BELIEVING THE `HYPE!' OF SEATTLE : 2 L.A. FILMMAKERS GET KNEE-DEEP IN GRUNGE.

Byline: Ken Baker Special to the Daily News

Amid the current popularity of alternative bands like the cheeky Presidents of the United States of America and post-grunge puppy rockers Bush, it seems that the angst-ridden teen spiriteers of the Cobain generation have replaced their scowls with a smiley face. And, for better or worse, '80s hair bands Van Halen and Journey are enjoying a resurgence.

So now that the fuzzy metal-guitar riffs of early-'90s grunge have begun giving way to a more Prozac-infused alterna-sound, a resulting grunge-is-dead anthem just might conjure enough nostalgia to attract moviegoers to ``Hype!'' a documentary chronicling the rise and fall of Seattle's grunge sound as seen through the eyes of the townies.

``Hype!'' the debut documentary outing for L.A.-based filmmakers Doug Pray and Steve Helvey, features both the famous (Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam) and obscure (Eddie Spaghetti of the Supersuckers) members of Seattle's rock community weighing in on the musical movement that began resonating with the masses during the days of Bush (the president, that is) but had its roots in the metal madness of the Reagan years.

Owing nearly $500,000 to investors in ``Hype!'' the filmmakers hope some of that grungemania still lingers.

``This whole thing has been made on a shoestring,'' says director Pray, a Silver Lake resident who, in a cost-cutting sacrifice, lived in Seattle for several months in '93. ``It's been a total labor of love. We'd raise some money and shoot some bands, raise some more and shoot. It's amazing that this whole thing came together.''

``Hype!'' producer Helvey is talking about the two years he and UCLA film-school buddy Pray spent trudging through Seattle's club scene shooting the 84-minute documentary.

From Helvey's Doc Martens resting on the frame of his stool, to hissing cappuccino-makers and the November gray skies, the Santa Monica coffeehouse Helvey is sipping in easily could be in Seattle in, say, 1992, when grunge topped the charts and Kurt Cobain had not yet bade his bloody April 1994 farewell.

According to the Seattle scenesters interviewed in ``Hype!'' however, what's missing from this would-be grunge atmosphere are major record-label executives, wanna-be rockers and flannel-clad poseurs brainwashed by the media-whipped frenzy.

But at least one of those elements is added when into Helvey's neighborhood Starbucks walks Rebecca Shanahan, a friend of the sinewy 36-year-old producer.

Shanahan, sans flannel, steps between Helvey and his latte.

``My niece back East wants a copy of the movie poster,'' begins Shanahan. Reacting to Helvey's head-cocked skepticism, she adds, ``Seriously. I'm not just hyping.''

Helvey and director Pray, both of whom shuttled between their respective L.A. homes and the Pacific Northwest from early 1993 to late 1994 making the rockumentary, have spent the past month on a nationwide tour, well, hyping their product, much like any exploitative record-label executive.

``It's been a full-time job promoting the film,'' says Pray, 36, who, unlike Helvey, played guitar with several bands before embarking on a full-time film career. ``Yeah, the irony is not lost on us.''

Their efforts also haven't gone unnoticed.

Since ``Hype!'' premiered Nov. 8 in New York and Seattle, MTV, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and even Seattle's grunge-out press have lauded the film for its wry humor, intellect, digitally mixed music and footage of live pit-moshing madness. The soundtrack would have Beavis and Butt-head bobbing their skulls in approval.

``Hype!'' opened Friday in several Los Angeles-area theaters, including the AMC Media Center 8 in Burbank, the UA Warner Center in Woodland Hills and Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.

``Hype!'' takes us through the grunge hysteria sparked almost single-handedly by Nirvana's September 1991 release of ``Nevermind'' (which to date has sold over 9 million copies). Nirvana's breakthrough album elevated the so-called Seattle sound from the punk-rock ghetto of Johnny Rotten into the millionaire-making mainstream of Barry Manilow.

The subsequent post-``Nevermind'' grunge rush also lured A&R reps to Seattle in search of ``the next Nirvana'' and, as Vedder mourns in the film, opportunistic rockers from places like L.A. ``There were musicians who moved to California in the early '80s from Seattle, to try to get signed, who started moving back,'' explains a distressed Vedder, who (for the record) himself migrated to Seattle via L.A in late 1990.

The project began in August 1992 when Helvey, then a second-year graduate student in UCLA's producer's program, floated the idea for ``Hype!'' to Pray, a talented-but-unemployed director who had recently graduated from UCLA's film program.

In 1990, Helvey quit his job as a financial analyst at a Silicon Valley high-tech firm, sold his condo and most of his possessions, and headed for Hollywood. The only music connection he had was an impressive CD collection.But Pray had friends in the Seattle bands Young Fresh Fellows, Flop and the Fastbacks. So Helvey figured Pray's connections could grant them access to the city's already media-weary bands. At first, Pray scoffed at Helvey's apparent naivete.

``It was such a bad idea,'' recalls Pray. ``At the time, the scene had been on the cover of every magazine on every newsstand. It just seemed crazy.''

Maybe. But Helvey found Pray's pessimism encouraging.

Says Helvey: ``When Doug said they were so sick of people going up here with cameras and wanting to get the story, that was the moment when I thought, `There is something really interesting going on up there.' I wanted to know why they were so angry.''

Still, Pray wasn't convinced. He was so frustrated with his stalled filmmaking career that, shortly after his encounter with Helvey, Pray and his wife bolted from L.A. for an Iowa town on the banks of the Mississippi River, where he says he began writing ``the great American screenplay.''

Despite his reluctance, Pray called some of his Seattle friends and pitched them the idea for ``Hype!'' and the locals' surprising willingness to vent changed his mind.By tapping some ``financially stable'' friends, the duo within a few months was able to raise $60,000, enough to begin shooting in January 1993. The film was edited at Burbank's Straightline productions and picked up by a distributor following last January's Sundance Film Festival.

Using Super 16mm film, they interviewed scores of musicians and observers. They also conducted three-camera shoots of more than 27 live performances and recorded them in 24-track digital sound. Many of those rockin' recordings can be heard on the film's soundtrack, a 22-tune CD featuring a virtual who's who of Seattle music, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Fastbacks, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, the Posies, 7 Year Bitch and Young Fresh Fellows.

Seattle record producer Jack Endino mixed the soundtrack, which was assembled by Seattle's Sub Pop Records. Endino - who has been called ``the Godfather of Grunge,'' because he recorded many of the early grunge bands, including Nirvana - also appears in ``Hype!'' serving as the film's de facto narrator, since the filmmakers chose to let the music and interview subjects, rather than an omniscient Kurt Loder-type, do the storytelling.

The L.A. club scene takes some well-deserved shots from the drizzly city's grunge pioneers, most of whose creative energies were fueled by their antipathy for L.A. pretensions, says the sagelike Endino.

``The mainstream L.A. music scene was something against which to rebel,'' explains Endino. ``It represented all that we didn't want to be.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) ``Hype!'' chronicles Seattle's grunge scene and the frenzy surrounding it, including the popularity of bands such as Pearl Jam, who inspired this mosh pit at a 1992 concert.

(2) ``Hype!'' director Doug Pray, in front of the ``Hype-truck'' at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, hopes to recoup investors in the project.

(3) A stage diver goes for broke at Seattle's HUB Ballroom during a Nirvana concert in January 1990. The grunge scene took off with the release of the band's ``Nevermind'' album in September 1991.