Young East End Filmmakers

While American cinema basked in its own light at the Academy Awards celebrations this week, three young filmmakers from the East End were on the verge of something big. Not Hollywood glitzy, gold-statue big, but big in the sense of plans coming to fruition and personal revolutions in the making.

One of them, L. Brooks Elms, an East Hampton native and New York University Film School graduate, will launch a monthlong independent film event at a basement theater in New York City on Wednesday.

The other two, Ben and Orson Cummings, will begin shooting their first feature film next week in Bridgehampton, which is their hometown.

All About Money

In a sense, the two projects address the same key player in the film industry - money.

The Cummingses' dark comedy, "Nine Out of Ten," tells the story of Jordan, a young filmmaker obsessed with cinematic success and ready to go to any lengths to secure the funding he needs to make his movie. Driven as he is, Jordan strikes a deal with a ruthless uncle and "basically swaps his soul for a career," the brothers explained.

Some glimmer of inspiration for the character could come from many a young filmmaker strapped for cash but bent on getting work to the screen.

Take the Cummings brothers themselves, for instance. After two years in Los Angeles working on the fringe of the film industry, they got fed up with its insular attitude and moved back to Bridgehampton.

Where To Show It?

A year ago, they formed Sweet Tooth Productions and set out to raise money and gather a crew to bring their screenplay to life. They swear their methods are much more scrupulous than those of the main character in "Nine Out of Ten," but they have had to spend the better part of the past six months raising money to produce it.

Around the time Ben and Orson Cummings were shifting into high gear on the pre-production phase of their film, Mr. Elms was in New York. Having finished his first feature, the microbudget "Snapshots From a .500 Season," he began to realize that, like an egotistical actor, money refused to step out of the spotlight.

He was faced with the very expensive task of distributing his film in a field that has few venues for low-budget independent work. While 1,200 independent films are expected to be made in 1997, fewer than 60 will be shown in existing theaters, Mr. Elms said, a statistic that convinced him he needed to create his own venue.

That venue, New York City's Guerrilla Cinema, a monthlong series of $5 film screenings, will open its doors Wednesday in the Off Off Broadway Interlude Theater, at 45 West 21 Street.

"Movies have been an art form controlled by the very few and the very wealthy," he writes in an invitation to the event. He hopes his efforts will create a revolution of smaller venues where filmmakers can show "their movies in their own space, in their own way," Mr. Elms said. He wants other filmmakers to know that a grassroots project like this can work without enormous sums of money.

Renting the Interlude for a month cost $8,000, a burden Mr. Elms shared with a fellow filmmaker, Marc Gottlieb, and Andrew Rose, an actor who appears in both directors' films. They paid the rent over the course of six months.

Just Like Home

Guerrilla Cinema will showcase two feature films. Mr. Elms's "Snapshots" and Mr. Gottlieb's "Cousin Howard" will run on alternate nights throughout the month, accompanied each evening by one of 10 short films. Showtime will be at 8 p.m. every night but Monday through April 25.

"We're basically just getting some people together to check out some movies," the invitation begins modestly, "but once word starts to spread about how we're doing it, the cinematic landscape may be changed forever." There will also be $2 all-you-can-eat popcorn.

Mr. Elms's career in film began on the mean streets of East Hampton, making movies with friends when he was still a student at East Hampton High School. The finished product would be shown in the school auditorium, followed by a wrap party, with keg, at the beach. Minus the keg, and the beach, Guerrilla Cinema will, he hopes, have a similarly comfortable and supportive atmosphere, and feel just like home to other young filmmakers.

Too Much L.A.

Moving away from Hollywood to make their first film may seem like a step backward, but it was this sort of support that brought Ben and Orson Cummings back East. "In L.A. everybody tries to stop you from doing things, saying you can't do this, you can't do that, it's impossible," Orson reflected this week.

The brothers lived in L.A. for two years. In that time they witnessed fires, a big earthquake, mudslides, and the O.J. Simpson trial and finally decided, said Ben, "it's a fun place to visit, but it's not the place to be." While their main character, Jordan, is not autobiographical, the screenplay, they admit, represents a bit of their own reaction to L.A.

"Jordan starts out likable then goes through changes as the script goes along. Those changes enable him to get further in the business," Ben explained.

Glory Fantasy

The Cummings brothers will take "sabbaticals" from their jobs as tennis pros at East Hampton Indoor Tennis to shoot the film through April. They've already taken an advance on their summer earnings, so they'll have to be back at work by mid-May.

They will direct the film themselves. After spending so much time writing and planning it out, they said, they couldn't imagine passing it on to someone else to direct. The house they rent on Halsey Lane in Bridgehampton will be one of the primary shooting locations. A friend, Brian McQuillan, will play the lead role, and many more friends and local businesses have donated funds or libations.

Music on the soundtrack will be by a local musician, Alfredo Merat of Sag Harbor. Even the postproduction work will be done locally at the state-of-the-art World Cottage in Bridgehampton. The Southampton Publick House will provide post-shooting beer and Once Upon a Bagel a month's worth of bagels for free.

If it's done in time, "Nine Out of Ten's" premiere may be on the East End as well, at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Or so they hope.

Not that they don't dream about going back to Hollywood. "We fantasize about our glory trip, flying in, having one or two meetings, saying hello to all our friends and then coming home," said Orson. "But this will always be home base."