The cell phone, camera, or drone in your hand makes you our crew. #TeenTigerTV youth are the video producers and editors. No technical skills required – Just Love of Wallingford!
Ever captured a stunning sunset over Wallingford or a video of the first snowfall or a visitor you welcome to your yard? Your personal moments can become part of our town’s collective history. Wallingford is a town of stories, farmland, open spaces which we share with creatures of all kinds. We believe the best people to tell our stories from our backyards, windows, and walkable spaces are you, the ones living them. Contributed Media is our way of turning your personal snapshots and short clips into a collective visual history for everyone to enjoy. Here is how you can help tell the story of Wallingford.”
Step 1: Snap a photo or clip of something uniquely Wallingford or in the moment on our magnificent plant.
Step 2: Email it to movie@wpaa.tv. This submission process provides us with permission to use your content. You can identify the location and include a description (optional).
Step 3: Watch your contribution on Comcast Channel 1070 or WPAA-TV’s YouTube.
Step 4: Share and encourage others to join you.
The common idea in the #TeenTigerTV Contributed Media Project is we share Wallingford but see it from different vantage points. Many sunsets, rainbows, first snowfall or enormous ones, or critters visiting our yards have many of us reaching for our cameras; then sharing on Social Media. What if we could see the seasons change, our encounters with nature, our favorite places, and other things Wallingford, more collectively?
“From students in our youth programs to retirees capturing local landmarks, this project brings generations together through a shared lens.” Tim Lopez, Youth Mentor
With a camera in nearly everyones pocket anyone can contribute to content creation from where they are. Content can be crowd-sourced around an idea and produced into something representing many views. It is the coming together of people across generations as neighbors and fans of Wallingford, with different skills and vantage points agreeing to a common idea that defines community. Over 70 people have contributed to this project since January 2024. You can be a contributor too!
Focus on the Environment: We prioritize shots of our community spaces, buildings, seasonal weather, and community decorations. Grass Roots Fund, a New England Fund that prioritizes our planet and our relationship to it, helped fund our youth leader position for this initiative.
Privacy First: Please avoid sending images or videos where individual faces are the primary focus. We want to capture the vibe of the town while respecting everyone’s privacy.
Wide Angles: Landscapes and “b-roll” style footage (like the wind in the trees or a quiet street at dusk) are preferred but not required. They are the best suited for TV productions.
Community Media brings people together to produce video content. It is not about where you see the content, or the resources used to produce it; it is about coming together to engage, inspire, educate or entertain. Most Social media is a person sharing something they did, think, or saw on platforms. They can be one of houndreds or thousands with a common interest. Each person participates from their point-of-view. Common interests can be viewed collectively with a hashtag; but a true collective experience is rare. This can be ours.
Help us bridge the gap between individual moments and a shared community experience. Your experiences can be part of our community memories: Submit your pictures to movie@wpaa.tv.
There is no need to wait, submit your first image or clip today.
To recap: Let’s make a ‘community media’ videos together! Your Vision, Our Community: The Power of Contributed Media
Contributed Media means content—specifically pictures and short video clips—that is crowd-sourced from various individuals in our community and then edited/produced collectively to represent many different views around a common idea about Wallingford.
It is defined by:
- Crowd-Sourcing: Anyone with a camera can submit content (photos of sunsets, nature, or favorite places) via email to movie@wpaa.tv.
- Collective View: The goal is to move beyond individual social media sharing to see things, like the changing seasons in Wallingford, more collectively.
- Community Production: The submitted content is used by the #TeenTigerTV youth media program to produce a video that becomes a community memory, which is then shared on social media, cablecast on WPAA-TV, and uploaded to YouTube.
More about Community Media
Did you know, community Media originated before Social Media? In the 1960s, people got together to learning technology to tell local stories. Public Access TV stations popped up across the nation as cableTV expanded. Cable TV is not expanding anymore but the publicly managed resources to create video content still exist. Today, community content creation does not depend on public resources; however, it still requires people coming together in the public interest around an idea.
WPAA-TV and Community Media Center hosts the #TeenTigerTV youth media progam. Our purpose is to serve our viewers, producers, and contributors in the production of content that matters to them and ultimately the public. By providing our tools and stage as a free resource on a 1st, come, 1st serve basis, WPAA-TV celebrates Wallingford every day. Community media can encourage local dialogue, increases discourse around policy issues, foster an understanding of local cultures, and shares information to improve our lives. In Wallingford, we have a space to be brave and safe for all of this. However, Unity begins with U. Let’s share the joy of enjoying everything Wallingford.