From animation to mixing and scratching

Programming for families and teens has grown with the museum. If you’re 17 or younger, admission to the ICA is free, and Play Dates on the last Saturday of every month are free for families and packed with family programs in the galleries and the art lab.

‘‘The child drives the experience in the lab,’’ says Rosanna Flouty, the ICA’s associate director of education. ‘‘In the gallery, the parent guides the experience. Getting them to work together is part of our philosophy.’’

At the next Play Date on April 24, the focus will be filmmaking. Jim Capobianco, whose day job is developing stories for Pixar Animation, will screen ‘‘Leonardo,’’ the 10-minute hand-animated independent short he spent 10 years developing in his off hours. Then he will lead an animation workshop for families. The day also includes ‘‘Made by Kids: International Children’s Film Festival,’’ featuring films made by children 12 and younger.

Capobianco’s film follows Leonardo da Vinci as he creates his flying machine. ‘‘I see it as an allegory for the creative journey the artist takes,’’ he says by phone from California. The film plays to a soundtrack of Renaissance music and has no dialogue. ‘‘He’s a cartoon version of da Vinci,’’ Capobianco says of his protagonist. ‘‘In a way, it’s a throwback to Chaplin or Buster Keaton, pantomime, and silent film.’’

Capobianco intends to teach kids and parents the basics of hand animation, providing participants with flipbooks. ‘‘Even computer animation begins with drawing,’’ he says. ‘‘Pixar believes that is the fundamental place to start.’’

Many local museums have traditional fine arts programs for teenagers and younger children. Both the DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum and the Danforth Museum have schools offering classes in painting, drawing, photography, and ceramics. The ICA stands out for its strong new-media offerings.

Fast Forward, an ICA filmmaking program for teens, lasts throughout the year, with each participant taking a project from script to screen. There were 21 participants this year and their films will be screened on May 21.

Gerald Lucey, 18, a senior at Winchester High School, is in his second year at Fast Forward. Last year, his documentary ‘‘A Social Exploration of Islam’’ screened at the Community Art Center’s Do It Your Damn Self!! National Youth Video and Film Festival in Cambridge and at the CineYouth Festival in Chicago. This year, he is making a public service announcement about bullying, starring a stapler.

‘‘I’ve done a lot of film programs at computer camps and film camps, small workshops,’’ says Lucey, a tall, red-haired young man who will attend Wesleyan University in the fall and aspires to be a filmmaker. ‘‘But the ICA is way better than anything I thought existed. You really think about what you’re making.’’

Chavella Lee, 16, of Roxbury and Boston Latin Academy, is working on a short film contrasting poorer neighborhoods in Roxbury with more upscale areas in the South End. ‘‘I was really an IT person, so this is something really new,’’ Lee says of filmmaking. ‘‘It’s a great way to get people to see things the way you see them, and still allow them to have their own reactions.’’

The Fast Forward teens are working in concert with the ICA’s Teen Arts Council, youths who commit an academic year to programming events for their peers. The council produces events tied to ICA exhibits four times a year, spending time with artists and taking responsibility for everything from promotion to box office. The Teen Arts Council is producing Fast Forward’s May 21 screening.

‘‘We’re creating an environment for leadership and civic engagement,’’ says Flouty of both teen programs. ‘‘The only prerequisite is being here of your own volition.’’ Cost is not an issue. Fast Forward is a free program, and the Teen Arts Council participants receive a small stipend for their work.

Filmmaker Hugh Guiney, 22, started out in the ICA’s Fast Forward program in 2005, in the old building’s basement. Now he comes back occasionally to teach. ‘‘It made me realize that film was what I wanted to do as a career,’’ Guiney says. ‘‘In school, there were not a lot of arts programs. Here, I was able to explore my creativity.’’

For those with a finite amount of time — such as, say, school vacation week — the ICA has family programs planned. Most museums program special activities for school vacation week. The Museum of Fine Arts focuses on ‘‘Ancient Mysteries’’ with art-making activities and performances for kids accompanied by adults, April 20-23, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has a puppet show and other special activities scheduled for April 21.

That week, on the new-media side, the ICA offers a four-day intensive DJ class for teens, taught by DJ Ryan Sciaino. It’s free for Boston Public Schools students. For ICA members, the cost is $200, and for non-members, $250, but scholarships are available.

‘‘Our intro is old-style DJ’ing, using vinyl,’’ Sciaino explains over the phone from New York, where he lives. He also plans to teach kids to use computer software that works with both MP3s and vinyl. ‘‘We look at basic recording techniques and audio techniques that the kids can take home and use,’’ he says. ‘‘The most important thing is kids learn they can create their own playlist, and they don’t have to pay attention to the radio or pop music.’’

Sciaino, 25, has taught the ICA’s DJ class before, and he has found that the students are often quicker than he is. ‘‘The kids are super familiar with technology. They figure out new stuff about the software that I don’t know,’’ he says. He may be the teacher, he says, ‘‘but I’m learning from them at the same time.’’