OK, Ready Action… Census Bureau to Film Video in Bibb County

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Bibb County is going Hollywood …well, not really Hollywood. But, the U.S. Census Bureau is going to Bibb County to film local people for future use in news releases explaining how rural communities benefit from Census Bureau data collection efforts.

The filming is a result of the efforts of Annette Watters, manager of the State Data Center at The University of Alabama.

Watters attended a recent Census Bureau meeting during which a promotional film about the 2010 Census was shown. The film, however, failed to include any scenes from nonfarm rural areas.

“Whoa,” Watters said, pointing out the omission. “All their rural scenes showed barns, tractors and corn fields. Most people in America who live in rural areas do not live on a farm.”

“The next thing I knew, they were asking if there was anywhere in Alabama where they could film rural areas, and I suggested Bibb County,” Watters said.

So, beginning Tuesday, April 7, a Census Bureau film producer and director will be in Centreville, the county seat of Bibb County, with an Alabama-based film crew. There is a Bibb County committee that has worked hard to scout for filming locations and arrange for Bibb Countians to be in the video.

Taping will begin April 8, and the shooting schedule calls for about 13 hours of filming over three days. About 15 Bibb Country residents will be in the film. Locations will be in West Blocton, Centreville, and many of the beautiful unincorporated parts of Bibb County.

The video will show a citizen taking the census questionnaire from the mailbox and sitting down with the family to complete it. Other scenes will have a census representative visiting a household and conducting the census with respondents at the door. The video will also include a census representative visiting a family who lives in a mobile home and a Census Bureau field representative delivering a 2010 Census form package to a home deep at the end of a long gravel road.

“The whole idea is to make America aware of the importance of the 2010 Census in rural areas,” Watters said. “The Census Bureau is calling this census a new portrait of America, and the data will be used to allocate more than $3 billion a year. Local governments will be using the information to plan for emergencies and disasters and all kinds of community services, including schools and senior centers. Big cities and urban areas aren’t the only important parts of our nation.

“Rural areas and their residents also use census information for planning, decision making and grant-writing. We are so pleased that the Census Bureau has chosen Alabama as the place to come when they want to film the best of rural America.”

And, yes, Watters will have a short appearance in the video talking about the importance of the 2010 count for rural areas.