The period from 1968 to 1981 witnessed the development of a medium that carried on the tradition of direct cinema and cinema verité but with radically different form and content—that of community video making. The year 1968 marks the earliest known use of portable video equipment in the United Kingdom for community aims in a period of legendary cultural activism. But 1981 saw the development of the Workshop Agreement1, Channel 4, and the new conservative government in the United Kingdom, rendering much of the work taken up by community video groups impossible to continue.