We all have one in our pocket

In the course Phone Stories, participants learn to use their phone as a communication tool and learn to record video and audio and edit the material with the phone apps Filmicpro and Kinemaster. The teachers of the course are seasoned media professionals from the UK who have specialised in digital content creation. Anna Hildur and Gísli Þór have recently moved back to Iceland after a long residency in the UK and are known for being both creative and energetic.

Tell me a little about your background, which seems to me to be a melting pot of creativity! How has your career evolved? Did everything go as you thought it would?

“We have in common that we don't think much about our careers or their development. We've been lucky enough to make a living doing what we're passionate about,” says Gísli Þór. “Anna Hildur is a trained Icelandic scholar and teacher, and I am a trained printer, a profession that became obsolete a few years after I finished my studies at the Technical College in Reykjavík. That led me to decide to go into graphic design in London, and I worked as such for 12 years. Anna Hildur soon became a correspondent for Bylgjan and Stöð 2 after we moved abroad in 1991 and went on to do an MA in radio production. She later worked as a correspondent for RÚV and freelanced for various international media until 1998, when she changed careers and threw herself into managing musicians. Bellatrix was the first band. A few years later, we started running a management and consulting company together, which I took over when Anna Hildur was appointed the first managing director of ÚTÓN and later the Nordic export project NOMEX.”

You've lived in England for so long—does moving back home come with any culture shock? Or do you perhaps have one foot abroad?

“We're starting to remember how tiny a society Iceland is and why we left in the first place, but we're also pleasantly surprised by how the multicultural society is taking root. This is not the same Iceland we said goodbye to 30 years ago,” says Anna Hildur. “But yes, we are nomads at the moment and in our minds, we live in two places. I was at a crossroads when the NOMEX project ended and set up the film production company Tattarrattat with my British friends Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. I felt an increasingly strong desire to move to Iceland and be closer to the people I was developing projects with. Gísli is still adjusting, but we know that London is not far away, and we both have family, colleagues, and friends that we continue to nurture relationships with. Once you've uprooted yourself, the roots spread to the places you love the most.”

Gísli, what trends do you see around you, how do you view the development?

“In line with smartphone technology, you see that software has become more accessible to the public, and it's easier to do things on computers than it was when printing was still done with plates and film. So you see groups of artists doing more of their own promotional material and design. In that respect, yes, there are more possibilities and the lines between disciplines are not as clear, as tools and technology have advanced. But that doesn't change the fact that artistic designers have always been influencers, and design professionals have probably never been more sought after.”

Anna Hildur, you are a seasoned marketing and media professional—what trends do you see as prominent in marketing and communication?

“Social media is dominant in marketing. There are rapid changes and constantly new apps taking over, but what all the new apps have in common is that videos or visual content are dominant. I remember talking about Musical.ly in a lecture in 2017, and in 2018 it was merged with TikTok, and just recently we heard that it's downloaded more often than Facebook, which has been dominant in the market. This is just one example. But overall, it's about personalized messages where the consumer is addressed directly and good stories that work with imaginative solutions for visual content.”

Why is it necessary to acquire good skills in using the phone as a communication tool?

“Because of what is mentioned above,” says Anna Hildur. “There is an ever-increasing demand to be able to create all kinds of promotional material inexpensively. There's so much you can do on the latest smartphones, and it's a waste not to take advantage of it. We all have one in our pocket.”

Is this a skill that is useful in more jobs than, for example, journalism and marketing?

“Yes, absolutely,” say Anna Hildur and Gísli Þór, nodding in unison. They list the benefits of learning to use smartphones to create all kinds of educational material, do research, and not least, make fun family videos. “The skill is about learning to get the sound and lighting right. Practising finding the best frames when filming and using the apps that can improve the camera in the phone,” says Anna Hildur.

Tell me a bit more about the course instructors and their approach.

“Jane, Josh, and Connor are exceptionally talented people who have specialised in digital content creation. Jane was the head of the BBC news department in London for years, where she worked with radio, television, and web media. She introduced the use of smartphones there and sent teams out to create content on their phones when a quick response was needed. They train people at Google and other large companies, while also participating in community projects in the small British town of Arundel where they live.” Anna Hildur adds that what she finds most fascinating about them is how good they are as teachers. “It doesn't matter how much of a beginner you are, they always have the time and patience to find a way for you to master this technology. It's very inspiring to be trained by them.”

What else are you working on?

“I'm running our company, Glimrandi, which Anna Hildur and I set up together when we moved to Iceland earlier this year. The company focuses on cultural production, and we have many exciting projects in development where we utilise the experience and connections we have in the film and music industries,” says Gísli Þór. “Anna Hildur also has a 50% position at Bifröst University as the Programme Director for Creative Industries, where she is developing a new and exciting BA programme, the first of its kind in Iceland. So there are a lot of fun things in the pipeline alongside the Smartphone Storytelling courses, and we see great potential in developing related projects from them.”

Limited spaces available. Secure your spot on the Smartphone Storytelling course here.