PAC 8 launches summer film intensive for Los Alamos teens

PAC 8 still has seats open for a three-week summer film intensive that gives Los Alamos teens a rare chance to make an original short film from start to finish. The program runs June 1 through June 18, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the PAC 8 Media Center and Los Alamos Teen Center.

The class is open to youth ages 13 to 18, and enrollment is capped at 12 students. Tuition is listed at $350 to $700 per student, with scholarships available, which makes the remaining openings especially important for families trying to line up a structured June option before the school break settles in.

Students will work through screenwriting, camera operation, production planning, location shooting, acting and editing, all while building a short film they can call their own. The Teen Center describes the intensive as a hands-on program where teens learn filmmaking and create original short films from script to screen, putting the emphasis on actual production rather than passive instruction.

PAC 8 is running the program with the Teen Center and Fuller Lodge Art Center, a local partnership that keeps the work rooted in Los Alamos instead of in a remote classroom or a generic summer camp setting. Organizers Jean Gindreau-Davison, Eli Argo, George Marsden and Bendt Dahl are part of the effort, which gives the program a recognizable local face as registration pressure builds ahead of the start date.

This is the sixth consecutive year for the Summer Film Intensive, which started in 2021 and has become one of the county’s few recurring youth media programs. Past summers have shown the cap can fill quickly. In 2025, four openings remained shortly before the program began, and in 2024 the intensive was underway with spaces still open. Earlier runs also involved the Youth Activity Center, and in 2022 student-made films from the class were later screened at the Los Alamos County Fair.

That history gives the 2026 class more weight than a standard summer listing. For Los Alamos families looking for something serious, local and hands-on, the Film Intensive offers a limited number of seats, a defined deadline and a finished product that can move from the Teen Center to a public screen.