Commercial Drive Video Project
Sponsor: Templeton Foundation
Youth Representative: Jorah
The Commercial Drive Video Project is community based and youth produced, with the intent to connect a diverse range of youth in the community through a series of youth-driven participatory workshops to research neighbourhood issues.
A number of video shorts will be produced, screened and distributed and ultimately a handbook will be created to outline a model for other youth communities. The Commercial Drive Video Project aims to connect with and nurture a society of active young artists with an interest using media as a tool to engage communities.
- The project will produce and exhibit a pilot series of community-based, youth-produced videos that explore issues of identity, citizenship, enfranchisement, culture, arts, and neighbourhood livability.
- The project team of producers, community facilitators and researchers will serve as a hub and distribution facility for other youth interested in the capacity-building abilities of video.
- The project will create a network of young East Vancouver video-makers, and also provide a model of democratic, inclusive, youth-driven community based video upon which other neighbourhoods could base similar projects.
Organizers of this project are concerned with the increasing homogenization of mainstream media, and the negative or poorly developed portrayals of youth culture in the mass media. They also believe they are increasingly alienated from their own communities and neighbourhoods. They recognize that they are occupying an important and often ignored demographic. They want to address these issues by using this project to connect with both other youth, and their community members, who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to offer their perspectives and tell their stories.
The goals of the Commercial Drive Video Project are:
- To organize and participate in workshops on alternative forms of citizenship, history of community video, community mapping and methods of storytelling;
- To investigate, research stories, ideas and people in the neighbourhood;
- To connect with other youth who are interested in community-based video;
- To produce three to five short digital video projects about youth in their community, with mentoring by local filmmakers;
- Program a series of community-based free screening and events that combine videos with the work of other local young musicians and artists; and,
- To evaluate their successes and failures by writing a handbook for future projects.
Contact Information
- Templeton Foundation
Contact: Marco Puharic
- Youth Contact: Jorah
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