Schreiber tells a tale of the town

The Schreiber Public Library and the Schreiber Media Centre are firm believers that a community’s success rests in preserving history and promoting local culture. It is important to not only showcase life as it was in the past but learn about how we might adapt going forward. Remembering where we came from adds an extra dimension of depth to what is perceived as the character of any small town fighting for its survival. When chief librarian Donna Mikeluk first approached FixtPoint Arts and Media, she was searching for organizations that help with skills development to add to the arsenal of the Schreiber Media Centre. What she found instead would lead to a wonderful gift to the town in the production of a recorded selection of random memories of the residents of Schreiber.

One of FixtPoint’s directives is to seek out and train people in remote areas in the art of making media memoirs, a combination of podcasting and stop motion techniques using photos. With funding throughout the Ontario Trillium Foundation, they have achieved a great deal of success and have travelled to many towns across the country. Of course we now all live in the land of COVID so this year they have had to modify their usual approach and are now delivering their training programme virtually. Through a combination of Zoom, emails and phone calls technology has become even more important to their survival. After discussing what and how training would occur, media kits were dispatched to Schreiber. In each bag were the basic tools necessary to produce a simple podcast, including a microphone a portable digital recorder, a tiny stills camera and of course batteries and some cables. Initially five people had signed up to take part in the exercise but due to unforeseen situations, that number dwindled down to three. 

From the onset it was agreed that each participant would have to interview at least 4-5 people in order to have enough content to produce a show. Participants were initially trained (again over ZOOM) in setup and operation of the gear. Interview techniques were discussed and practiced and a subject was decided to centre the stories around. The topic would be “how has the downtown of Schreiber changed”. Right away that was going to be a tough choice as Schreiber doesn’t really have a typical downtown where people meet and greet. Most of the older businesses are gone and others have relocated to the highway. The topic was slightly modified to include any memories or stories about events in Schreiber over the years.

Over the next few weeks material was collected and uploaded to the folks at FixtPoint where it would be worked into a somewhat historical record of the town. An early preview focused on some issues with storylines and continuity and further recordings were done. By the second draft the team realized that this would be a very special production. Free of the extra burden of visuals and intercutting and shot matching and titling and graphics, the Fist Point team of Charles Ketchabaw, Will Innes and Janna Graham worked their post production magic on the gathered recordings with only the interviews and somewhat rough indexing sheets to go by. It must have been a huge challenge to capture the feel of a place when you haven’t actually stepped foot in there. 

Finally the big day arrived. A virtual screening of the piece with a live link on Youtube would be presented. After the initial introductions and banter the show was played back for all to hear. It was well received and most people seemed a pleasantly surprised at how professional the whole production was. Amazingly since its public release on YouTube, it has had nearly 500 views and people are still discovering not only the production itself but a bit of the history of the town of Schreiber.