There is an extensive collection of community films and videos in the archive of the Broadcasting Trust produced since 1980. Many of these programmes are now available for viewing on the web. These are programmes made about community media or programmes made for community and local broadcasting.

Some of the early exploratory programmes were produced on Super 8 film. These are not of a broadcastable quality. Others were shot on a variety of low grade video formats or were edited from VHS copies under less than ideal circumstances. So allowances are necessary when viewing some of these programmes ..... !!!!

However, even the 'degraded' material contains some interesting footage or historic moments in community production. There are clips from the 'workers' film movement' of the 1930s, some 1970s footage from UK and Dutch community cable channels, records of CND and trades union demonstrations in the UK in the 1980s, student TV channels from Sweden and Germany in the 1990s and films recording international political solidarity.

A number of these examples of community media have been edited for educational use on DVD. They are published under the title Community Television - Key 'Texts'.

In addition, the Broadcasting Trust publishes a growing collection of cultural programmes for broadcasting on community channels or for general viewing on DVD. These programmes have been collected under the titles: Writers' Stories, Artists' Stories and Directors' Stories.

Web Archive

Twenty five hours of the Broadcasting Trust's archive have been located on www.showcase.commedia.org.uk. Where indicated these programmes are among those currently available to order on DVD.

Each programme has been encoded on the web at three levels of compression to enable on-line access through a variety of bandwidths.

 

A BRIEF PERSPECTIVE