The Media Center’s Photo Gallery – A Call for Your Photos

The Media Center is launching a centralized web-based Photo Gallery where you can browse dozens of photos that reflect the people, activities, creativity, and vitality of our wonderful community.

To make sure this is truly the Media Center’s Photo Gallery, we need YOUR PHOTOS to make this a complete and exciting collection that reflects how you see what’s happening – we’d like to use photos you’ve taken in the past (and those you will take in the future).

The Photo Gallery is to include photos from TV Studio production shots, Zoom In field activities, classes, social get-togethers – everything that captures what the Media Center is all about.

If you have any photos you’d like to see posted on this site, simply contact our volunteer Photo Site Coordinator, Doug Kreitz at: dougkreitz@kreitzcreative.com

Doug will work with you to get your photos posted into the Media Center’s Photo Gallery as quickly as possible.

Take a look at the photos we’ve collected already at the photo hosting site and imagine how great it will look with your photos as well!

If you would like to buy a photo, they are available for a nominal fee.  Proceeds benefit the Media Center’s non-profit operations.  If you have questions, please contact, Doug.   And hey, thank you Doug!

Scott works with Sooji and Gene in the last Zoom In class

Local Heroes Screenings

It’s the sixth annual Local Heroes Week at the Media Center! The public is invited! During the week of March 18, 2012, we will honor the winners of our Local Heroes Awards. We kick off the event with a reception and free, public screening of highlights of the interviews with the Heroes at the Media Center. This will be followed by a week of programs about the winners, to be aired on the Media Center’s cable channels and our web site.

Reception information: Where: The Media Center, 900 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto When: Sunday, March 18, 4 – 6 pm RSVP: Louise at 650-494-8686 ext 36 or louise@midpenmedia.org Seating is limited and refreshments will be served so we would appreciate an RSVP.

Who are the real heroes of a community? Are they only those who repeatedly appear in the headlines? Or, perhaps, those who devote their lives bravely and selflessly--but silently--outside the limelight? The Mid-Peninsula has many such people who are quietly committing acts of heroism on a daily basis. The Media Center (the Midpeninsula Community Media Center) is honoring six of these unsung heroes from our service area. The winners will be showcased in a series of interviews that will air on the cable channels throughout the week of March 18 - 25 and then rebroadcast the following week in a two-hour block. (See times below.)

Nominations for the Local Heroes Award were solicited from the public. From those submitted, a Media Center committee selected the winners based on several criteria. In addition to outstanding achievement or contribution to the community, we were looking for people with engaging stories to tell for our televised series. We also chose people who would reflect the enormous diversity of our communities. Our winners vary in age, gender, ethnicity, geographical location, profession or field of interest and type of contribution.

We will kick off the week on Sunday evening with a 30-minute composite of highlights from all six interviews. Each night for the rest of the week, one “Hero” interview will be featured. The following Sunday, all of the full-length interviews will air back-to-back. Short “snippets”, or 5- minute versions, will also air on the cable channels between regular programming. (See below.)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS & PROGRAMS:

Sunday, March 18, 2010, at 4 pm: Reception and screening at the Media Center

Names, air dates, and contact information for the “Local Heroes” are as follows:

On Cable Channel 30 • Sunday, March 18, 8 pm: HIGHLIGHTS OF ALL THE WINNERS

• Monday, March 19, 9 pm: CRAIG DISERENS, co-founder of Village Harvest, a volunteer organization that feeds the hungry with otherwise un-harvested and unused fruit from local backyards.

• Tuesday, March 20, 9 pm: ABE ABULLARADE, who heads up the Center for a New Generation, a program administered by the Peninsula Boys and Girls Club, that tutors and mentors under-served middle-schoolers at four local schools.

• Wednesday, March 21, 9 pm: JUDY KRAMER, whose many volunteer activities include a Middle East Task Force that presided over the signing of an historic model peace agreement, the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in China in 1995 and a Kiwanis International project to eliminate tetanus infections in Third World infants.

• Thursday, March 22, 9 pm: SISTER TRINITAS, the creator of East Palo Alto’s Rosalie Rendu Center, which has served immigrant women and children for 14 years.

• Friday , March 23, 9 pm: MARY OJAKIAN, who volunteers at both the state and local levels to help prevent suicide and educate the public about it.

• Saturday, March 24, 9 pm: KELLY KOBZA, founding director of Greater Good, a non-profit that provides primary education and environmental sustainability in Haiti.

MEDIA CENTER SPONSORS PICTURE THE POSSIBILITIES at CINEQUEST 22

The Media Center was a sponsor this year of Cinequest's inaugural youth engagement and empowerment program - Picture the Possibilities.  PTP is a global initiative where Cinequest/PTP staff visit youth all over the world and make short movies with them.  This year's theme was "what would you do to change your world?"  Their first job site was East Palo Alto and then off to LA, New York, Beijing, Mexico City.  The world premier of this year's short youth films was held yesterday afternoon at the beautiful California Theater in San Jose, one of the many downtown venues Cinequest has taken over for its 22nd festival.

The youth participants from East Palo Alto were in attendance and came up on stage after the screening for a Q&A with CQ Co-founder Halfdan Hussey and some of the PTP staff, including Dustin Coleman and Marcela Villegas.  I single out Dustin and Marcela because they were the staff I saw the most, who came to the MC to borrow our equipment to help empower these kids.  PTP had their own cameras but needed boom poles, mics, lavs, C-stands, etc. which we were pleased to loan them.  And I was super excited to see an MC lavoliers on the collars of the various kids nd to know that our tripods were holding up the cameras taping each shot.

It takes a village to raise a child, and a collaboration to make a movie about a child.  Film is the ultimate collaborative experience.  If one person isn't pulling his weight, you've got a flop on your hands.  The quality and depth of the PTP shorts were amazing and revealed the dedication of CQ/PTP to giving youth a voice to shape their own destinies and then providing a word-class venue to be heard.

The PTP website is live so you can watch any of these films now right online.  If you see the PTP brochures or the Cinequest Festival Guide, you'll see us listed as a proud sponsor.   The Media Center slide which was designed by MC volunteer Michael Wyant ran before and after the PTP screenings.

If, after seeing these films, you want to get involved, send an email to CQ Co-Founder Kathleen Powell kpowell@cinequest.org.  Let her know your ideas and what you can do to help.   Kathleen has been working with Cinequest since its founding and is as passionate now as she was then.

And if you are interested in checking out the Festival, there are films running all day and all evening long through Sunday March 12.

And finally not to toot my own horn, I am blogging about some of the films at Cinequest. Check out:  "The Lady Versus The Irony Lady" or "Life Happens - Not Your Average Buddy Film".   And be on the lookout for my interview with Paly Grad '04 Brad Leong who directed the comedy "Dorfman" featuring Elliot Gould.