Precious Places
Precious Places is an opportunity for neighborhood residents to be the authors of their communities' histories. While experienced videomakers and humanities/social science consultants work with each participating community group to facilitate the documentary process, neighborhood residents conduct the research about the place, arrange for interviews with elders and other neighborhood subjects, and operate the cameras, sound, and lighting equipment themselves. The weeks of training will culminate in a single, city-wide day of filming on October 25th, 2008, followed by a premiere in February/March, 2009.
Each project will document a community’s past through a variety of video recording techniques, including oral history narratives provided by neighborhood residents. The stories and memories residents share capture the life of the community and provide an opportunity for all city residents to become aware of the area’s unique neighborhoods. It also provides a chance to look at how development policies impact a neighborhood’s “precious places.” While some communities are thriving, others face uncertain futures. Producing a documentary videotape provides a chance to honor the local experience and to raise awareness about the richness of community histories.
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Announcing this year's Precious Places projects!
In the midst of such substantial change, these documentaries record the stories of "precious places" in neighborhoods throughout the city. From the Northeast to the South, from West Philadelphia to Camden, the participating groups this year are both compelling and diverse.
Awbury Arboretum, East Germantown
Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, Northeast Philadelphia
Bra Buddha Ransi Temple, South Philadelphia
Camden Places of Worship, Camden, NJ
Center in the Park, Germantown
Greenbelt Knoll, Northeast Philadelphia
Manayunk Canal, Manayunk
Oaklyn Memorial Library, Oaklyn, Camden County, NJ
The Unity Garden, Southwest Philadelphia
40th and Lancaster Intersection, West Philadelphia
To read more about this year's projects, click here.
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Precious Places DVDs Available for Purchase!
While tourists head straight for the city's official "Historic District" and native Philadelphians think they have seen it all, Scribe Video Center's Precious Places Community History Project reveals bypassed neighborhood sites as bright landmarks that surprise and inspire residents and visitors alike. Using video documentary as a storytelling medium, neighborhood residents come together to document the oral histories of their communities.
In the past three years Scribe Video Center has collaborated with dozens of community groups to produce 42 neighborhood histories, with ten more beginning production this August. Through this program, Philadelphia now joins the ranks of other cities such as New York and Los Angeles in having a citywide oral history project. With Precious Places, however, the community members themselves create their own videos about the people and places that make their neighborhoods unique.
Ordering DVDs of Precious Places Community History Project
The complete 3 DVD series seen on WHYY TV 12 is available for purchase.
Precious Places Community History Project Vol. 1
Precious Places Community History Project Vol. 2
Precious Places Community History Project Vol. 3
Conceived as a way to mark the 20th anniversary of Scribe Video Center, the Precious Places video documentaries celebrate not only Scribe's history of innovative programs in the media arts, but also Philadelphia's richness of neighborhoods, buildings, public spaces and landmarks. They record community memories and help define where we live at a time when so many of the city's memories are undergoing so much change.
Scribe had long felt that Philadelphia lacked but deserved a compiled oral history of its streets, squares, monuments, and buildings, where social and cultural richness have led to the development of complex, diverse and vibrant communities. Through more than two decades of work with individuals and groups, of teaching and guiding people as they made documentaries that brought their dreams and visions to life, we knew how many more stories were out there just waiting to be told. And we shared with others concerns about the disinterest, deterioration, gentrification, unfamiliarity and even misinformation that endanger so much of the region. Community oral history, we thought, was an ideal way to spread the words and the sights of these precious places and to celebrate them and the people who cherish them.
Funding for Precious Places Community History Project is provided by
the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, the Claneil Foundation, Independence Foundation, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, National Endowment for the Arts and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Equipment and In-Kind Support came from Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., Temple University-Film and Media Arts, University of the Arts-Communications Department and Swarthmore College. The United States Geological Survey provided use of aerial maps.
Special thanks to Philadelphia Folklore Project, Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Center for Africana Studies- University of Pennsylvania, Third World Coalition of American Friends Service Committee, Maxine Griffith, Helen Cunningham, Elijah Anderson, Tukufu Zuberi, Carol Davis, Susan Phillips and The White Dog Cafe.