With an enormous number of livable streets stories and activities on the horizon in NYC this summer, Streetfilms will be looking for help. So if you are very good with a camera, know transportation issues and are familiar with the current momentum of livable streets, send us your deets! The process to apply is here; as you can read please do not call or e-mail Streetfilms filmmakers directly. We will be compiling all resumes/work experience thru May 23rd and then on an as-needed basis start contacting potential freelancers for assignments. Thanks and good luck!

Job Posting - Freelancers, Streetfilms

Greg Cantori, Executive Director of the Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation, has been trying to get Baltimore to put in place a Ciclovia for over two years. With the help of other organizations - and now called Sunday Streets - this October it will (read his entry on the Audacious Ideas blog.) This is great news and one of many U.S. cities where there is a movement to bring some sort of periodic street closures so residents can enjoy their streets; not just used as thoroughfares for cars.

And we remind you, please, if you are out there advocating the same, Streetfilms can help you do it! Our films are being used throughout the world to demonstrate how livable streets initiatives work. Quoting Mr. Cantori’s e-mail to us:

….your film played a key role as we showed it to the city hall staff as part of our presentation. It was a hit! You can be very proud of the great work you are doing in creating changes in attitudes and behaviors. If a picture is worth a thousand words then imagine what thousands of pictures in a film can do.

In the past year, Streetfilms have been watched a half million times, and with postings on other sites like YouTube! along with advocates organizing screenings all over the world - and some film festivals - the true number is somewhere beyond that.

The momentum continues. The list of cities and countries has been incredible. Just a small sample reveals the spectrum of demand in the last few weeks: Durham, Thailand, Tucson, Philadelphia, Tasmania, Melbourne, Toronto, Eugene, Amherst, Edinburgh, Baltimore, St. Louis and dozens more.

So what do we have coming up? Nick has some Streetfilms from the L.A. area, Elizabeth is in Paris documenting the Vélib’ & more, and Clarence is just back with his camera from one of the most livable places on the planet: Melbourne, Australia.

Finally a last plug: one of our favorite festivals, Filmed By Bike, takes place next weekend from April 11 thru 13. Elizabeth and Clarence have four films showing there including Clarence, The Traffic Calming Sasquatch. We urge you to go, but if you’re not you can always take a gander here.

Just dropping a note here to let you know if you want to show Streetfilms to your community, or you’re a livable streets advocate who wants to use our films in your work, or are from one of the many bike/livable streets film festivals throughout the world and want to show Streetfilms on the big screen - all you gotta do is ask!

We provide free DVDs (up to three) to anyone interested in making the world a better place. Our films are Creative Commons 3.0 tools and are able to be copied and distributed, embedded on sites, etc. so long as no one profits from them. If anyone wishes to re-edit our material for their own use, please ask Clarence for permission first at clarence (at) openplans.org.

To get those DVDs, it’s easy. Just email Lily Bernheimer, the NYC Streets Renaissance Project Coordinator, at lily (at) openplans.org and let her know which of our films you are interested in, give her your address. Our films are on volumes - most of which contain other Streetfilms - so you’ll most likely get additional videos with your request.

In the near future we will have an ordering form and special DVD theme collections.

We here at StreetFilms are so happy to be back to full StreetTeam strength with the addition of Elizabeth Press. She comes to us after four years as a producer for the independent TV/Radio program, Democracy Now! She received her MFA in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a focus on community media. While working on her thesis, Elizabeth spent a year teaching youth video in the Dominican Republic on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Her videos have screened in festivals all over the world, including a grassroots organized tour with her most recent documentary, Still We Ride. You will usually find Elizabeth commuting on her second-hand spectrum bicycle.

Photo courtesy: Fred Askew Photography

This Saturday, August 18th from 12 to 3 pm, Transportation Alternatives has been invited to take part in the acclaimed Shapes of Space exhibition at the Guggenheim. The exhibit explores the concept of space within art, and T.A. has assembled an interactive discussion of New York City’s public space that will include showing StreetFilms’ Intersection Repair and ten other of our shorts.

Admission is FREE to T.A. members! You can’t beat that deal. (Maybe the producers of Xanadu are reading; I’d love to see that for free too!)

Tuesday, July 10th at 7 PM StreetFilms will be showing twenty of our best and most poignant short films from the last year at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater!

So please join us for our 85 minute program (titled StreetFilms: Intersection Intervention) and then continue the dialogue afterwards at the free beer and pizza reception in the Den of Cin! Theater is at 155 East 3rd Street.

Our first event was great and with so many positive transportation changes underway in NYC this year’s program is sure to encourage a more livable city and inspire lots of discourse. Theater seats 99 people, so pick up tickets early. Please use this link for tickets and more information.

