Happy Fourth of July! SCAT will be closed from Friday, July 3 until Monday, July 6. 

Award Video click here

The news is out! SCAT won the 2009 national Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Hometown Award for Overall Excellence. This is the fourth win for SCAT in five years, and is a testament to the quality and variety of programs produced by SCAT members and staff. The presentation of the award will take place in July at the National ACM Conference in Portland, OR. Congratulations to SCAT members, the Board of Directors, SCAT staff, and all of Somerville.

 
Brazil @ SCAT is a new initiative to serve Somerville's vibrant Brazilian community. We now offer production classes in Portuguese, and beginning on June 24, a Brazilian film screening series.

For more information on Brazil@SCAT in Portuguese, visit the link below.
Brazil@SCAT

An evening of outdoor experimental and animated films.

Somerville Community Access Television (SCAT) and the Somerville Arts Council are pleased to announce a call for entries to its "Somerville... in Shorts" program: An August 14th (raindate August 15) evening of experimental and animated short films projected on a large outdoor screen in the heart of Union Square. Films will be screened at nightfall, with live music to start during the late afternoon.

Filmmakers: to make this event a success, we need YOU! Do you have work yearning to break free and dash across a luminous screen in public? Is there something you’re still working on and would like to share with your fellow Somerville community members? This is a great chance to showcase the talent and innovation of local filmmakers – we encourage you to send in an application!

The program is produced by the Somerville Community Access Television (SCAT) as part of the 2009 ArtsUnion event series. We are pleased to offer a small honorarium to those filmmakers whose work is selected for the screening.

For more information, download the details at the link below. Entries must be received by Wednesday, July 1, 2009.

Attachment	Size
InShortsCall.pdf	146.37 KB

 Congratulations to all the teen producers who participated in the Somerville Youth Film Festival on May 6 at the Somerville Theatre. The screening room was packed with over 50 people who were there to watch films produced by teens of SCAT’s Next Generation Producers programs with Somerville Cares About Prevention and the Somerville High School Media Club, as well as Somerville High School media class projects. The energy and humor of the projects made the evening a lot of fun. Espionage, Rasta culture, duck boats, and Rubricks Cubes all played a role in the videos.

 Home Inc, a non profit that brings media training into the public schools, brought in an AmericorpsVista media instructor, Craig Leach, to teach the year’s high school media classes. His classes created digital stories, documentaries, and dramas. The Next Generation Producers workshop with Somerville Cares About Prevention created two dramatic public service announcements on the issues of teen depression and drug abuse., and the high school media club created documentaries, and a drama about the dangers of spreading rumors.

 After the screening, which included a “behind the scenes” video, all the producers received certificates for achievement. Thanks go to Alan Michel and Craig Leach of Home Inc., Charlie Lafaucie from the Somerville Public Schools, Lovelee Heller, coordinator of the youth group of Somerville Cares About Prevention, Daniel Marques and Prince Charles from Somerville Community Access Television, the City of Somerville Health Department, and the Somerville Theatre for donating the screening room. 

Somerville Community Access Television’s (SCAT) youth media program, Next Generation Producers, in collaboration with Somerville Cares About Prevention and Somerville High School, will hold the Third Annual Somerville Youth Film Festival on May 6 at 7:00pm at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square. The Somerville Youth Film Festival is free and open to the public.

The festival includes short movies, animations, public service announcements, documentaries and news packages that were produced by students of the Next Generation Producers and the High School’s TV & Media Production class.  As they created their video projects, students learned the complete process of  media production, including research, scriptwriting, camera and audio skills, and digital editing.

According to Daniel Marques, Youth Programs and Membership Coordinator at SCAT-TV, "The film festival is great a way to acknowledge the talent and efforts of these creative young people. We hope it will encourage more students to get involved with media programs at SCAT and at Somerville High School because the skills they learn are applicable to so many areas of study and careers. We also have a lot of fun working as a group on projects they choose."

The photo above shows the teens of SPF100, the youth group of Somerville Cares About Prevention. They created two dramatic PSA’s on the topics of suicide prevention and the dangers of teen marijuana use.

Somerville supporters of free speech, localism, and community media should be aware of new legislation put forward in January 2009 by Senator Panagiotakos of Lowell to benefit Verizon.

This bill would greatly tilt the balance of power in cable TV franchise negotiations away from city governments, and towards cable companies, including Verizon. Currently, each city negotiates contracts with all its cable TV companies to provide for the city’s particular communication needs. Those needs may include customer service guarantees, fiber connections between city buildings, and increased financial support for its public access channels. Under the new bill, cities would not be allowed to deny a cable company’s application for a franchise even if the company refuses to provide for the city’s cable related needs. And if the city does deny the application, the company can sue in court. In addition, it sets new, strict limits on the amount of money a city can request for capital improvements to its cable facilities.

This bill is not even supported by the other cable companies, Comcast and RCN, because it gives unfair market advantage to Verizon as a new cable provider. It does not benefit communities, only Verizon’s bottom line. Verizon’s argument is that it is too difficult to negotiate fairly with each town, despite the fact that the company already has negotiated contracts with 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

Mayor Curtatone has publicly invited Verizon to apply for a cable TV franchise in Somerville but so far the company has not been interested. If the bill passed, however, Somerville would be impacted because it would also apply to the other companies when their franchises are up for renewal.

The current system of cable franchising has worked well in MA since 1973. It’s not broken, why “fix” it? Let your state senator and representative know you are against the bill called “An Act Promoting Consumer Choice and Competition for Cable Service” because it does neither, and takes away the right of the community to negotiate thoughtfully and fairly.

To see Senate Bill #1531 visit the link below.
 http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st01/st01531.htm 

 Learn to create hand-drawn animations using a variety of drawing and under-the-camera techniques. Taught by award-winning local animator, Karen Aqua, the six- session workshop will be hands-on and intensive, with the group creating an animation together. For two sessions, renowned composer/musician Ken Field will help the class create a soundtrack for the film. The last session is a screening of the finished project for students and friends.

 Somerville Cares About Prevention will hold its Sixth Annual Community Addictions Speak Out at SCAT on April 1, 2009 from 7:00 to 8:00pm. The topic is how access to marijuana and other drugs affects Somerville youth. The live TV show will be hosted by Nancy Bacci, Somerville's Youth Programming Coordinator. The panel will include Somerville Police Chief Anthony Holloway and five Somerville youth who have experience with the topic.

Watch the show live on Channel 3, or check the programming page for a schedule of repeat showings.

 

On Saturday February 14 SCAT was packed with architects, professors, and Union Square residents for an exhibit of Green Line station designs by students from three urban design classes at the Boston Architectural College (BAC). The students' designs demonstrated various possible locations and configurations, providing Somervillians an opportunity to brainstorm what we want for our future station in Union Square. The presentations were be videotaped for later airing on SCAT. This event was sponsored by Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership (STEP). See the video here. http://www.scatstaffvlog.blogspot.com/