Nicholas Bond is a copywriter @ SaatchiNY. He recently got the chance to direct a portion of the film “140″ (trailer is above). Below are his thoughts on the project and what it says about social media and the arts.

On June 21st, 2009 at exactly 8pm GMT, a man in Ireland named Frank Kelly tweeted the word “Action” and 140 directors across five continents began filming. The directors had been instructed to shoot the things that connect them to their homes: breathtaking mountain ranges, smiling children, narrow city streets, charming pets and idyllic scenery. All over the world, amazing images were captured simultaneously.

140
140 seconds after tweeting Action, each of the directors stopped recording, boxed up their raw footage and sent it to Frank Kelly, the Producer/Director of a new film project titled simply – “140”. The product, an 85-minute documentary that has screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Downtown Film Festival in Los Angeles the Heartland Film Festival, and been featured in Paste Magazine.

1 OUT OF 140
I’m sharing the story not just because it’s a great example of social media’s growing place in our arts culture, but also because I was one of the 140 filmmakers who got the chance to participate in the project. It was an amazing opportunity, and I’m happy to announce that my beagle, Brindi, can be seen basking in the limelight about 14 seconds into the trailer for the film.

CROWD-SOURCING A DOCUMENTARY
There have been a few other social media feature films (that need not be mentioned), but I like the concept of our aptly named film because it’s essentially a crowd-sourced documentary. To wax philosophical and throw out a bit of jargon: “140″ emphasizes the democratizing effects of social technologies like twitter and encourages us to consider how to leverage them in creating instantaneous yet lasting connections with others.