Youths See Big Picture of Filmmaking at Fest : Education: Twelve students from Pacoima Middle School intent on making a movie get a close-up view of profession at Sundance.

By JOSH MEYER

Jan. 28, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PARK CITY, Utah — As they left one premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, a producer and screenwriter critiqued the film, intent on avoiding its flaws in the movie they hope to make.

“For one thing,” screenwriter Brendan Wolfe said, “there was no continuity.” And subthemes were brought up, producer Josh Gray-Emmer noted, but not addressed again.

Here at America’s premiere independent film festival and Hollywood schmooze-a-thon, Wolfe, Gray-Emmer and the rest of their San Fernando Valley crew sound like thousands of others, but the similarity ends with their interest in filmmaking.

Aged 12 to 16, they sold thousands of candy bars to finance their trip this past week to the fest, where they caught as many of the 156 screenings as they could, gaped at the shows with sexually explicit themes, staged the only snowball fight on the mountain and met Robert Redford, along with other younger screen idols.

They came to Sundance--with chaperons, of course--as members of an exotic and extended field trip under the auspices of a magnet school program in filmmaking at Pacoima Middle School.

For the 12 students, the week was a blur of activity in which they saw as many as four movies a day. On Friday, they were interviewed on the new Sundance cable network, created to promote independent filmmakers. An Entertainment Tonight camera crew followed them all week.

Perhaps their favorite activity was hanging with their favorite actors, some of whom weren’t much older than they.

Witness Wolfe, who slipped away one afternoon during an earnest discussion of the film “The Girl in the Watermelon” with Pacoima magnet school teacher James Gleason, who organized the trip.

Soon Wolfe reappeared, acting like, well, exactly what he is--a 15-year-old boy. “God, she is tremendously gorgeous,” he gushed, holding aloft an autograph by the film’s young starlet.

This is the third year Gleason, 46, has taken his movie production class to Sundance for some hands-on education. Many came to learn about the business. Others, like Gray-Emmer, 16--who has attended twice before--wanted to line up mentors, gifts of equipment and donations for the movie they want to make.

Titled “Getting Away With It,” the story line is about teen-agers and senior citizens in a nursing home who work together to help one another overcome a common enemy. They hope to begin filming this summer, and their flyers seeking support are everywhere at the festival, emblazoned with their new logo, Next Generation Productions.

This week, officials of the Sundance festival and related Sundance Institute went out of their way to help the kids, doing more than provide tickets to screenings, parties and other events.

“They are so cute,” said festival organizer Nicole Guillemet, who waited in the cold for an hour with the group so they could buttonhole Redford, the founder of Sundance.

“As soon as I introduced them (to Redford), they made their pitch right away, “ she said, “and they knew when to stop. They will go far in this business.”

Another afternoon, Gray-Emmer sidled up to Apple computer representative Nancy Eaton and began the same pitch he used on Redford.

“I’m with a totally teen-age production company and we’re producing a movie,” he pressed. “It’s never been done before, really, and. . . . “

Such requests from struggling artists often fall on deaf ears. But this time, Eaton pledged an interview on an Apple teen chat line on the Internet and the loan of two powerful laptops for budgeting and production work on their movie.

Gleason said his students are precisely the type of people Redford had in mind when he started his Sundance Institute more than 16 years ago as a way to educate and promote independent filmmakers. “Who is more independent than us?” Gleason asked. Guillemet said that is why Sundance invited the kids.

For the budding filmmakers, Tuesday was typical. The students clapped and cheered as director Sergio Castilla introduced his coming-of-age film about a teen-age girl by saying: “You do whatever you feel like you want to do. That is the richness of independent movie making.”

“These movies show us what is possible in independent filmmaking,” Gray-Emmer said. “We see things here we never would have thought possible,” such as professional-looking movies done for a pittance.

By their third movie of the day, the kids were fidgety, sinking in their seats and chomping down the popcorn they sneaked in to save money. When it was done, they meandered blurry-eyed back to their vans, but found the energy to talk about movies during the entire 45-minute drive home.

“You need to be nice here, to everyone,” said Kristyn Abbadini, 13, of Woodland Hills. “You never know who you may be talking to.”

Gwen Grande, 13, said she has learned enough about innovative techniques to make a silent movie when she returns.

Daryl Moore, also 13, of Sylmar will be the cameraman on the film, which the students wrote by committee and plan to videotape if they cannot afford an alternative.

Moore said he watched the movies “not for the words, but for the images. I’ve really learned a lot about all kinds of camera shots and techniques.”

They’ve also learned about co-existing, sleeping seven each in their two rented condominiums, and sharing all the cooking and cleaning chores.

Chaperone Evelyn Seubert, a screenwriter who is helping the students with their movie, said they are learning more than they realize.

“The kids love it because they don’t realize he’s teaching them,” said Seubert, as Gleason and some students stood nearby, watching everything. “To them, he’s just working with them, letting their own thoughts, visions and ideas be the inspiration and source material, and then he helps them realize their vision.

“I’ve heard those kids, unsolicited, say that if it weren’t for this program, they’d probably be into gangs and drugs, or be incredibly bored.”

The movie project, Gleason says, has gathered so much momentum that he works with the students on it in the evening and on weekends.

By Friday, students were eager to return home and launch new projects. They failed to secure financing for the movie, but they lined up a long list of helpers.

Funding or not, Seubert said the trip was a great success.

“We’ve got the ball rolling now,” she said Friday, “and now we have to run like hell to keep up with it.”