VIDEO CENTER GIVES THE POWER OF MEDIA TO THE PEOPLE

A profession long antiquated, a scribe or scrivener is defined as a person who writes books or documents by hand. The modern day scribes at Scribe Video Center in West Philadelphia have no time for pencil and paper - there are social injustices and political inequalities to be dealt with.

Located on the corner of 44th and Chestnut, Scribe Video Center is a non-profit organization founded by filmmaker Louis Massiah in December 1982. “As a filmmaker, I am very interested in men and women who have made a conscious decision to dedicate their lives to work toward a higher, more civilized humanity,” says Massiah on the website. “In many ways, our society rewards us for accepting the status quo, so it takes great courage, and often times great personal costs, to dare to challenge the society to change; to progress to something better; to be more humane; to work for a society free from oppression.”

For over two decades, Scribe has been putting power in the form of video cameras and microphones, back where it belongs, to the people. Scribe “seeks to explore, develop and advance the use of electronic media, including video and audio, as artistic media and as tools for progressive social change.”

Nationally recognized and locally respected, Scribe Video Center provides the space, equipment and training to allow regular folks to become engaged and involved in how they are represented in the media and advocate for issues that are important to them. The folks of Scribe aim to create independent works focusing on the various social, political, cultural and economic issues facing people in their communities. Beyond simply documenting the issues, the films also celebrate the richness and power of united struggles and cultures.

Scribe Video Center provides a range of events like film screenings and lectures and professional workshops like “Recording Audio for MiniDV Production” and “Intro to Scriptwriting” at reasonable prices. They offer trainings to individuals and organizations in media, video and audio production. Along with the workshops that novice to established film makers from around the city and elsewhere, Scribe has developed various community projects focused on empowering the people they serve. Community Visions trains organizations and activists on how to create documentaries focusing on the issues important to them. Past documentaries created by communities are “Glance in the Life”, a film that takes a look at the lives and struggles of LGBTQ youth of the diaspora, and “Under the Baobab Tree”, a celebration of the history of the Pan-African Studies Community Education Program in North Philly.

Lending to the rich oral history of communities on a local level and human kind on a global level, Precious Places Community History Project, “reveals bypassed neighborhood sites as bright landmarks that surprise and inspire residents and visitors alike. Using the video documentary as a storytelling medium, neighborhood residents have come together to document the oral histories of their communities.” Additional projects include the Documentary History Project for Youth and a West Philadelphia public radio station, WPEB88.1.

Scribe Video Center offers everything we need to reclaim the power to capture the ills and thrills of what goes on in our communities, frame by frame.