Director Sally Porter is embracing mobile in a big way with the release of her new low-budget film called Rage starring Jude Law, Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and loads of other big names. The movie is (according to the trailer but probably isn’t) filmed on a mobile phone, is in cinemas this week.

The film went straight-to-mobile as well as being broadcast live across theatres in London and Europe. There was also be a chance to be part of the Q&A after the film by sending SMS messages directly to the director and cast. A very cool bit of mobile interaction. See the webcast here.

Viewers will need to download a Bablegum application (groan) before being able to view the movie on their mobile.

Rage takes the format of being a series of ‘interviews’ over a 7 day period.  Bablegum will release a ‘interview’ a day for one week to cover the entire film.

The Director Sally Porter doesn’t really sound too confident about the whole thing:

“We don’t know how this is going to work, especially since it is the first ever feature on cellphones. We’re making it up as we go along and taking the plunge and the risk.

There’s so much terror in the film industry at the moment about piracy, people stealing your idea and making money off of it; and the only way I found of dealing with that is to say, ‘Here, have it.’ If you keep looking over your shoulder, you don’t trailblaze.

“It’s not necessarily a great money spinner. At the moment I’m in debt but the great advantage of being in debt means you’ve got nothing to lose.”

I think Porter is really brave by putting the whole movie out on mobile, and organising a SMS Q&A after the screening is such a great idea.

Even though this won’t stop piracy, as the movie will probably be on Bit Torrent by the end of the week, it doesn’t really matter as it was only a matter of time before that happened anyway. It’s all about breaking boundaries and this way her film will get far more eyeballs and benefit from some decent tracking within Babelgum.

Would it have been better to put the movie out on operator portals rather than a application? I have the feeling it could have more exposure that way, especially with teens.

Did she miss out on a opportunity to include ads onto her movie? Adding pre and post roll video ads on a free movie would be a good idea to help generate revenue. You watch ads before a film that you pay for at a cinema so why not put them on a free movie?

I’ll keep my eye out on how well it does at the box office.

Check out the trailer below:

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