The Summer Film Intensive in Los Alamos kicks off June 1. The Los Alamos Reporter recently met with members of the team at the PAC 8 Community Media Center. Pictured are from left, Jean Gindreau-Davison, Eli Argo, George Marsden and Bendt Dahl. Not pictured are David Daniel and Lee Seeger. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Bendt Dahl, left, and Jean Gindreau-Davison with one of the PAC 8 drones. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
Eli Argo, left, and George Marsden on the spot at PAC 8. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Students and parents in Los Alamos and the surrounding area may have read about the three-week Summer Film Intensive Program running from June 1 – June 18, daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. The program takes place at the PAC 8 Community Media Center and the Los Alamos Teen Center, 475 20th Street in Los Alamos. And there are still spaces remaining. Click here to register.
When word of the film program for youth ages 13-18 first came out in 2021 the community was excited to see something of this depth offered for teenagers with all the instruction and equipment provided, plus the expectation of having a film to show in the end.
A collaboration between the Los Alamos Teen Center, Fuller Lodge Art Center and PAC 8, the Film Intensive will take participants through all of the steps in the process of creating an original short film– screen writing, camera operation, production planning and location shooting, acting for film, videography, and editing, and numerous other aspects of the film process. Students will write, produce, and star in multiple original short films for entry in a statewide youth film contest.
George Marsden, operations director at The Family YMCA in Los Alamos and former director of the Los Alamos Teen Center, said Summer Film Intensive Program started in summer 2021 as the community was coming out of COVID when school had just reopened a couple of months before.
“We wanted to do something to get kids together. The YMCA Los Alamos Teen Center, PAC 8 and the Los Alamos Arts Council came together to do a film program. We just went for it. The first summer was just two weeks, which is not anywhere near enough as we found out. We had 12 kids aged 13-18 the first summer and collectively they all wrote a screen play. Four of those were selected for production and actually went forward and were filmed and edited – all by the students,” Marsden said. “It was like, ‘We need a plane; let’s build it while we’re flying’. That’s definitely how that first year went.”
He said nothing like that had ever been done before.
“We brought together the depth of technical expertise PAC 8 has, a bunch of teenagers from the Teen Center and from the Arts Council, we had David Daniel who brought in his background in creative writing, theater, acting and directing and through that combination we kind of found a secret sauce that seemed to work and we kept doing it from there,” Marsden said..
David Daniel said what continues to bring him back to the program is what an unprecedented opportunity it is for young creators because a lot of times programs like this focus just on skill-building – just teaching how to use the equipment and the software, and maybe to outline a script.
“This was something kind of crazy in a lot of ways – producing four short films from blank page to screen in that amount of time . It’s just unheard of. It’s really a great opportunity for our students – and I’m really happy that we’ve been able to bring as many as we have,” Daniel said.
Marsden noted that the team was smart enough to extend the program from two weeks to three.
Current Teen Center director Eli Argo said there were teens that were in the program that didn’t feel like they were creative.
“They ended up creating some of the best stuff that we’ve done. Cyril Jaworski, for example, didn’t want to write a script but we kind of forced everyone to do that and he created ‘John Astronaut’, which has become a series – three years in a row. It’s a fan favorite,” he said.
Argo said the team is still looking for more students to sign up for this summer.
“We have some returning students but we really want to invite in all the new students. That’s been the magic of this program is that every year since the first year, a number of the students returned two, three, or four times. We really want to welcome in those new students because every year we have new folks that bring something new and creative to the table,” he said. “It also gives the returning students the opportunity to teach and mentor.”
Marsden said the Film Initiative has done a good job of welcoming in the new students.
“People who the previous year may have been the one in charge of the film – the next year they’re helping to support. Everybody finds their role to play. Every year it seems like it just finds its way to work out and they’ve become a friend group. It’s really neat!” he said.
David Daniel discussed the micro team that forms each year as the films are put together.
“I watch the kids enter the program wondering what it is going to be and they end up feeling like they’ve got superpowers to make anything happen, because we pull these projects together over such a tight timeframe and it provides a close bonding experience between people,” he said.
Bendt Dahl started working with PAC 8 in 2017 when he was a senior in high school and he’s still continuing on that path.
“This is my ninth year. PAC 8 does Summer Media Classes where we have 8 to 12 year old kids coming in and also doing very similar things to what the Film Intensive does. They learn the basics and produce a video in that one week. It’s not as in depth, in that we don’t immediately write a script. We look for ideas and then go from there,” Dahl said. “Here, in the Film Intensive, they’re all going to write their own scripts and we’re going to make sure these scripts are up to standard and possible.”
He noted that there’s a lot more scrutiny involved in the selection of the script in the Film Intensive.
“Whatever script is chosen, I’m always impressed with the students’ abilities, even with the younger kids that I teach. They always produce something that they’re pretty happy with. I think that’s something that’s very important for us,” Dahl said.
The participants that join the program have pretty good computer skills and it is very impressive how much they can do.
“Every year we improve and change the curriculum, and this year I’m very excited because there’s been in the last year, a rapid amount of new tools that have come out,” David Daniel said. “This year I’ll be teaching more about some of them, including some of the organizational and productivity tools that have come out around artificial intelligence, and playing with those new technologies with the kids.”
Lee Seeger got involved with the team two years ago when he gave a talk. He grew up in Los Alamos and went on to earn an Arts in Film degree at Western Washington University. He worked in Prague as a cinematographer and was involved in many films such as Blade II, Babylon AD, Hell Boy and Snow Places. He brings extensive “set’ experience to team as well as his knowledge of pre-production, scheduling and logistics.
Marsden said one of the things about the Film Initiative is that the kids are given lots of freedom in what they want to write and choose to shoot.
“We have done some films that presented some really challenging topics, including some that when we wanted to put them in a film contest, they made edits that really took away from the core feeling of the film because it was outside their boundaries,” he said.
David Daniel said for him personally, the creative writing part is kind of his bailiwick.
“I always tell the kids I may not be able to shoot what you write, but you can write anything you want to write. Anything you need to write is available for you to write on. There are no hot topics. It always comes from a place of transmuting pain in fun ways, so you can’t really ask kids or any creators really, to create without touching on that part of themselves,” he said. “There’s always a little setting the space intentionally to hold space for these kids for whatever they’re dealing with. We have had kids that have had to deal with issues like parental abuse. Giving an outlet to those issues and bring an awareness to the rich lives that teens have inside of them helps the community be more connected across generations.”
The Film Initiative participants have produced a variety of film genres including a Western, science fiction, romantic comedy, horror, drama, comedy. satire. and avant garde. If you think this is something you would like to participate in, reach out to PAC 8 executive director Jean Gindreau-Davison, pac8@losalamos.com (505) 920-5845.
The suggested family contribution is $350 – $700 per student. Scholarships are available and no student will be refused for financial reasons. In previous years, the class was an even mix of students paying full cost, students with partial scholarships, and students on full scholarships. Just indicate on the registration form below if a scholarship is needed for your student. No complicated paperwork for the scholarship, just let us know what your need is and it will be covered.