Jacobs' film club begins shooting first student movie

It's a week before filming starts, and Taylor Sinople doesn't have a leading man.

The Jacobs High School sophomore and founder of the school's first film club has already had to push filming back a week because no one showed up for auditions the previous week.

This week, Taylor's in luck. Four students have shown up to audition for the lead role in "Breathe," the film club's first project.

Only, two of them are girls -- auditioning for a role that was written for a boy.

Still, Taylor's pleased at the turnout and says he's willing to modify the four-page script to fit a female lead.

Student producer Crystal Pulkowski calls in the first actor, a boy -- clad in a pink T-shirt and the currently fashionable plaid shorts -- with no previous acting experience.

The novice gives a loud, nervous reading of a scene in which the lead talks to his friend on the phone after witnessing a convenience store robbery.

"You don't have to talk so loud," Taylor says, asking the rookie to try it again and play it more nervous.

School counselor Kim Barone is impressed with the untested actor's reading.

"I think he had the passion," she says.

But Taylor is looking for something different.

"We need someone that's not only good at acting with their voice but also good at moving around," he says.

He gets it with the third audition, a girl who's acted in school musicals. She moves around, uses her hands, gives a modulated performance.

Crystal calls the reading "very stage," and Taylor defers to her assessment.

"I know nothing about acting," he says. "I'm not an actor."

Around 4 p.m., the last actor swaggers in, asks how everyone's day has been, and rattles off a litany of stage and film roles he's played.

Even after the reading by the clearly experienced actor, Taylor is undecided.

"They're all good, but there's not one person that's 'Yeah, that's the guy,' " he says.

After noting concerns about the actor's nervousness, Taylor settles -- for a moment -- on the novice, then wavers.

He decides to cast the minor roles and try to find a leading man outside the small pool that showed up to audition.

Just before they're about to split up for the day, Crystal gets a call back from an actor friend and explains the situation to him.

"Yeah … but none of them are really working out as our lead," she says.

She hangs up and gives everyone the good news: her friend has agreed to audition for the role.

If all goes well, 15-year-old Taylor Sinople will get behind the camera as Jacobs High School's newest director.

Taylor started the film club in November. He's assembled a crew of more than 20 -- a critical threshold because if the club can maintain at least 20 members, it can receive funding from the school.

Until funding comes through, Taylor will have to film within a tight budget and the restrictions that go with a school-sponsored club.

When Jacobs junior Zack Pesata originally conceived "Breathe," it was about an accountant alone in a hotel room. It's later revealed the accountant is cheating on his wife.

But Pesata said the subject matter and the filming location didn't fly with the higher-ups.

"They just said 'absolutely not,' " Taylor recalls.

Pesata compromised and wrote another draft about a botched robbery. After the robber gets spooked and leaves the convenience store, the main character is left holding the loot.

The seven- to 10-minute movie follows the customer, who debates with himself and with people he calls on his cell phone, about what to do with the money.

Pesata started writing short stories as a kid and moved on to feature-length screenplays in middle school. Like his director, he counts Quentin Tarantino as an influence.

"Tarantino -- no one writes dialogue like him, but (writer-director David) Mamet -- he's number one," Pesata says.

For Crystal, the self-assured actress who'll be behind the scenes for the film club's first project, it was the "Lord of the Rings" movies that pushed her to try her hand at movie production.

Crystal hopes the film club's first production will generate the buzz the club needs to attract top talent.

"After our first film, I'm sure there's going to be a lot a more interest," she says.

Taylor already has one eye to the future, hoping to make two more movies this year, teach a class at Jacobs on filmmaking and lay the groundwork for a district-wide film festival.

For now, Taylor's just hoping his debut as a student director goes smoothly.

"I'm pretty excited to get to actual filming, and I'm pretty relieved to be done with casting," he said. "It's had a little more setbacks than I thought."