(bright music) - At Spy Hop Productions, teens explore digital media arts through hands-on training in film, music and design.

Adam Sherlock, In-house Program Director is here to explain.

Hi, Adam.

- Hi.

- It's so nice to meet you and have you on the show.

- It's so nice to meet you too.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Yeah, as a fellow media organization, I'm just so impressed with what Spy Hop does.

- Thank you so much.

Yeah, we really, you know, I've been with the organization 16 years now, and it's the love of my life.

I think the work we do is really changing young people's lives.

- [Laura] What is different about Spy Hop?

- I think that for teenagers, they spend a lot of their life getting told, sort of what they're going to be doing, where they need to go.

And at Spy Hop, we really center the young person's vision and the young person's story.

And I think it means a lot to them.

I think a lot of kids feel seen sometimes for the very first time through the work that we do at Spy Hop.

- And it's amazing that you can offer, we're here to talk about spring courses.

- Yes.

- And the classes that are available, and it's amazing you can offer these for free.

- Yep, all of our programs are free.

In fact, there's a handful of programs where we actually pay the teens.

We have some apprenticeship programs in filmmaking, and audio engineering, and digital design, but all of our programs are free.

We run programs for kids ages 12 to 14, and then 15 to 19.

- Yeah, so besides their ages, what kind of kids do you see come into your programs?

- Oh, man, I mean, I think a lot of kids that don't find that they fit in other places.

I think we have a lot of kids who are just starting to figure out who they are, discover what their real identities might be, what their stories maybe are, and they don't fit in, in your typical kind of school setting, or church setting, or some of these other places.

And then they find their misfits.

They find the like-minded people, whether that be their peers or even the kind of weird, goofy adult artists who work at Spy Hop.

They're like, "Oh, there's the adult version of me."

So, yeah, that's helpful.

- Wow, it's amazing.

Well, thank you for all the work you do, and thank you for being here to tell us about it.

- Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

- If you'd like to learn more about Spy Hop and their youth classes that they have, it's the free Multimedia Youth Program at the Kahlert Youth Media Arts Center.

You can learn more at spyhop.org, that's spyhop.org.

I'm Laura, thank you for watching "Contact".

(bright music) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

Here on Contact, we introduce you to local events and organizations that serve your neighborhood.

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