Alaska Teen Media Institute

If you’ve been downtown at all this summer, you might have noticed one less lane of traffic on a couple of busy streets. Anchorage now has a protected bike lane running along parts of A Street and 6th Avenue.  This bike lane won’t be there forever – just for the summer– but this protected bike lane is part of a larger two-year study funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill. In this episode, we...

The Palmer band 3000-21 describe themselves as a cartoon robot band from outer space. In 2022, they released a full-length album “Across The Metaverse.” Last year, they put out an EP of new music called “Interdimensional UFO.”  In March of this year, 3000-21 took human form and stopped by the ATMI studio to chat with producer Ormund Alaois. They talked about their songwriting process, the inspirat...

Emilio Miguel Torres is a filmmaker who was raised in Ketchikan, Alaska. As a kid, Torres got involved with the local community theater, First City Players, where he was exposed to directing and storytelling. He spent high school in Seattle before attending NYU film school.  Since graduating college in 2021, he has made a handful of short films, including “The Ladder,” which tells the story of an...

The Alaska Filming Initiative is a group of local filmmakers dedicated to reigniting the success of our state’s film industry. They hope to not just create movie making opportunities, but to foster a thriving, diverse, and sustainable economic environment across the state. One of the ways they are exploring to achieve this, is by bringing a film tax incentive back to the state.  Some Alaskans migh...

In this episode we’re talking about the new movie Wonka, based on the beloved Roald Dahl character Willy Wonka. The movie turns the clock back to when Wonka was a young man, before he had his famed chocolate factory and stars Timothee Chalamet as the chocolatier to be.  A group of our ATMI producers sat down in our studio to discuss the movie, and snack on a few chocolatey delights too. They talk...

Rosie Rush is a singer/songwriter from Anchorage, Alaska. If you’ve been listening to our other recent episodes with local musicians, you may have already heard of her. She sings back-up vocals on a song from Zane Penny’s debut album. And Ashley Young mentioned putting together some tour dates with her this spring. Starting this May, Rosie will be opening for the band Medium Build at shows through...

In recent years there have been a handful of new Godzilla movies produced in America. But Godzilla Minus One was made in Japan, where the franchise started, and its story brings audiences back to the genesis of the monster: the aftermath of World War II. Godzilla Minus One focuses on Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who, after opting not to fulfill his military responsibility, returns to his ho...

Ryan Tester is a freelance filmmaker based in Anchorage, Alaska. After taking the Video and Audio Production course at King Tech high school, he went on to produce his original movies with friends, work on commercial shoots, and start his own production company: Confine Light Films . He is currently in pre-production on the feature length film Stranger, serving as one of the film's cinematographer...

Bethlehem Shalom is an artist of many talents: music, fashion, drawing, photography. In 2022 she was an artist-in-residence at the Anchorage Museum, showcasing her eclectic clothing design. This year, she is opening for the band Medium Build at the Bear Tooth Theater on January 26th. It’s part of a series of three shows by Medium Build, all of which sold out in days. Bethlehem stopped by the ATMI...

Quantum Cowboys tells the story of two hapless drifters in search of an elusive musician. The film utilizes a mix of live action and multiple styles of animation as the characters traverse the American west, as well as space and time.  Its cast includes Golden Globe winner Lily Gladstone, Kiowa Gordon, David Arquette, and Gary Farmer. It was co-written and directed by our guest, Geoff Marslett. Th...

In 2013, animator and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki released the film “The Wind Rises” then announced his retirement. This was not the first time he publicly retired, and it wouldn’t be his last. This winter, Miyazaki, who is now 82 years old, has released a new film called “The Boy and The Heron.” It follows Mahito, a young boy who moves to the countryside with his father and new stepmo...

In November 2023, siblings Jiin and Bright Chang launched a crowdfunding campaign for a feature film to be shot in Alaska. This spring, they plan to shoot “Stranger.” Jinn is the writer and director of the movie. Bright serves as its producer. Stranger tells the story of a runaway man returning to Alaska to visit his ailing mother. When he gets entangled with the homeless community, he discovers a...

