Tiffany Johnson has been bitten by the showbiz bug.
The 14-year-old from Bryans Road, Md., is one of 10 teens in the region chosen for the Doritos Fresh Films program, a national competition for 14- to 19-year olds.
Tiffany said her interest in acting was inspired in part by her father’s appearance last year in a car dealership commercial, though she is not sure whether she is committed to an acting career.
“He only had a few lines about how he saved $1,000. I don’t know if it was true, I don’t think he saved that much,” she said with a grin.
Tiffany and the nine others were selected from thousands who replied to an e-mail searching for teens to make a short film to enter in a festival. Each teen had to submit a story idea and a brief essay on why they want to be a filmmaker.
The 10 teens will work on one film, then compete against other teen-film teams from Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York and Seattle. The films will be put on the Internet, where the voting will take place.
The winning filmmakers and actors will attend a red carpet premiere party in Los Angeles this fall.
The teens’ filming of “Curtains Down,” a short tale about a love triangle, took place yesterday at the Randolph Road Theater in Silver Spring.
The young filmmakers were in charge of behind-the-scenes work such as lights, sound and direction, rotating duties to get the full experience.
“I’ve wanted to be an actress for five years now,” Tiffany said, “but I also wanted to see what it was like working behind the cameras.”
Her main job yesterday was helping preserve the film’s continuity. “I’m making sure things stay the same” in each take, she said. “If someone flips their hair in one shot, they have to do it in the next one.”
The three-day process included one day of filming and editing.
“I want to be a director and a screenplay writer, so this experience was definitely worth it,” said Taylor Luke, 15, of Frederick, Md., who was the assistant director yesterday.
The actors had a different motivation.
“The exposure is definitely one of the main reasons I auditioned,” said Adam Hyland, 26, of the District, who is primarily a stage actor. “It’s something that will be on the Internet, that anyone will be able to see.”
He and fellow cast members Ann Limberger, 29, of Gaithersburg, and Joshua Zirger, 25, of Alexandria, won their roles at a casting call recently held at a Wal-Mart in Alexandria.
“The [prospect] of a red carpet premiere is one of the things that got my attention,” said Miss Limberger, who made a brief appearance in the Nicolas Cage film “National Treasure” last year.
The actors had no reservations about working with the teens, despite a boom microphone entering a shot, short bouts of the fidgets and other minor mishaps.
“After about the first 15 minutes, you forget that you’re working with teens,” Mr. Zirger said.
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