Every Sunday, Fred Connors reads his wife, Rosemary, the newspaper headlines. She must guess if they’re real or made up, and if she’s correct he gives her a kiss.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” the old man says with a sweet smile and a chuckle as his screen time fades out. “Sometimes I cheat.”

The film is shot in documentary form under warm lighting as jazz music plays in the background. It switches from a solo interview with the charming man to shots of the couple reading the paper on a couch.

Playing off his grandparents’ relationship, Mike Potter, a junior triple television-radio, computer information system and business major, created this 30-second film clip, “Cheat,” using a Samsung SCH-a970 cell phone. “Cheat” was selected from 10 finalists as the winner of the Roy H. Park School of Communications 2006 Cellflix Film Festival competition. Potter won $5,000.

“The idea behind the contest is mobile media, and the idea that stories can pop up anywhere,” Potter said.

Sponsored by the Park School, the competition began taking submissions Nov. 1. The contest called for filmmakers to use only a cell phone or smartphone to shoot a short film that could be edited using digital software.

The Festival invited high school and college students between the ages of 13 and 22 to compete. Entries from Canada, Sweden and all over the United States were received. Films from different genres were welcome. Suggestions included action, documentary, comedy, drama or experimental.

The idea for Cellflix arose when Dianne Lynch, dean of the Park School, attended a conference last February. The conference focused on the idea that technology is rapidly moving toward a model in which all media is available through mobile devices.

“I started thinking about what Park students will need to know and be able to do when they graduate five years from now, and how we could begin to help them ‘think small’ about mediated messages,” Lynch said. “A film competition for work shot on cell phone seemed like a good step in that direction.”

Potter said he appreciates Lynch’s ability to create a unique event that is technologically oriented and at the forefront of the digital revolution.

When he first heard about the concept for Cellflix, Potter said he thought the idea was simplistic and creating the film wouldn’t be time-consuming.

“It seemed like something I could do on the side of the other stuff I was involved in,” Potter said. “I was interested right off the bat because it was original and something new.”

Cellflix gave Potter, versed in television-radio with a screenwriting concentration, a seemingly easy opportunity to work with video production. But Potter later found the process frustrating — especially with a cell phone.

Potter brainstormed preproduction concepts from the time the contest was announced. But for such a short final product, a weeks worth of work went into its making.

“Shooting it took about a half an hour, but I didn’t want to bother my grandparents,” Potter said with a laugh. “Editing it and things like that took longer than I expected.”

Potter also said he did not expect to win. When he returned to Ithaca from his home in Broomfield, Colo., and edited his footage, he didn’t feel he accomplished what he wanted.

“One of the things I ran into in production was that I didn’t have enough time to get the shots I wanted,” Potter said. “It’s very frustrating on a cell phone.”

Junior Dylan Luyt was a Cellflix top-10 finalist who is interning at the Olympics with NBC in Italy. Luyt, a cinema and photography major, said he knew using a cell phone to create a film would be difficult and time-consuming.

“The more I developed an idea, I began to realize that there were so many possibilities and that the portability of the cell phone was advantageous in many different situations,” Luyt said.

From 178 submissions a top 10 were chosen by judges Meg Jamieson, assistant professor of cinema and photography; Peter Johanns, assistant professor of television and radio; and Nick Muellner, assistant professor of cinema and photography at the Park School.

“The length and the format lend themselves much more naturally to works not in a narrative vein,” Jamieson said. “Poetic, quick impressions — a collection of images which add up to the toll of a moment or an idea or a record of lived experience — thrive under the pressures of this format.”

Ithaca College alumnus David Lebow, executive vice president and general manager of AOL Media Networks, and Rodrigo Bellot, a Bolivian filmmaker, chose Potter as the winner. Potter’s winning film can be viewed at www.cellflixfestival.org/screeningroom.html.

The Cellflix Film Festival gained national coverage on NPR and ABC.com. Potter said the competition has given Ithaca College and the Park School an edge.

“While it is a cell-phone contest, it’s really just a flag that says, ‘hey we are thinking of new stuff, new ideas, new technology,’” Potter said. “And if you’re interested in doing that type of stuff, come to the Park School.”