTube, are funded through interfaces. (Combination of mixed financing models, or both), and some of the platforms’ work does not grow and thrive by acquiring other business or fixed assets, but by connecting more and more users to the platform and its content17.

The idea of “online platforms” was one of the innovations in human history, and by chance I found a platform. Netflix itself has been a leader in this area, since Reed Hastings, in 1997, alerted to the idea of creating it, after renting it a tape. A DVD of a movie from a famous company, then named. Blockbuster, when he delayed returning the disk on time, was fined $ 40, which was more than double the rental allowance. Then, I came up with the idea of a website, renting tablets and videos over the Internet, and delivering them to the user by mail. After that, it evolved into a monthly subscription allowing an unlimited number of films to be rented. This went on for a full 10 years, before its Board of Directors decided in 2007 to start a digital streaming service, and the owners of the company then believed in the strength, spread and speed of the Internet, and that the new generation would prefer speed and availability rather than the complex process of renting CDROMS18.

Today, Netflix is one of the most popular foreign video service platforms for VOD, which began with the basic idea of using the US Post Office to send DVDs to customers. Netflix has successfully refined this old technology, which was based on it into a sophisticated and modern technology, by mixing pre-existing elements into content distribution with other radical developments.

Before Netflix started producing its original software, it used DVD for film and television content and gave customers a new way to get it19.

After the great success of Netflix, other companies were in intense competition with them to acquire the electronic viewing market. In 2012, Amazon launched its Amazon Prime online viewing service, instead of buying or renting content.

So Netflix realized that it could not compete with these mega-entities for broadcast rights, and that the near future would have each major producer establish its own platform, or enter into partnership with alternative platforms, so its owners decided to produce original content for the network, rather than buy the rights, a move that began with $ 100 million as a budget to produce its first series. House of Cards, collaborating with David Fincher as his director, and with Kevin Spacey, actor with two Oscars.

So, one of the important changes in the cinema industry in recent years has been the impact of online viewing platforms on filmmakers. Netflix and its counterparts to provide a freer environment for filmmakers than major studios like Hollywood, which has had significant consequences for the cinema industry. In addition, these platforms have less restrictive rules than movie festivals, making them attractive to filmmakers.

Another valuable point relates to independent filmmakers. After Hollywood settled in the middle of the cinema and mainstream movies began to dominate cinemas since the 1980s, it was difficult to reach large audiences, especially independent filmmakers. However, with Internet streaming services becoming a major medium in the cinema industry, independent filmmakers had the opportunity to reach wider audiences, where cinemas generally preferred big-budget movies because they could benefit more, so independent films haven’t found much opportunity outside the festivals yet, but thanks to these digital platforms, these movies have become more accessible and accessible to more users, and amateur maker movies have been able to produce and publish their films across these platforms easily, easily and in ways not previously known20.

3. Mobile cinema, Between amateurs and professionals 

Speaking of mobile movies, we come across different types of directors, including mobile directors who carry their phones in their pockets, who start filming when it’s available and attractive, and who have a personal interest in filming, like artists and directors looking for new pictures and ideas, or college students, cinematographers, and amateurs.

Historically, amateur and family films have appeared with the early beginnings of film art, and some historians believe that the Lumière brothers introduced the cinematograph device mainly for family use within the framework of what is known as Amateur cinema.21 The Lumière brothers’ first films made it possible to record the moments and situations of urban and individual life, for example by applying fixed camera technology, since they were widely used, especially since they did not require much technical resources, and in turn were more realistic and suitable for amateur cinema and family films.

And just as easily as it was known to produce a film in its beginnings, mobile movies today find an appropriate production environment, which is not insurmountable in terms of conditions and costs. A director in mobile cinema can take on different jobs from film production to film. In simple terms, the possibility of producing a movie without obstacles has allowed many unknown artists and directors to enter the world of Filmmaking and cinematography, and the creative expression of their ideas, often with excitement that went beyond the limits of professionalism. Although they have never had the opportunity to show their talents before, as well as easy access to high-quality camera phones, easy streaming and publishing via digital content platforms. It is now common to watch movies where the director is also the actor, producer and filmmaker. This versatility of jobs has become common in mobile cinema, and the annual mobile cinema festivals in many regions of the world have shown how amateurs can receive first awards for filmmaking and producing films with their cameras, even though they are not professionals, and have not received in-depth cinema compositions, but are amateurs of seventh art who have great creativity and expressionism.

