Instagram debuting thriller movie Shield5

In a first-of-its-kind experiment that some are calling "social cinema", Instagram is debuting a movie in 28 instalments of 15 seconds each. Anthony Wilcox's thriller Shield5 will be shown on the online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking platform starting February.

The plot of the movie revolves around a security driver John Swift (played by Christian Cooke), who tries to find out the truth about the false acquisition against him leading to an arrest. He tries to run away from the police, and those who he believes have pulled him into a diamond heist that resulted in the death of a colleague.

Wilcox is the creator and director of the movie. Mark Hopkins and Declan Reddington produced the film along with Julian Bird of Lorton Entertainment.

"Each 15-second episode will be accompanied by a photograph that also will be an intrinsic part of the story," Lorton Entertainment said in a statement to ScreenDaily.

This is yet another attempt at what the producers call "social cinema". With increasing reach of social media platforms, content producers are exploring new ways of reaching out to their customers.

Last month, video-sharing app Vimeo launched Share the Screen, dedicated to women filmmakers and producers. Another photo-sharing platform Snapchat is said to be working on a similar idea of bringing exclusive video content on the platform.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, claims to have over 400 million monthly active users globally and half of them use Instagram on a daily basis. Last year in September, Instagram released an update that could allow users to record and post 15-second-long videos on the platform, while advisers could post 30-second long videos. It is said that looking at the growing number of advertisers, Instagram is increasing the ad length to 60 seconds.