A short while ago, nature-lover and VCAM member, Joanna Cummings, approached us with an idea and asked if she could use VCAM’s free public access resources to get her project off the ground. Her idea was to produce a blog “as a means to create social groups interested in sharing their thoughts, activities, videos, photos and knowledge in the areas of Vermont nature, agriculture and the environment.” Joanna indicated to us that she would likely need video production gear to go out into the community and shoot video content, digital editing facilities, a computer with Internet access, a couple different web-design applications, and access to video tutorials to help her get the ball rolling.

As it turns out, VCAM’s new workstation dedicated to web-design (a new iMac equipped with Adobe CS4 Web Premium) along with our video production gear, editing facilities, and subscription to the extensive Lynda.com video tutorial library, were the essential tools for her to get started. Over the last few weeks, Joanna experimented with different templates for her blog, using free web-based applications including Blogger and Ning, before deciding to go with Wordpress. Her goal was to have enough happening on her blog to launch it today, Earth Day 2009, and that she did. Please take a minute to check out Joanna’s new project, leave her a comment or two, and join in the greater conversation about preserving our natural environment by living thoughtfully on the land.

Watch Eva Sollberger’s latest Stuck in Vermont featuring VCAM! Hear many local cable access producers rhapsodize about the magic of television and the freedom of self-expression.

ACLU historian, Sam Walker, has published a PDF of an annotated list of good books on civil liberties. If you’re looking for some good research material on civil liberties and the Bill of Rights, this is an excellent place to start.

VCAM is hosting the link for public distribution with Mr. Walker’s approval.

Download the PDF by right clicking this link and choosing “save link as.”

Pursuant to a relatively new California statute, 12 Los Angeles public access studios are shutting down, killing a vibrant and celebrated community of volunteer TV producers. According to the LA Weekly, the mayor reallocated the funds that provided the TV studios, staff and equipment to other areas of government, leaving only governmental and educational access centers operating, thereby eliminating the free speec aspect of LA access…

… due to a state law written for AT&T by former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fall of 2006, cable-television companies are being allowed to escape a 31-year-old requirement to give back to the public from which they draw their riches. Lawmakers in a few weeks can finally shut up the little guys.

“It was clear when the law was written that it spelled the death knell of public access,” says Judy Dugan, research director of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in Santa Monica.

The LATimes offers some more perspective…

The new law is designed to make it easier for phone companies to enter into the lucrative cable market by relieving them of certain money-draining contractual obligations.

In Los Angeles, 12 public access studios that provided programming for 11 community channels have been closed by Time Warner Cable Inc. That means much of the city’s diverse, neighborhood-specific public access shows may disappear.

If that happens, Los Angeles cable subscribers would be losing an outlet for their particular communities’ programming, said David Hernandez, president of the Los Angeles Public Access Coalition.

“It’s the regional broadcasting capability that’s lost,” he said.

Twenty other states, including Texas, Nevada, Florida, Illinois and Michigan, have enacted legislation similar to California’s Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act, or DIVCA, according to the nonprofit Alliance for Community Media. In several of those states, the loss of production studios was bitterly fought by opposition groups to little avail.

One of the most divisive programs in VCAM’s 24-year history in terms of viewer response is calling it quits.  Subterranean SINema, produced by Magister Matthew G. Paradise, has aired its last episode on VCAM channel 15.  Matt began producing the show back in 1997 and over the years, “SubSIN” has been notable both as one of the shows that generated the most viewer response, and as a show with particularly high production values.  Matt used to edit his episodes of SubSIN at the channel 15 studios, but as his production skills improved and editing software became more readily available, he started producing the shows totally in his own home, from soup to nuts.

Matt writes…

 … somewhere in there also lurks the reality that much of the material the show was famous for can now be seen around the world by visiting online sites such as Break.com and YouTube. Back in the late-90s, SubSIN was highly sought after, whether its live transmission, VHS copies, or, later on, the DVD. But, alas, the Internet changed all of that and I, intelligently, must change with the times. If you loved the show, the spirit of Subterranean SINema certainly permeates the online world in ways public access television never could on its own. That’s my indirect way of saying that I love you, VCAM — and you need to put a streaming feed of your programming (not just a few shows) on the Internet. Merely a helpful, if not belabored, suggestion.

It was a very good time. Subterranean SINema, like so many things I do, serves as a roadmap through a period of my life — in this case, my 30s. SubSIN, believe it or not, prompted me to go back to college and get serious about video, and VCAM was instrumental in that regard, giving me exposure to editing, shooting, lighting, and producing an actual show. How can I not be grateful to both public access TV and that little controversial show monikered by a pentagram-trapped skull and crossbones?

VCAM is indeed looking at putting all locally-produced VCAM programming online — though probably in an on-demand way rather than as a 24/7 live stream.  There are some organizational concerns to tackle first, which are surprisingly more complex than the technical issues, which seem pretty straight forward.  Stay tuned for more info on that.

Matt also produced the show Satanism Today, which aired on VCAM’s channel 15 a few years ago.  As a result of Matt’s involvement here at VCAM, we are still sometimes asked if VCAM is the home of “that Satan channel.”   It’s interesting that featuring shows like Victory For You!, Calvary Life, Good News Broadcast, Key to the Kingdom, Time of God, Heavenly Sonshine, Revelations, Tomorrow’s World, Living Bread and the weekly Catholic mass (all shows currently in our playback rotation) doesn’t get people to ask us if we are the home of “that Jesus channel,” but I guess the word “Satan” is particularly memorable in a TV show title (take note, future VCAM producers!).

Good luck in your future endeavors, Matt!

I was delighted to discover a link to this video while bouncing around on Radiohead.com. Do you remember last fall when VCAM hosted a party for the Vermont International Film Festival and in attendance was Susan Buice, co-director (with Arin Crumley) of the feature film Four Eyed Monsters? Well it appears the dynamic duo has another project in the works, and the subject of this one should hit close to home for VCAM members. As Susan and Arin are never folks to be thwarted by the perils of independent media distribution, this time they’ve decided to take the media giants head-on and have set out, armed with a documentary, to protect the future of our internet. Watch, enjoy and please help others understand why net neutrality is important.

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

Watch this video to learn how content owners (like Sony) are trying to break our TVs.

Following their excellent publication, Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, American University’s Center for Social Media has released a new document aimed at amateur producers of online video: Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.  Since the internet is basically one giant, largely unrestricted open forum, it’s basically like a global public access channel where anyone can upload their content at will.  Many of the same legal challenges and questions regarding copyrighted works come up in both venues.  At VCAM we’ve been recommending AU’s documentary best practices publication to access users who wanted to learn more about copyright issues and fair use.  This document seems even more appropriate.  Copyfighter Cory Doctorow explains…

Fair use is a legally challenging area: it consists of four factors that judges can weigh when evaluating a claim of copyright infringement (judges can even disregard them or tweak them, based on common sense, as the Supreme Court did when they legalized VCRs in 1984). It’s very hard to know beforehand whether a use of a copyrighted work will be found fair or not — it requires careful analysis of previous caselaw and the direction in which the federal circuits are moving.

In constructing these principles, the Center for Social Media has done an enormous public service: they’ve created a plain-language document that is aimed at helping people who aren’t legal experts to navigate the muddy waters of fair use, to make use of the rights they have under the law and make better videos without getting into legal trouble.

Click here to download the document.

Here’s a neat and easily digestible animation from the folks over at Common Craft.