Streetfilms

A few weeks ago we posted our newest video "The Rise of Open Streets,"  a joint production with The Street Plans Collaborative and the Alliance for Biking & Walking.  We're excited to announce that sometime in March there will be a collection of our open streets films available on DVD for communities to use in public showings and presentations. If you need to get your community psyched that should do it.  But if you can't wait, you can always download ANY of our films FREE now directly via Vimeo by using the download button on individual posts.

Streetfilms journey in to the world of ciclovias all began during the Summer of 2007, when Ethan Kent from the Project for Public Spaces wrote an article about his experience riding the ciclovia on a trip. That got me super curious. So a few months later Gil Penalosa, now the Executive Director of 8-80 Cities, gave us a mammoth tour of - well of everything - which led to a series of great Streetfilms from Bogota.  Until last month, Ciclovia was the most popular Streetfilm of all time!

But there have been many more since. Our greatest contributor/freelancer John Hamilton has done phenomenal coverage over the years.  He's done videos in San Jose, San Francisco, Berkeley, and this latest one (above) from Oakland. He shoots the majority of his footage while rollerblading.  Sometimes it gets me jealous how good it looks.

I've been very fortunate to travel the world and experience many in my work with Streetfilms. I think my favorite - and that is really like saying "What is your favorite pizza?", because there is SO much good pizza - was my 2011 trip to Guadalajara.  The energy on the streets was amazing, nearly undescribable.  And I got to see things I hadn't seen in many other open streets events. For example, kids getting free haircuts!

If you'd like to watch more, please do. Here's an easy link to bring them up. And good luck if you are trying to make an event happen in your city!