{"id":289759,"date":"2026-09-19T16:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/289759\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T16:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T16:54:09","slug":"inside-scribe-video-centers-work-with-philly-filmmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/289759\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Scribe Video Center\u2019s work with Philly filmmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kim Dinh came to Scribe Video Center with a documentary they wanted to make and a problem: They did not yet have all the skills to make it.<\/p>\n

Their project, \u201cAmerican Worker: The Labor to Belong,\u201d was still in its early stages, and Dinh needed to learn camera operation, cinematography and editing. In 2023, they came to Scribe for classes that could help them move the film from idea to production. Before that, they had made videos and contributed to documentary projects as an illustrator, but directing a feature-length film was new ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit crazy,\u201d Dinh said. \u201cIt did feel a little crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Founded in 1980 by Philadelphia filmmaker Louis Massiah, Scribe Video Center is a West Philadelphia nonprofit that helps people make films, learn visual media skills and use documentaries to tell stories about themselves and their communities. Massiah describes Scribe as \u201cfundamentally a teaching institution.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The center offers workshops, screening programs, youth filmmaking, the Film Scholars Program, the Precious Places Community History Project and a community radio station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Massiah started Scribe, Philadelphia had filmmakers, but he said the city lacked the kind of media arts center he had seen in Boston and New York where people could learn from each other and access equipment. Today \u2014 whether it\u2019s on their iPhone or a handheld DSLR \u2014 nearly everyone carries a camera. In the early 1980s, Massiah said, access to a camera was \u201cextraordinarily rare.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a place where people could have access to both equipment and the knowledge \u2014 and also to each other \u2014 really was something that seemed quite important,\u201d he said. \u201cSomething that Philadelphia could benefit from.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Scribe, Massiah encourages individuals to use film to express themselves and start conversations about their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to see films at the multiplex like everybody or I\u2019ll see films that are being streamed,\u201d said Massiah. \u201cBut film has a civic value, film has a community building value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scribe began modestly. For its first several years, it operated in free space at Brandywine Workshop on South Broad Street, with Massiah working on it after hours and on weekends while he worked full-time as a producer at WHYY. It later moved to a building near 13th and Cypress streets, then to West Philadelphia in the early 2000s. In 2018, after years of adding programs, Scribe opened its current space on Lancaster Avenue.<\/p>\n

At Scribe, some people come for a single workshop, others move through longer programs. The Film Scholars Program is structured to take adults from planning to production management to technical skills, a 14-week production session, and post-production workshops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ashley Whiteside, a therapist and social worker by day, joined the Film Scholars Program in fall 2025; she calls the program her \u201ccommunity MFA.\u201d First inspired to join Scribe by movies she saw at the North Philadelphia History Festival<\/a> (which returns next week with a special focus on John Coltrane!), Whiteside is now working on a documentary about her relationship with her father called \u201cDutiful Daughters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScribe is a community place that\u2019s open and available for any person who is interested in telling a story,\u201d said Whiteside. \u201cThey will always be able to support you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Passionate about film before working with Scribe, she says she\u2019s learned some things she can\u2019t \u201cun-learn\u201d and now watches films more closely, but her new skills have helped people tell stories that otherwise would\u2019ve gone untold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been saying that this is my second act,\u201d said Whiteside. \u201cI started my work in social work because I wanted to help people, and I think that film can also be a vehicle for that, so it\u2019s still the same mission. It\u2019s just a different modality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Ashley Whiteside adjusts a camera in the Scribe Video Center on Sept. 18, 2026. (Davis Cuffe\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n

Dinh\u2019s benefit from Scribe has been a bit more tangible. They received a $2,500 planning grant from Scribe, which helped them travel for interviews for their film. Later in their filmmaking process, they received a $3,500 finishing grant, which helped them work with a motion graphics specialist and composer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting their film without prior filmmaking skills and with funding often elusive for independent filmmakers, Scribe made a first feature documentary feel possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think of why, like how this project even exists,\u201d they said, \u201cit\u2019s probably because Scribe is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scribe\u2019s funding comes from a mix of local funders, individual donors, distribution and exhibition of work, and public arts support. The William Penn Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, People\u2019s Media Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the City of Philadelphia are among its supporters. Massiah said Scribe had grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities that were cut by the Trump administration, then later received funding again at a lower level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, he said Scribe\u2019s biggest help isn\u2019t monetary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest resource of Scribe really is the people: the people who teach at Scribe, and the people who come to learn at Scribe, and the people who present films at Scribe,\u201d said Massiah. \u201cSo that is a huge resource that may not necessarily show up on the balance sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those people range widely in age. Massiah recognized one individual, Willa Cofield, an educator and activist who came to Scribe in her late 70s wanting to make a film about Enfield, North Carolina. She has since made three films, he said. Massiah also mentioned David Block, a legally blind filmmaker who took workshops at Scribe and went on to make about a dozen films.<\/p>\n

Kamani Bright, a high school student, first came to Scribe about five years ago after his mother told him about a filmmaking program. He had liked movies and cartoons, but had not thought seriously about making films himself. Through the Documentary History Project for Youth, he said students choose subjects, handle camera work, conduct interviews and make editing decisions. He is now in his fifth year with the program and working on a film about Tustin Playground in West Philadelphia. In the future, he said he hopes to make films like those of his favorite director, Spike Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s changed what I want to do in my life,\u201d said Bright. \u201cI want to go to college and have a career in filmmaking, and that stems from my first year at Scribe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. Kim Dinh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[227,120305,69,71,70,120306,14896],"class_list":["post-289759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-education","tag-north-philadelphia-history-festival","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-scribe-video-center","tag-west-philly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}