Community Visions
Community Visions teaches documentary video-making skills to members of community organizations in Philadelphia, Chester and Camden. Community Visions is a part of Scribe's mission to explore, develop and advance the use of video, film, audio and interactive technology as artistic tools and as tools for progressive social change.
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Write, Shoot, Edit & Mobilize!
Scribe's Community Visions is a 10-12 month project. Currently, the program is mid-cycle. We will be seeking applicants in the winter of 2009-2010 for the next round of videos. Interested groups should stay tuned, visit the Community Visions Application page, or contact Corey Chao, the Community Programs Coordinator, with other questions. Please call 215.222.4201 or email corey@scribe.org.
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Since 1990, Scribe Video Center has guided over 75 community and activist organizations through the production of mini-documentaries and neighborhood portraits that help communities address important social and political issues. The program is a powerful way to document community concerns, celebrate cultural diversity, and comment on the human condition. We work with local non-profit groups whose members have important stories to tell but limited access to the means of making videos. We invite applications from all groups, including people of color, young people, senior citizens, immigrants, the disabled and poor people.
The selected groups — usually four each year — make videos about issues that are important to their constituents. In recent years, groups have made oral histories, documented neighborhood problems, or created neighborhood portraits. The project is free to the group. Scribe provides the instruction, technical assistance, equipment, tape and other expenses necessary to produce a five- to fifteen-minute video. When the documentary is complete, we host a premiere screening and help the groups plan how they will use their videos.
While Scribe provides all the necessary technical assistance to produce your videotape, groups must have a strong idea and committed individuals to see the project to completion. Participating groups will acquire new skills while discovering new ways to reach their constituency — through video.
Watch a scene from Tina Morton's film Philadelphia's Scribe to see Community Visions in action.
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Current Community Visions Projects
The 2009-2010 Community Visions projects are in full swing, preparing for their premiere in December, 2009.
Bridgeway, Inc, a community center in Tioga, will produce a documentary highlighting the daily work of the organization through the life-stories of its current resident staff members. Through this narrative, the video will illustrate how a community’s people are its most basic and necessary resource.
Members of Chester’s Co-op will be making a video that addresses health and food access issues in Chester—a city with no supermarket and limited access to fresh food—with the ultimate goal of inviting new residents to become actively involved in their health and community by joining the Co-op. The video will demystify the co-op concept by demonstrating the benefits of membership.
Every Mother is a Working Mother will produce a short documentary that will tell the stories of mothers and grandmothers who are fighting to get their kids out of foster care. Through these testimonies, the video will explain how poverty, lack of housing, poor legal representation, racism, sexism, and a system with little accountability are responsible for the frequently unjust separation of mothers from their children.
Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project
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2008-2009 Community Visions Projects
For more information about purchasing the 2008-2009 series of Community Visions, please call (215) 222-4201.
New Faces
By the 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund
The Training and Upgrading Fund aspires to fill the region's lack of nursing and allied health professionals with members of the community who are nontraditional candidates for these positions. The Training Fund assits students at all levels to upgrade their academic skills and become the "New Faces" who answer the challenges of the shortage. The film follows several graduates of the training program, portraying their histories, their current occupations and their reflections of the program.
Bikes Work
By Neighborhood Bike Works
On the corner of 60th and Vine in West Philadelphia, youth are building bikes and breaking stereotypes at Neighborhood Bike Works, a non-profit where youth recycle old bikes as they acquire technical expertise and improve their bike riding skills. Their video shows young people working hard, getting along with each other and taking an interest in the history of their community and NBW's role in the neighborhood. The video follows students as they earn bikes in a summer class led by past graduates of the program.
Walls and Doors
By the Jubilee School
The Jubilee School is using years of interviews with community elders to demonstrate the value of an older generation's tales of courage and resistance by underscoring the power of these stories to inspire respect, pride and activism in young people. "Walls and Doors" honors elders as both witnesses and creators of under-told parts of history. The film carries on a legacy which has given the Jubilee youth a transformative sense of the power of their voices and their ability to create change.
Renaissance on Sacred Ground
By the Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble Alumnae and the Village of Arts and Humanities
“Renaissance on Sacred Ground” is a 15 minute documentary about the healing power of African cultural arts to transform the lives of everyday people. Through the doors of Ile Ife (house of love) came the spirit that builds community and connects generations to the rich history and traditions from Africa.
Community Visions is made possible by support from Bread and Roses Community Fund, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Union Benevolent Association and Ann Greene.