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Nic Weinfeld, 16, sweated beneath the weight of a 50-pound Panavision video camera.

"Cooper, step into frame please," the Silver Spring teen said to 10-year-old actor Cooper Timberline. "OK, that's exactly where I want the focus to be."

Weinfeld was wedged under the camera and in the corner of a Bethesda home's bedroom earlier this week while filming "The Rose," a short silent film written, directed and shot by area teens.

The 16mm camera resting on Weinfeld's shoulder is the unofficial star of the film, a piece of equipment lent to the boys through Panavision's Student Filmmaker Program. Renting the camera, lenses and accessories for a week would ordinarily cost upward of $20,000, according to Phil Radin, Panavision's executive vice president of worldwide marketing, who worked with Williams' application.

"The grant was designed for post-college kids," Weinfeld said. "‘Napoleon Dynamite' was shot on this grant, [as was] ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape.' ... It's very unusual for two high-school filmmakers to film on it."

Across the room from Weinfeld, 17-year-old screenwriter Lukas Williams of Bethesda shouted orders for the film's crew to set up lighting, plug in a monitor and shift furniture. Wires stretched between rooms and tape markers decorated the rugs of the expansive home. Crew members ran into each other and tripped over equipment. The operation was organized chaos.

The film tells the story of a young boy grappling to cope with his mother's illness. Seeing the toll it's taking on his family, the boy goes to pick a rose from his backyard, but he is confronted by imaginary monsters he must first fight off.

"I feel like everyone was once a kid, playing with fake swords in their backyard," said Williams, who noted he grew up on "Star Wars'' and "Lord of the Rings.'' "It's also a way to cope with issues."

Williams and Weinfeld, who met at a film camp, have worked on a variety of smaller projects in the past. Williams decided to apply for the grant after one of his classmates at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan won it. He did some research and found out that many of his favorite directors were previous recipients. And after spending three weeks putting together his application, he found out his request was approved in early August.

"Just by the virtue of the script alone, it seemed like a script that was worthwhile in terms of Panavision wanting to support it," Radin said. "The other part is the filmmakers. The fact that they're still in high school is compelling to me."

In fact, Radin said in his roughly 30 years with the company, this is the first time he's seen an application come in from a high-schooler.

"Most high school students, quite honestly, are doing projects that are not as ambitious as this one," he said. "They're grabbing a home video camera and getting friends together on a weekend."

Williams' father is backing the film. Even though the camera was lent for the project at no cost, the boys are paying for actors and lighting and face a $3,200 bill from a computer-generated imagery animator for 40 seconds of animation.

Weinfeld and Williams had two days to shoot the five-minute film, a compressed timeline they were forced to work with because, in addition to being filmmakers, they're also high school students. Weinfeld attends a boarding film school in Michigan, which begins next week, while Williams attends a private school in Washington, D.C.

But when Panavision offers you the use of the same camera that's regularly rented out to TV crews, you can't pass it up, they said.

"Shooting with film obviously has been my dream," Williams said. "There are just slight differences that make it so much cooler."

Among them, Williams said he loves the idea of changing the film rather than dealing with exclusively digital content, changing lenses and having a finished product that looks "more Hollywood."

And if that means working around the clock for two days straight, that's what they'll do.

The cast and crew started around 7 a.m. Monday morning and expected to work well in to the evening. Each shot, even just for 10 seconds of reel, took about 20 minutes to assemble. Weinfeld said they had to shoot 75 total shots over the two-day period.

"I think that everybody really realizes the opportunity this is," Williams said. "I think they're just trying to enjoy it."

Williams said the teens are planning on submitting their finished project to several film festivals, as well as showing it to Panavision and their respective schools.

jderbedrosian@gazette.net