BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro Community Television has announced the winners of its 2021 Annual Producer Awards.
The six awards recognize organizations and individuals who have created outstanding local programming in the last year.
The public is invited to a ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. at the Latchis 4 Theatre downtown. Food and drink will be served. Proof of vaccination will be required, following Covid protocols for special events at The Latchis.
The award presentation will also be available on Zoom. Details are available at bit.ly/636-bctv.
Those who will be recognized for their achievements from July 2020 to June 2021:
• Community Partner of the Year: Virtual Gallery Walk. During Covid, Frederic Noyes and Erin Scaggs took on the technical challenge of livestreaming to Facebook and BCTV as they showcased Gallery Walk for those at home by walking down Main Street and stopping in at galleries, shops, restaurants, nonprofits, and performance venues.
They produced six episodes of “Gallery Walk Stream n' Stroll'' (www.brattleborotv.org/brattleboro-gallery-walk/virtual-gallery-walk-9420) between August 2020 and May 2021, when the public returned to downtown. The September video garnered more than 4,000 views.
• Nonprofit Member of the Year: Brattleboro Literary Festival. Like most conferences scheduled for fall 2020, the Brattleboro Literary Festival made the difficult decision to go all virtual - no easy feat with 60 author talks scheduled over three days. The organization also committed to producing the virtual sessions themselves for BCTV and YouTube
Longtime leaders Sandy Rouse and Jerry Carbone coordinated author permissions and recording, while Jeff Mastroianni took on the editing. More than 30 author talk videos were aired.
• Municipal Partner of the Year: Bill Anton, Windham Central Supervisory Union superintendent. As superintendent of the WCSU, Anton attends a lot of meetings covered by BCTV. As school boards changed formats and venues from online to hybrid, leaders were confronted with technical complexities while coping with extraordinary situations due to the pandemic.
Even with his enormous responsibilities, Anton became known as someone who could be counted on to understand technical questions and problems and respond quickly.
• New Producer of the Year: Deb Paciulli, Trinity Lutheran Church. Paciulli, who serves as the church's treasurer, began using her iPhone to livestream services to Facebook in March 2020.
One year later, she began adding titles and submitting videos to BCTV (brattleborotv.org/trinity-lutheran-church) as a way to reach cable viewers. Trinity Lutheran now has a regular air time on Channel 1075. Paciulli provided a critical service to the church community with simple but effective video tools.
• Producer of the Year: Andrika Donovan. In 2019, Donovan set out to produce a series about green (natural) burials and home funerals. After traveling to conferences in Florida and Minnesota for interviews and site footage, she was working on her final editing at BCTV and was close to finishing her project when the station shut down.
Undaunted, she checked out a laptop to work at home while receiving remote support from staff and completed the project in February 2021. Donovan's videos capture national pioneers of this movement as well as local stories and resources. They can be found at brattleborotv.org/home-funerals-green-burials.
• Series of the Year: SOLOs. Bahman Mahdavi was in the midst of directing a show with the Rock River Players when the pandemic hit. Mahdavi turned to fellow actor Jon Mack, manager of the Hooker-Dunham Theater, and SOLOs was born.
The series of individual monologues was filmed on the Hooker-Dunham stage, edited and premiered live on YouTube and BCTV.
Mahdavi and Mack went on to co-produce eight episodes between November 2020 and May 2021. More than 30 actors were ultimately involved in the project, which can seen at brattleborotv.org/hooker-dunham-presents.