Aussie stars to 'snack' on small screen

Aussie comic stars Paul Fenech (Fat Pizza) and Steve Abbott, aka The Sandman, (In Siberia Tonight) are signed on to create original mobile phone content including videos, ringtones, screensavers and wallpapers.

The original videos will be produced by Mobile Active and will be available to download from its Web site with a view to the content being licensed by other content distributors in Australia and overseas.

Mobile Active managing director Neil Wiles says as well as original material, available content will include "re-purposed" existing work by various artists to be optimised for mobile phone delivery.

"It's important to consider the environment and the manner the media is consumed when producing or re-purposing content for mobile phones," Wiles said, referring to the short grabs of entertainment, or "snacks", and to some of the obstacles faced when producing for the small screens of mobile phones.

Popular comedian Steve Abbott will be featuring in a series of original videos entitled "Advice for the unpopular", which are likely to be less than a minute in duration.

"Most people have got a great 30 seconds, so in a 45 second act, the best bit probably only goes for 30 seconds. It's smelting your material down to its purest form," Abbott said.

Alongside the comedic work of Fenech and Abbott renowned Australian artist Reg Mombassa will be re-working a selection of his art to be made available as wallpapers and animated screen-savers.

"I would imagine for some younger artists [producing art for mobile phones] could be their entire means of expression... a lot of people are a bit intimidated by art galleries, so to get art to them by other means is obviously a good thing."