In addition to the above, amateur moviegoers find the situation comforting by freeing them from the economic constraints that impose huge production costs that can only be borne by large production companies. They have thus been able to create a different concept of cinema, which does not respond to grand film theories according to classical practices as recognized by leading theorists that argue that mobile cinema is a digital extension of Art VII, and it will not be long until it possesses its traditions, aesthetics, and creativity.

In a few years, the development of smartphones has been a new reality, and the trend towards social media platforms by a wide cross section of people has prompted global institutions to produce full content for cinema. Cheap cost : We can make a cinema - quality video by combining a quality smartphone, an external microphone, a triple menu carrier, and using a professional video recording app. This is much cheaper than a conventional broadcast camera. Easy use : Most mobile stakeholders can carry a backpack, a smartphone, a three-list carrier, microphones and external lighting devices weighing only 3 kilograms together ; It makes it easier to produce high-quality stories anywhere and at any time, as Syrian filmmaker and writer promised when she made her 2019 documentary about life in the war, “Tore Through Aleppo,” or as BBC correspondent Dougal Shaw did in most of the stories he covered in 2019. Safety : The fact that smartphones are so common makes them an important tool.

For journalists or directors who need to work in secrecy, as Nick Garnett did when he covered the Manchester riots for the BBC in 2011. A 2017 Reuters Institute study revealed that people are more likely to agree to an interview in front of a smartphone than in front of a TV camera, while for smartphone apps used in film narratives there are dozens of storytelling apps for iPhone and Android devices, some of which are simple and designed to create social stories quickly with moving titles, fun illustrations and free music. Other applications were designed specifically for professionals. These include video recording and editing, audio editing applications for making radio and podcast pack.

Overall, a range of advantages enjoyed by mobile cinema can be listed as follows:

• Budget management: The biggest pay factor for film and video generally is the budget. On the basis of which it is decided whether your video will be of a third degree or of a distinct quality, it is noted that with the arrival of mobile photography, filmmakers were able to invest freely in video preparation rather than equipment that would have cost them a fortune.

• Creative Freedom: Unlike a high-end camera, mobile photography is given creative freedom, as it can be done for anyone, and there’s a wide range of audiences that can turn to the idea of photography for entertainment, which makes the horizon of creativity expand ages, and professional photography applications.

• Accessibility: Mobile photography has made many people think about becoming directors, and very easily this can be done, given that the quality of cameras is currently very good, and it’s noted that many videos these days can match the standard of the regular film we see in cinemas.

• Ease of learning and control: Mobile photography has broken the barrier of ignorance and the difficulty of learning, so with the phone one can learn not only to make the film, but also to master the footage by repeating the practice.

4.The future of mobile cinema as digital video culture spreads 

About 50 percent of the world today is connected to the Internet, and by 2025 - in just five years - many expect the entire world to be almost the same. (About 8 billion people are connected), thanks to fifth-generation technology, and just thinking about what that would do with the diversity of stories created and shared in all forms of media, including cinema, makes us ask many questions.

The technology-fueled transformation in the video sector is reshaping the concept. The “cinema” itself, and what it is, is an example of this. “Mobile Cinema” - which goes day by day to produce content that is linked to artificial intelligence technologies rather than to human minds and behaviors, and what Mobile Cinema is doing today is enabling cinema to serve everyone, especially those people who have not had the opportunity to enter traditional cinemas, which may make it a leading alternative, especially during crises, and for us in the Covid Pandemic 19 is the best guide. When all of humanity was forced into homesteading, the mobile entertainment industry was a haven for millions of people who found it in films that produced at a cost and also offered at the lowest cost a shelter for quarantine times.

Conclusion

Our times, and the technical advantages we have in our daily lives, give us more entertainment media, including mobile cinema, which has contributed to expanding access to films from the Internet and mobile technology.

Technology today has changed our communication and viewing habits, as well as the features of the media industry. We have seen how mobile cinema has become a real competitor to cinema, although the latter has continued to resist signs of change, and major filmmakers and theorists have opposed this type of cinema to enter the pace of competition, but it should be recognized, however, that the streaming service, one of the most sophisticated ideas about digital media, has rearranged the operations of the film industry, and that today the future is open for amateurs to make the high-quality film footage offered by their smartphones.