Universities may not always be on the cutting edge of budding trends in media like mobile video, but their students sure are. That said; there are a few standout film schools—Boston University and University of California, Los Angeles—that have introduced courses focused entirely on producing video for the mobile screen. Mobile TV presents up-and-comers with a slew of yet-to-be-determined outlets for their craft in an industry oversaturated with wannabes, and these schools have taken note.

“It's cutting edge and they are as prepared to go into that as anybody who's been in the industry for years,” said BU Professor Cathy Perron, who worked on the first mobile TV class at BU last fall.

There's a lot of collaboration in this emerging curriculum. MTV, mtvU, BU, UCLA and Amp'd Mobile Inc. are all benefiting by sharing their resources as they try to offer professional experience with mobile TV to as many students as possible. The idea really got wings about 18 months when Amp'd executive Seth Cummings contacted his former teacher, Perron, and asked how Amp'd might be able to collaborate with BU on an educational program in mobile television.

That discussion led to the BU course “Experimental TV: Producing for the very small screen,” taught by Boston filmmaker Jan Egleson. The course embarked on an eight-episode series about college life that was written by student writers, shot with student actors and filmed and edited by students in the class. Perhaps most striking is that in a university filled with state-of-the-art equipment, the entire series was filmed using video cameras on cellphones.

Perron was shocked with how much the students learned in the class as they produced the series, which is set to premier on Amp'd and begin rolling out episodes over the next two months. “It really tested the capabilities of the cellphone camera and the cellphone as a production vehicle,” she said. “The implications for that are extremely extraordinary because any cellphone user can be a filmmaker.” This spring Perron is introducing a new course that will explore other content for handheld distribution, but much of what she teaches these days is based on new distribution technologies.

Back on the West Coast, UCLA has been helping its students acclimate to the mobile environment as well. In fact, mtvU helped the college bring filmmaker Kevin Smith on board to teach the class and give students the production experience of a lifetime all while giving the show, “Sucks Less with Kevin Smith,” more widespread appeal. “They get experience, make connections and earn college credits, I get cheap labor; everybody wins,” Smith explained in a statement describing the show's genesis on mtvU.com.

Clayman and Martin are thrilled that they can help students get academic credit and an experience they're now using to launch their careers. “We're still learning. We're still learning what works and what doesn't even as the medium continues to evolve around us,” Clayman said.

THE HEADY MIX of mobility, computing and the Internet now sweeping the mobile industry is akin to getting gassed with nitrous oxide at the dentist.

Enter the “Google phone,” a notion that says a lot about a converged world, not to mention the spectators who cheer and jeer the denizens of that world.

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