The young filmmakers – almost all of them in their teens – who produced the four films for the sixth annual Spy Hop Productions’ Pitch Nic series have raised the performance bar a significant step above their predecessors’ work.

Last night, at a packed theater of more than 350 in the Gateway’s Megaplex 12, one could readily see the quality of the Pitch-Nic films which serve notice that groups such as Spy Hop are enormously effective in amplifying and sustaining young voices that ultimately will become the respected creative film artists of the next generation. These films are not just a pivotal point for these young filmmakers but also for community support and awareness of groups such as Spy Hop Productions.

Two documentaries were presented – one a mature, sensitive first-hand look at the impact of a wilderness camp for two teens dealing with substance abuse and family communication problems and the other a respectably researched personal account of the consequences of life without a Social Security number. A third was a pleasant story about a young man who’s convinced that the messages in his fortune cookies are being manifested in reality. The final offering was a dramatic, intense story about a suspect in a hospital who desperately tries to discover what he’s been accused of doing. Each of the films has a 20-minute running time.

The four films featured were:

Wild Side – The Utah backcountry is the setting for a wilderness camp where teens are learning to face and cope not only with substance abuse problems but, more importantly, issues they have in developing positive relationships with their families. This was an impressive cinematic treatment for such young filmmakers who focused on the stories of Chase and Logan to chronicle how teenagers can empower themselves to overcome their issues and to improve their relationships. Clearly, the young filmmakers – Qing Zhao, Tyson Call and Heather Todd-O’Brien – wisely prepared themselves to achieve a realistic, honest, and credible telling of the stories. In particular, the production values made this documentary an exceptional offering where the clean audio accentuates the natural ease of those whose stories are being told in the film.

The idea sprung from a story about one of the filmmakers’ friends who had told of his sharply negative experiences at a similar wilderness camp. However, the filmmakers zeroed in on the angle of the troubled quality of relationships these two teens, in particular, had with their families. And, this is why the film succeeds on every level. Frankly, one can only be impressed that such a sensitively intelligent treatment came from filmmakers not that much older than the subjects of their documentary.

Suspect – Pitch Nic mentors encourage their students to take substantial creative risks and to make them work as was the case in this sleek, artistic, surreal, emotionally intense story by Sean Bagley, Phil Davis, and Spencer Sandoval. The story, which originally started out as an idea where an individual murders people in their sleep, evolved into a sparse plot of a man who wakes up in a hospital bed and finds himself a suspect, confused about why he is being questioned. Indeed, the filmmakers are being cagey and deliberately so, emphasizing the real tension of the story – that is, the audience’s frustration at trying to rationalize and explain what the main character had actually done, if anything.

There’s much to celebrate in this youthful undertaking because the filmmakers stretched so far. They converted a conference room in the Spy Hop offices into a believably effective hospital room. The film’s art house appeal is evident in the beautifully executed opening as well as the time lapse sequence, of which the filmmakers seemed especially proud. The original music adds significantly to the film’s texture with digitally-produced effects as well as a string quintet that heightens the emotional tension at key spots in the film. The slim dialogue is well played, the only wish being that it could have been just slightly tweaked to be more suggestive especially as flashback, a small gift to eternally alert viewers.

Social Obscurity – I was struck by the peculiar irony of this film which is a first-person account of Steven Schmit’s consequences of living without a Social Security number. As much as he is committed to preserving the independence of his identity, he also is compelled to share publicly the complex ramifications of such a decision. Indeed, this is a huge challenge for any filmmaker to pull this off effectively, much less someone who is still in the formative years of his creative work. At times awkward and a bit disjointed, nevertheless, the film is admirable for its earnest desire to explain this unique form of protest.

Schmit and fellow filmmaker Aubry Hollingshead share a fair amount of research and interesting interviews with academics, tax experts, lawyers, and a man who sued his employer regarding a dispute about providing a Social Security number. Yet, most importantly, the film exemplifies the Pitch Nic mission of encouraging artists such as Schmit to take risks, to be vigilant, and to celebrate their independence.

An Unfortunate Cookie – The filmmakers – Whitney Warren, Al Vallo and Kenneth Larson – had a clever idea, complete with the incessant consumption of Chinese food and fortune cookies. A young man, rudderless in his quest for a meaningful life and career, believes that those deliberately ambiguous trite sayings inside fortune cookies become reality for him. He arrives at this discovery in a most innocuous way when he reads the fortune “sustenance is yours for the taking.” His best friend notices that the ticket has the meal omitted from the charges. Previously dismissive of such meaningless fortunes, the young man has newfound respect although he refuses to eat the cookie, telling his best friend’s female companion that the cookies are “gross.”

And, the young man’s decisions are predicated on the fortune inside the cookie, including taking a sales stint for an awful-sounding and equally awful-looking tanning cream. The twist comes in when he seduces his best friend’s lover, who has had a brief falling out with her boyfriend, by misrepresenting the fortune which actually reads: “Be mischievous and you will not be lonesome.”

Naturally, the young woman discovers the actual fortune the following day and the man’s gig is up, so to speak. The ending is right: After cracking open countless fortune cookies, the young man is resigned to the inevitable folly of his conviction.

The story was a bit hampered by some minor awkward decisions on the part of the filmmakers and the actors. I wish that the filmmakers would have been a shade more attentive to timing and pacing because the comedic aspects would have worked especially well. After all, as Larson explained, “life is about the cookie, not the fortune.”

The Pitch-Nic program is just one aspect of Spy Hop Productions, a nonprofit organization that helps teenagers cultivate their experience and skills in the documentary arts, film/video production, audio engineering, and interactive media. A rare opportunity for student filmmakers, Pitch-Nic matches them with professional mentors and community sponsors so that they can realize a screenplay from start to finish. Each film was produced by funds raised at Spy Hop’s Annual Benefit, an Unconventional Auction, each spring.

Other sponsors included Carlucci’s Bakery, Em’s Restaurant, Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli, Redman Movies and Stores, Inc., Squatter’s Pub Brewery, and Systematic Printing.