As founder of Y Productions, an Oceanside-based video production company, he makes it his mission to reveal the contribution that local organizations and groups make to the community.

Last month, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Pacific Southwest Chapter awarded Kramer an Emmy for “Community Band: Our Lives in Music.”

Coastal Communities Concert Band When: 1 p.m. tomorrow Where: The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe lawn Cost: Free Fare: The band will play as part of a Fourth of July celebration. Copies of the film “Community Band: Our Lives in Music” will be available for sale. Online: For information on Y Productions or to see a film clip, go to http://yproductions.tv/

Throughout the 60-minute documentary, which aired on KPBS San Diego and local access television stations, Kramer's camera captures the far-reaching influence of the Coastal Communities Concert Band.

“Many big band music documentaries seem so colossal,” he said at his studio after receiving the award. “You forget that a band is made up of individuals and the intimate connection they have with their instrument.”

The Coastal Communities Concert Band has performed since 1983 and is known for Meals on Wheels fundraising concerts and an outreach program that supports young music students. Its next performance is tomorrow at a community Fourth of July celebration in Rancho Santa Fe.

In the film, audiences applaud the formally dressed musicians after they deliver a polished performance. But Kramer also includes the nit-and-grit rehearsal scenes that tell the back story.

Determination and a passion to create music emerge during a scene in which some of the 80-plus members set up metal folding chairs in a school auditorium for Monday night practice: The kettle drum player rolls his cumbersome instrument through the door, brass musicians fastidiously fasten mouthpieces,and faces with furrowed brows peer closely at sheet music.

Don Caneva, a conductor who has battled cancer for the past few years, describes the group as his big musical family.

Filming “Community Band” took just over a year and was partly financed by a grant through the Carlsbad Community Television Foundation. That foundation, like many others, no longer exists.

“I think the CCTV Foundation was the last entity that funded local filmmaking,” Kramer said. “Part of the money that once went to cable companies helped to establish foundations that supported community members who had a good, locally based story to tell. They were discontinued because the system changed.”

At the request of telecommunications companies, the state took over cable franchises two years ago. Until that time, cable operators paid a fee to the city and the city provided funding for nonprofits such as the CCTV Foundation. Money set aside to support local film projects was redirected to a general fund, and grant revenue evaporated.

Now independent filmmakers must secure grants from other sources or solicit private donors to bankroll projects.

Kramer said a low-budget documentary airing nationally can cost $250,000 to $300,000, but he can create a relevant local film for $30,000 to $80,000.

Though many local filmmakers find themselves spending as much time seeking financial backing as they do producing a movie, that doesn't stop Kramer, who perceives challenges as potential gifts.

“When I see what looks like a problem, it's like a Christmas present,” he said. “I can't wait to unwrap it to see what comes out. It might be socks, then again, it could be an iPod.”

In the 1990s, Kramer worked as a project manager for a Los Angeles architectural firm, but he was “dying to jump into video production.” He conceived of using videos instead of poster boards with photos for architectural site studies.

Kramer enrolled in a filmmaking master's program at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, then returned to California in 2000 and set up shop as an independent filmmaker with a focus on Latino and Latin American issues.

Kramer was born to immigrant parents. His mother is Peruvian, his father is a German Jew and he married a Brazilian woman whose parents immigrated from China. On a good Christmas, he said, there were five languages spoken in the house.

A familiarity with and an appreciation for different cultures inspire Kramer to enrich viewers' understanding of one another through film.

“What keeps me going is that so much of our storytelling today is market-driven and only allowed on a national, commercial level,” Kramer said. “But the Coastal Communities Concert Band is really a local treasure – like so many others that contribute to our sense of identity. The ability to tell those stories is essential for any community if it is to grow and remain healthy.”

Marcia Manna covers arts, entertainment and community news for the Union-Tribune.