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The South Pasadena Public Library hosted a two day workshop as a part of the California Listens project on Saturday June 16 and Sunday June 17. The workshop, which was led by StoryCenter, aimed to provide foundational skills for story-telling and movie-making while creating a platform for citizens to tell their 710 stories.
The structure of each film was simple: instructors helped South Pasadena citizens create short narrations, while allowing them to curate a two to four minute video to play the narration over. After each participant finalized their video, the films were submitted to be shown at a community screening and added to the California Listens archive.
South Pasadena was one of the 20 libraries who will host the StoryCenter workshop this year, thanks to Library Director Steve Fjeldsted who heard about the grant program last year. With many of the freeway fighters growing older, Fjeldsted wanted to make sure that their legacy in South Pasadena remained timeless.
“There’s a lot of new people in South Pasadena and people outside of South Pasadena. And a lot of the fighters have never been honored in a public way.” said Fjeldsted. “It is not in the history books, despite being one of the most important chapters in South Pasadena history.”
All participants were asked to tell a particular story regarding to the greater 710 fight. As a former city planner, Mark Gallatin was able to put together a unique story about his role in the conflict.
“I see it as a great example of the intersection of value and action. We as city planner say were in value of certain value, like maintaining cohesive neighborhoods or preserving historic neighborhoods. The 710 battle really illustrated a lot of those values that we as planners feel are important.” said Gallatin.
These individual videos can be found in StoryCenters archive.
Fjeldsted is planning on holding a community event at the library to screen each video, but the date and details are yet to be announced.
Ok you’re really talking about a highway project… I thought sure this was some military thing I hadn’t heard of…
What is the “710 battle”???