Scribe Video Center will be closed for the day on January 20, 2020 (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

When you want to tell your story using digital media, you come to Scribe Video Center for training and support. For 37 years we have been providing access to equipment, running educational workshops, programming screenings, and distributing important digital media works. We are giving a voice to populations working in the documentary form that would otherwise go unheard.

Please support our work with a contribution that will allow Scribe to continue providing the facilities, tools, and instructions to those in underserved communities - so that together we can learn, grow, and communicate using media. 

Your contribution will help us reach our goal of raising $40,000!

The Philadelphia Independent Media Fund awards grants to Philadelphia area independent media makers with digital video and audio projects in three areas:

• Planning - for projects in the planning/pre-production stage - awards of up to $2,000
• Next Level - for projects that require a professional consultant to bring to the next level of production - awards of up to $500
• Finishing - for projects in the postproduction stage with an anticipated completion date of twelve months from the grant award date - awards of up to $3,500

Through the Precious Places Community History Project, each group will plan, shoot, and edit a video about their “precious place” with the help of a filmmaker and a research scholar hired by Scribe.  While these facilitators will work closely with participants throughout the course of production, the work itself—the planning, writing, and filming—will be done by members of the community groups. 

This program is free for organizations in Philadelphia, Camden and adjoining counties. No prior experience in filmmaking is required.

The Documentary History Project for Youth is an annual after-school, weekend and summertime digital media production workshop for middle and high school students. Each year, youth participants create short documentary films as a way to explore some aspect of the social, political and cultural history of Philadelphia.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE: Youth enrolled in grades 8 – 12. No prior video making experience is necessary.

WHAT’S INVOLVED: Interested applicants must be willing to commit to 5 hours per week during the school year and up to 10 hours per week in the summer. Participants are paid an honorarium for their participation.

We are presently seeking the assistance of humanities scholars and social scientists from the fields of history, urban studies, anthropology, folklore and sociology to work as facilitators on Precious Places. 

Production facilitators provide instruction to members of the community organization in the skills necessary to produce a short video, including production management and editing.

Facilitators will receive an honorarium for their work.

Five powerful short films explore the resilience of kinship and communities for neighborhoods in Philadelphia: Villa African Cólobo (USA, 2006, 11 min) by Grupo Motivos; St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia: Immigration & Filipino Transformation (USA, 2007, 11 min) by Filipino American National Historical Society; Hayti: An Oasis (USA, 2010, 10 min) by Passtown Baptist Church; DHS, Give Us Back Our Children! (USA, 2010, 18 min) by the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network; Life After Life (USA, 2018, 15 min) by Nadja Mogileski (Philly Free School) & Chamar Dancy-Kegler (Belmont Charter High School).

CO-SPONSORED BY WOLF HUMANITIES CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

On June 30, 2013, members of The Nest Collective, a Nairobi-based arts collective, began collecting and archiving the stories of persons identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex from Kenya. Stories of Our Lives consists of five black and white vignettes that document the queer Kenyan experience.

Livestream Q&A with members of the Nest Collective

A screening and discussion in collaboration with The Free Library’s One Book, One Philadelphia; a citywide program engaging Philadelphians in readings and discussions around a single book, this year’s novel is There, There by Tommy Orange. 

Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac uses dance and music to highlight indigenous history and the retention of cultural heritage in the context of modern immigration. 

Films include: Aztec Dance in Philadelphia (USA, 2005, 15 min) and Belmont Grove: Reclaiming Coaquannock (USA, 2016, 9 minutes) 

Join LA-based filmmaker Billy Woodberry as he discusses various techniques and approaches to working with archival material and footage. Woodberry is a narrative and documentary filmmaker, and a longtime faculty member at CalArts within their Film and Video Department. His last two films, And when I die, I won't stay dead and A Story From Africa each visualize and give texture to the archives that inspired the films.

A Story from Africa brings to life a photographic archive of the 1907 Portuguese occupation of territory in the south of Angola belonging to the Cuamato people. 

Billy Woodberry is a key figure in the Black independent filmmaker movement known as “the L.A. Rebellion.” His film Bless Their Little Hearts received two awards at the Berlin Film Festival in 1984 and was placed on the National Film Registry in 2013.  

Prepare for your upcoming production by learning organizational strategies for breaking down your script or treatment into an achievable shooting schedule that takes into account all the details of production. Learn how to plan, organize and execute your vision by honing in your production management skills. Please submit a treatment or detailed description of your project at least one week before the first day of the workshop

Bringing together short films produced by five youth media programs in Philadelphia, POPPYN, Big Picture Alliance, PhillyCAM Youth, Lil’ Filmmakers, and Scribe’s Documentary History Project for Youth, this screening is a “shout-out” to the stellar work being created by youth mediamakers around the city. Q&A with filmmakers to follow. 

Mina “SayWhat” Llona, a regular host on Philadelphia’s 103.9 FM WPHI and host of “Mina’s House” on SiriusXM The Heat, will provide an overview of the skill sets necessary to be a solid broadcaster and execute a meaningful show, whether it’s music, talk, or news program.