The Story of HAM
Night Heron Media is the heir of the beloved Houston Arts and Media. HAM enjoyed eleven years of great success as an organization devoted to producing high quality film, video, web content and other media projects that addressed themes in education and Texas and Southeast Texas history commonly neglected by commercial media companies. It began in the spring of 2005, when founder Mike Vance decided that he wanted to use his media background as a vehicle to promote education and to teach people about Texas history. He conceived of the non-profit organization, bringing other production, media, marketing and history people on board, and they immediately began hatching project ideas.
The projects focused on State of Texas and local Houston area history. On the statewide front, HAM produced seven of the eight feature length documentaries that will make up the comprehensive Birth of Texas Series. Those titles, Spanish Texas, San Felipe and American Settlement, Washington-on-the-Brazos: The Politics of Revolution, San Antonio and the Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto and Houston: A Nation’s Capitol, each garnered prestigious awards. Those BoT documentary work ran on Houston’s PBS affiliate and other Texas PBS stations.
In partnership with the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution, HAM produced With Respect: Preserving Historic Cemeteries. The twenty-minute video won the national first place preservation award from the DAR and was named Video of the Month by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is still used as a teaching tool for gravestone preservation. It is a valuable tool in promoting volunteerism at these sacred places. HAM's popular HAM Slices of History were short web-based videos on a wide variety of stories from the area’s past. Houston’s KUHT PBS Channel 8 and the HISD Channel broadcast the Slices throughout the viewing day to over 2.3 million homes, just as both have aired the documentary work. With another successful project, the organization collected over 150 hours of oral histories from long-time Houstonians, and have donated them to both the Houston Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston Public Library, and the Woodson Research Center at Rice University’s Fondren Library where they are available to all researchers.
HAM worked not only with these entities but with many others including the Texas State Historical Association’s Teaching Texas program, the City’s Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission, the Heritage Society, Museum of Printing History, the Harris County Historical Commission, the Houston History Alliance, HISD and dozens of other Texas school districts, Friends of the Texas Room, Olivewood Cemetery, Retired Houston Police Officers, MECA and Historic Houston. Most of these relationships continue under Night Heron Media. For the total body of work, Houston Arts and Media was honored with a Mastermind Award from the Houston Press in 2015.
We are proud to have much of the core HAM team still together under Night Heron Media. Our commitment to telling the stories of Texas is stronger than ever, and you can count on the same devotion to producing a top quality product.
The projects focused on State of Texas and local Houston area history. On the statewide front, HAM produced seven of the eight feature length documentaries that will make up the comprehensive Birth of Texas Series. Those titles, Spanish Texas, San Felipe and American Settlement, Washington-on-the-Brazos: The Politics of Revolution, San Antonio and the Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto and Houston: A Nation’s Capitol, each garnered prestigious awards. Those BoT documentary work ran on Houston’s PBS affiliate and other Texas PBS stations.
In partnership with the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution, HAM produced With Respect: Preserving Historic Cemeteries. The twenty-minute video won the national first place preservation award from the DAR and was named Video of the Month by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is still used as a teaching tool for gravestone preservation. It is a valuable tool in promoting volunteerism at these sacred places. HAM's popular HAM Slices of History were short web-based videos on a wide variety of stories from the area’s past. Houston’s KUHT PBS Channel 8 and the HISD Channel broadcast the Slices throughout the viewing day to over 2.3 million homes, just as both have aired the documentary work. With another successful project, the organization collected over 150 hours of oral histories from long-time Houstonians, and have donated them to both the Houston Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston Public Library, and the Woodson Research Center at Rice University’s Fondren Library where they are available to all researchers.
HAM worked not only with these entities but with many others including the Texas State Historical Association’s Teaching Texas program, the City’s Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission, the Heritage Society, Museum of Printing History, the Harris County Historical Commission, the Houston History Alliance, HISD and dozens of other Texas school districts, Friends of the Texas Room, Olivewood Cemetery, Retired Houston Police Officers, MECA and Historic Houston. Most of these relationships continue under Night Heron Media. For the total body of work, Houston Arts and Media was honored with a Mastermind Award from the Houston Press in 2015.
We are proud to have much of the core HAM team still together under Night Heron Media. Our commitment to telling the stories of Texas is stronger than ever, and you can count on the same devotion to producing a top quality product.