On April 3, 2020 we released the first episode of Podcast in Place: Youth Stories From Quarantine, our series on life in Alaska during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three years and 70 episodes later, the global health pandemic was declared over by the World Health Organization on May 11, 2023. So now it's time for Podcast in Place to also come to an end.  In this final episode, we take a look back on how...

Ashley Young is a singer songwriter originally from Yakutat, now based in Anchorage. In the spring she toured with the band Medium Build. Earlier this fall, she went on a tour in the Pacific Northwest with fellow musicians Husse and Zane Penny.  Ashley stopped by the ATMI studio to sit down with producer Roey McCowan. In their extended conversation, she talks about the role her Indigeneity plays i...

In this episode we’re taking a look at how pollutants in drinking water are affecting the health and wellbeing of communities in Alaska. And how these chemicals can stay in a person’s body… forever.  ATMI senior reporter Chloe Chaobal began her reporting in 2021 after being awarded a youth mini grant from the Alaska Conservation Foundation. The Youth Mini-Grant program aims to support youth-led pr...

On November 30th, 2018, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Anchorage in South Central Alaska. There were numerous property damages were reported, including Gruening Middle School in Eagle River. That morning, when ATMI senior producer Daisy Carter was ducking under a desk, she thought of Gruening, where she had attended middle school. She worried that it wasn't able to sustain such a massive earthq...

Zane Penny became a youth producer for ATMI way back in 2019, when he was taking the audio and video production class at King Technical High School. He applied his skills to various video, radio, and podcast projects with ATMI throughout the years, including screening short films he’d directed to our annual youth film showcase. But in 2020, Zane took up a new passion: music. Now he’s released his...

Nick Carpenter has been making music in Alaska under the name Medium Build since 2016. Drawing inspiration from 80s country music and 90s RnB, Medium Build’s songs convey intimate stories drawn from Carpenter’s personal experiences.  Earlier this summer, Medium Build signed a major label contract with Islands Records. This fall they head out on tour in the lower 48, then it’s off to Europe.  ATMI...

In this special episode we have a double feature: Barbie and Oppenheimer, also known collectively as Barbenheimer.  Since it was announced that Christopher Nolan’s biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Mattel movie would be released on the same day, a hype began to build. The memes were endless. People made posters combining the two movies. Fans wore all pink to screenings of Barbie,...

For this episode we’re talking about Asteroid City, the new film from director Wes Anderson. The story takes place in the 1950’s at a junior stargazing event in the desert. But after an extraterrestrial encounter disrupts an evening festivity, the characters are left to wonder what it all means. It’s also a play within a television show. But it’s a movie. It’s hard to explain.  Our ATMI film criti...

We’re doing something a bit different with this episode. Rather than dish on the latest hit movie, we’re turning the mic over to our own aspiring filmmakers. ATMI producers Kendrick Whiteman, Daisy Carter, Logan Tyler Smith, and AJ Yambao all sat down to talk about their experiences making and studying films, some of the lessons they’ve learned along the way, the impact they hope their work will h...

For this episode, we’re talking about the new animated movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. A sequel to the 2018 chapter Into The Spider-Verse, it picks back up with our hero Miles Morales as he tries to balance life in high school, the expectations of his parents, and his responsibilities being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. But when fellow Spider-person Gwen Stacy crosses the multi...

It’s official, folks! The Covid-19 pandemic is over. On May 5th the W.H.O declared an end to the global health emergency.  The virus is now in its endemic phase. But that’s not exactly as final as it sounds. Alaska's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink dropped by our studio to chat with ATMI producer Roey McCowan about what Covid’s endemic phase means and what life we look like now that the pandem...

We’re back in the MCU for this episode, talking about Volume 3 of the Guardians of the Galaxy series. The movie focuses on the backstory of Rocket Racoon, after his creator, The High Evolutionary, reimurges to take him back. This sets the Guardians on a new adventure to save not only the galaxy again, but to protect the found family they’ve worked so hard to forge. Our ATMI producers got together...

In November 2020, we interviewed Annie Thomas-Landrum about her work as the project manager for the UAA Surge Contact Tracing Team. At the time, before vaccines were widely available, contact tracing was a vital tool in slowing the spread of Covid-19. But as time went on, vaccines became available and new variants caused case counts to skyrocket, we heard less and less about contact tracing. So in...