Visual Communications – also known as VC – is a community-based non-profit media arts organization in Los Angeles, dedicated to creating, preserving and presenting Asian Pacific American

Asian Pacific American

Asian-Pacific American or Asian-Pacific Islander is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans....

 history and culture through the media arts. Founded in 1970, the organization, through its numerous filmmaking

Filmmaking

Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...

, video production

Video production

Video production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...

 and community media

Community media

Community media is any form of media that is created and controlled by a community, either a geographic community or a community of identity or interest. Community media is separate from commercial media, state run media, or public broadcasting. The fundamental premise is to engage those groups...

 productions and through its various screening activities, photographic exhibits and publications, has pioneered many vital developments in the national media arts arena. VC offers production and training in filmmaking, video and photography, for Asian Americans. In addition to maintaining a large archive of Asian Pacific

Asian Pacific American

Asian-Pacific American or Asian-Pacific Islander is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans....

 photographs, VC annually presents the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival – formerly known as VC FilmFest – is an annual film festival presented by Visual Communications . It was established in 1983 as a vehicle to promote Asian Pacific American and Asian international cinema. The festival fulfills a unique mission in...

.

Mission

To promote intercultural understanding through the creation, presentation, preservation and support of media works by and about Asian Pacific Americans. VC was created with the understanding that media and the arts are important vehicles to organize and empower communities, build connections between generations, challenge perspectives, and create an environment for critical thinking, necessary to build a more just and humane society.

Profile

VC has provided hundreds of ethnic minorities, women and students with opportunities for production experience and advancement in media related fields. The organization's productions have received recognition from national and international film festivals, and its programs have earned the support of the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs

City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department

The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department is the official Los Angeles, California, USA arts council.The agency approves the design of structures built on or over City property and accepts works of art to be acquired by the City...

, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, California Arts Council

California Arts Council

The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento. Its eleven council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature...

, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

, Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Benton Foundation, California Community Foundation

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation is a leading philanthropic organization in the United States, managing approximately $1 billion in assets and granting nearly $100 million to nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles County and causes around the world....

, California Wellness Foundation, Eisner Foundation, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Getty Grant Program

Getty Foundation

The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In the past, it funded the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders", which is now at Claremont Graduate University. Its...

, Weingart Foundation, and corporate sponsorships from ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, AsianAvenue.com, AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

, Atlantic Richfield Company, Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd.

is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...

, Screenplay.com, Transamerica Occidental Life, TDK

TDK

, formerly , is a Japanese company which manufactures electronic materials, electronic components, and recording and data-storage media, and markets them globally. Their motto is "Contribute to culture and industry through creativity"...

, KNBC

KNBC

KNBC, channel 4, is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC Television Network, licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. KNBC's studios and offices are located within the NBC Studios complex in Burbank, California, and its transmitter is located on Mount Wilson...

 and numerous small businesses and community organizations.

Armed With A Camera Fellowship

Started in 2002, the Armed With A Camera (AWC) Fellowship is a fellowship awarded to a select group of Filmmakers (usually numbering less than ten) every year. Visual Communications works with the Fellows for seven months and provides special training, mentoring and networking opportunities, access to facilities and equipment plus a stipend to create five-minute digital shorts that premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and other venues nationwide for that year.

Community Media Education

Community workshop activities provide opportunities for upcoming generation of young artists and Los Angeles arts organizations to learn and enhance media production skills. Programs include the Frame by Frame: Youth Media Program; the Digital Arts Network, a Cal Arts Community Arts Partnership program; an Internship Program and Open Studio LA.

VC Media Lab

Many film and video productions continue to win critical and popular acclaim for affording incisive and fully dimensioned perspectives on Asian Pacific American

Asian Pacific American

Asian-Pacific American or Asian-Pacific Islander is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans....

 communities and histories. Productions can be found in VC's distribution catalog.

In 2004, VC produced Stand Up for Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story

Stand Up for Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story

Stand Up For Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story is an educational narrative short film, co-produced by Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress and Visual Communications .- Background :...

, an educational narrative short film, co-produced with NCRR (Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress), about Ralph Lazo, a Mexican American

Mexican American

Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...

 who voluntarily went to the Manzanar

Manzanar

Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is...

 Japanese American internment

Japanese American internment

Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...

 camp as a teenager.

In addition, VC provides direct support for filmmakers through professional media seminars, fiscal sponsorships and production support programs. VC served as fiscal sponsor for the Oscar winning short film, Visas and Virtue

Visas and Virtue

Visas and Virtue is a 1997 narrative short film inspired by the true story of Holocaust rescuer Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara, who is known as "The Japanese Schindler"...

, from VC alum Chris Tashima

Chris Tashima

Chris Tashima is a Japanese American actor and director. He is co-founder of the entertainment company Cedar Grove Productions and Artistic Director of its Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. He is the son of U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima...

.

Digital Access and Equipment

VC offers a multimedia learning center and workshops in video and multimedia production, aimed to empower new generations of Asian Pacific media artists, community members and educators, to develop skills and create stories from the Asian Pacific community.

Historical Preservation and Archives

Archival collections are recognized as the nation's most comprehensive resource of Asian Pacific

Asian Pacific American

Asian-Pacific American or Asian-Pacific Islander is a term sometimes used in the United States to include both Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans....

 photographic, video and film imagery.

Listservs

VC listserv

LISTSERV

LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...

 is an open list that covers community issues and events, job postings and occasional media-related discussions.

Short Screenplay Competition

As part of the 2010 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Visual Communications, along with MAPID, presented the inaugural short screenplay competition.