Today we wish one of our own the greatest of luck as Sean Clifford departs StreetFilms in pursuit of the lights, glamour and (gulp!) gridlock of Los Angeles to pursue a film career. Sean produced quite a few videos for us here, especially notable is this video on Grand Army Plaza which may one day serve as a historical document chronicling when neighbors stood up to demand changes to make it safer. This year the NYC DOT is doing just that. Hooray for everybody!

This leaves us down one videoperson. Very shortly we will be posting our job opening for what we are calling a Transportation Activist Video Guru. If you know plenty about film and transportation activism, we urge you to apply. So check back shortly on how to do that (until then please no e-mails or questions regarding the position, we will not be answering them.)

After adding up the numbers, I declare that sometime today we had our 100,000th viewing of a StreetFilm since going live on March 1st! Thanks to everyone who has helped contribute - our crew, webmasters, musicians, volunteers, people in the community, fellow bloggers helping to spread the word and our partners at TOPP, T.A., PPS and, of course, Streetsblog.

Please keep the comments and feedback coming. Our plans for other short films are almost overwhelming at times as we continue to promise to keep showing NYC the way to turn its streets more livable and people-friendly - while providing advocacy groups outside New York with fodder to change their own communities. In the next few months look for more pieces on Congestition Pricing, an amazing livable streets experience from Burning Man, a visit to the only Platinum-rated bike city in America Davis, California, coverage of Make Music New York and lots of other goodies.

And if you are lucky, maybe the sasquatch will make another appearance.

Just returned from City Repair’s 7th Annual Village Building Convergence in Portland, Oregon where hundreds of neighbors, students, and volunteers are taking back their streets to make them more livable, and community-oriented. Of the dozens of seminars, celebrations and building projects going on, StreetFilms loves the Intersection Repair.

An Intersection Repair usually involves painting an intersection with an elaborate design that creates a community gathering space and hopefully cajoles drivers to slow down; to give them a signal that they are entering a neighborhood. But it goes far beyond the paint on the asphalt as neighbors at some locations further enhance the experience over time by adding benches, establishing community bulletin boards, introducing gardens & art, etc. - all of which entice neighbors interact more and care about the commons outside their homes.

When City Repair first attempted some of these events many years ago, the Portland Office of Transportation (PDOT) did not sancation it. Undaunted, communities went ahead and did them anyway! Thankfully, today times have changed: PDOT has an official liasion to City Repair who helps coordinate permitting and street closures and also oversees some of the design standards. Yup, there is a StreetFilm in the works that may post by the end of the week, but for now enjoy the photos below.

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Our “Interview with Enrique Penalosa“ has been translated into Portuguese at dotsub.com. As a result it’s also subtitled in English for the hearing imparied. Please give it up for Bruno Santos and his zeal to spread the word!

If you live in Boston, don’t miss our hour long StreetFilms presentation there this Wednesday at the next Livable Streets event.

StreetFilms just added as part of the Bike to Work Week events in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Later this May, StreetFilms will be posting the WORLD WEB PREMIERE of “Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock.” The film explores the history of NYC’s streets and contrasts our current transportation policies with some of the achievements of cities like London, Paris, and Copenhagen, where car travel is being deemphasized in favor of safer streets, more cyclist amenities, faster mass transit, and people-first environments.

Here we present the awesome trailer for your early consumption if you haven’t seen it already. The film is Directed by Stefan Schefer from Cicala Filmworks, Produced by Diane Crespo, and co-Produced by Mark Gorton. Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives served as a Consulting Producer.

Can’t wait? Order “Contested Streets” directly from the T.A. website today.

This Park Slope phenomenon is interesting. On street cleaning rule days, people in the Slope will still double park, but they do it outside the bike lane!

We’ll be presenting many StreetFilms and participating in a discussion about livable cities at the next Sustainable Flatbush event, a new group trying to raise the dialogue in central Brooklyn about changing our streets and culture to be more green and sustainable. Come on out, we hear their first event drew a crowd in a raging snowstorm!

WHEN: Friday, April 27th 8 PM to midnight.

WHERE: Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore, 1022 Cortleyou Road (at Stratford) 718.940.2084

OTHER DEETS: DJs plus yummy food & drink specials all night.

The StreetFilms juggernaut “The Case for Separated Bike Lanes” continues to thrive. Having already inspired debate around the world and seen nearly 40,000 times here, on YouTube and our NYCSR site, it was just accepted for The Bicycle Film Festival this May!

Next month, StreetFilms will also be on local access television in Miami & Portland.