The Teen Council has become involved in other activities besides dances. Dan Marano of Taos Talking Pictures is another MIRA leader who is on the Teen Council and involves youth in a variety of media projects. Marano, originally from Brooklyn, was bursting with energy as he sat in the reception area and explained his ideas about media, video festivals, involving youth, and the problems of the area. His ties to other teen groups seem to have been strengthened as a result of the MIRA project. He helped sponsor a series of Teen Issues forums called The Honest Information Series. The first ones were on sex and drugs and the upcoming forums shifted from the general topic of violence to a controversial plan to set up a graffiti wall where anyone could express himself. To defuse the issue they are calling it a freedom of expression wall but feelings (some backed with evidence) are very strong on both sides. One merchant who sells graffiti-proof paint contends that any kind of place for taggers will encourage so-called criminal graffiti or signs marking gang turf. Marano believes that one source of problems for teenagers is that the places left for them to congregate are minimal. Along with youth, space has been criminalized. This is tied to the way the physical place, La Plaza (not the ISP) is no longer a commons for all to use.

Marano insists that the goal for heated and controversial meeting topics should not be Jerry Springer sensationalism but discourse and communication. He is figuring out how to encourage that with the Honest Information Series and with the major event he works on each year, the Taos Talking Picture Festival. As part of the festival there is a teen media conference drawing on the talents of local and regional teen media artists. As the festival grows in stature, it is becoming an event with year-round benefits. Marano wants to extend that to the youth. They ran into several obstacles because of the closing of two places: the Taos municipal auditorium and the Oo-Oonah Arts Center at the Taos Pueblo which is contiguous with the town of Taos. The portable projector which was purchased with MIRA money has been used continually for various showings of student work. In June 2000, they showed several student tapes outdoors and over 150 from the pueblo attended.

One of the outcomes of the project was connecting with groups such as Appalshop, New York's Educational Video Center, and Video Machete a youth media center in Chicago. The interchange of videos, digital movies, and digital story files seems to rely on people getting together to share the efforts rather than using the Net to post the very large files. Even if the bandwith is available, people need to get together to talk about the videos and their common experiences. With the increase in connectivity there may well be more face-to-face meetings, if only to validate the contacts made online.