Smart Producer without a Smart Phone

Picture - Product Page (T-Mobile)

You might not believe it, but not everyone has an iPhone yet. Seriously. Films that have low/no budget are often born of filmmakers whose personal finances seem to match up with their film's meager funding. Meaning... no budget for a $90/month data plan.

Here's the scenario:

Location - Middle of Nowhere
Time - Late as Hell
Internet Connection - Not a chance
Smart Phones on Set - Zero

Performances have been great all day, the lighting is perfect, and your director is in a great mood... until you realize that the van you need for tomorrow hasn't received confirmation by email about where to be. Their office is closed and your contact there didn't give you a cell number. If that van isn't there tomorrow at 8:ooam- you're screwed. And even worse- everything you did today is worthless.

If you could only send an email with the location address, you'd be the hero-producer they expect you to be. You have two options: call you're mother and wake her up in the middle of the night and try to explain that: "you need her to get out of bed, turn on her ancient computer, sign into your email account find an email from weeks ago, and draft a response that you dictate to her."

OR... you can send an email from your outdated, falling apart, piece of shit cellphone right then and there. How you say? SMS gateway.

Below is the wikipedia chart showing: Carrier, Country, SMS number, and Text Format.

For original source and easier viewing of this information please visit wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateways

Check back later this week for an article on using Google SMS to search for info from that same crappy, outdated phone from the nineties... and I know that most of you have heard of or even used this service, but I'm always intrigued when the results of this low-tech approach are both quicker and more accurate than the almighty iPhone's.