BILLY BOB AS FESTIVAL HERO.

Underdog Oscar contender Billy Bob Thornton got a hero's welcome and a stellar panel drew a spillover crowd to a sold-out screenwriting seminar during the first weekend of the 12th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival.

The panel included writer-director Anthony Minghella, whose ``The English Patient'' is nominated for 12 Oscars, as well as Santa Barbara residents Paul Brickman (``Risky Business'') and Ellen Simon (``One Fine Day''). But the most raucous applause was inspired by Thornton, the Arkansas-born writer, director and star of the slow-moving, biblically tinged Southern drama ``Sling Blade,'' which has drawn two Oscar nominations.

``Billy Bob is kind of an underdog hero,'' said Carpinteria resident Chris Perry, 28, who had bicycled to Santa Barbara for the Sunday morning panel. ``He did things his own way, and it paid off.''

Titled ``It Starts With the Script,'' the event at the 450-seat Riviera Theater was ``without a doubt'' the most popular such event the festival has staged, said festival director Phyllis DiPiciotto. ``This is a town that loves writers, and this year we had a stellar panel and it just went over the top,'' said DiPiciotto of the event, which was moderated by producer and Santa Barbara resident Laura Ziskin, who is president of 20th Century Fox's Fox 2000 movie division.

Thornton, who doesn't type, due to ``a dyslexic condition,'' said that he considers writing more difficult than acting or directing. ``It's a very, very solitary profession,'' he said. ``As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever met any other writers. We don't hang out at Johnny Depp's club on Friday nights or anything.''

Minghella attributed the Oscar focus on independent films this year to those films' more passionate origins. ``These are films that come from people's hearts, as opposed to the packaged studio films that attempt to lasso an audience through some sort of calculation.''

Panelist Larry Karaszewski, co-writer with Scott Alexander of ``The People vs. Larry Flynt,'' said of the critically acclaimed movie's disappointing box office that ``People are confusing Larry Flynt the man with `Larry Flynt' the movie. If you can't make a movie about a despicable character, you wouldn't have `The Godfather,' either.''

Karaszewski and Alexander, who also wrote Tim Burton's ``Ed Wood,'' said it was their unusual experience as writers of the critically reviled comedy ``Problem Child'' and its sequel that led them to write about Wood, the fantastically unsuccessful 1950s movie director.

``The `Problem Child' movies made tons of money but everybody hated them and no one was hiring us,'' said Karaszewski. ``Making movies that everyone hated led us to the idea of writing about Ed Wood and his career.''

The film festival, which continues through this weekend, includes a tribute to Dennis Hopper on Saturday. For information, please call the festival hot line, [phone], or the festival office, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: ``It's a very, very solitary profession,'' says Billy Bob Thornton of writing. ``As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever met any other writers. We don't hang out at Johnny Depp's club on Friday nights or anything.''

Box: The weekend's top 10 (Box Office)