Earlier this month Somerville’s SCATV sent an invitation to their June 20 Community Vault screening. A news article previewing the celebration appeared just before, detailing how they put it together. But for those of us who couldn’t make the trip, how did it go?
Erica Jones: “We had around 50 people come. It was magical to see it all come together in a theater with people reacting to different clips. Peter from NH came down too!”
Pete Johnson, President of the New Hampshire Coalition for Community Media attended the screening. “It was great to see what has been happening in access over the last 35 years from a more urban perspective than we have in New Hampshire,” he said.
“It’s nice to see so many people taking advantage of their public access facilities and the amazing programming produced by the featured access centers over the years.” Although times have changed, he found it interesting that many of the issues have remained the same locally, nationally and politically.
Johnson said that Somerville Community Access Television’s Erica Jones and her crew did an amazing job putting together some very disconnected video clips from many sources into a fluid program that was both provocative and entertaining. 
Clips ranged from an interview with a young Barack Obama at Harvard to Somerville’s answer to the 1980’s USA Network TV program Dance Party USA. “The varied clips were put together in a way that advance to production as a whole,” said Johnson.
He said that to his knowledge, nothing similar to Community Vault had ever been done in New Hampshire. He plans to see if there would be any interest amongst NH based access centers to highlight historical content from the Granite State. He would also like to see if it would be possible to host a screening of SCATV’s Community Vault for NHCCM members. “I think that the idea of showcasing community programming regionally can only help to spark enthusiasm from program producers and interest from other community members in using public access to tell their stories.” All-in-all, he was glad that he made the trip down from New Hampshire and hopes that the Community Vault project can get some wider distribution and increased involvement.
SCATV used a mini-grant from ACM Northeast for publicity of this event. “What’s this grant thing?” you say. Read about our mini-grant program and find the link for your application here.
Thanks to Pete for the photos and his review.