PRESERVING THEIR PERSONAL VISION TEENS PREPARING FOR FILM CONTEST.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

With the Academy Awards set for next Sunday, a competition for Conejo Valley teens is getting under way to select outstanding young actors, documentary filmmakers, cinematographers and other motion picture talents.

The seventh annual Conejo Teen Video Festival is open to teenagers throughout Ventura County, as well as Agoura Hills and Calabasas.

``I've been making movies since I was 7, and I was working on a movie anyway before I learned about the contest last year,'' said Ethan Kuperberg, a 16-year-old student at Agoura High School, who won last year's best documentary prize for his film on cutting his long hair.

``I just thought it would be funny to make a film about getting my hair cut. I guess people can relate to it. ... It was very tongue-in-cheek - mockumentary style.''

Entries have been improving over the past seven years, officials say, partly because teens have greater access to video cameras and sophisticated home computers. Also, the teens are incorporating more serious social concerns as themes for their projects.

``In the beginning, we had many films about skateboarding and rollerblading, because that is what the kids knew and what they were doing,'' said J.J. Linsalata, an assistant director for television shows like ``Charmed'' and ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' who serves as one of the preliminary judges in the contest.

``Now I see more involvement with social consciousness. I think it might be a sign of the times. We had several very compassionate pieces last year, one about a homeless person, one about a teenager despairing over her life.''

The entries must be original works completed between June 30, 2004, and May 31, 2005. The awards will be announced at 7 p.m. June 29 in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza's Scherr Forum Theater, where the winning videos will be screened.

Kuperberg was 15 when he sacrificed his large Afro-style hair for his video called: ``Goodbye Afro - A Trip to the Barbershop.''

``It was a very funny movie on a very simple subject,'' said Linsalata. ``He used something that was very close to him, something that he knew. It shows that you don't have to write a 'Citizen Kane' to turn out a very entertaining film.''

Kuperberg, who is the son of Agoura Hills City Council member Dan Kuperberg, also had his film chosen for a festival in Sacramento last October featuring 30 films picked from 180 submitted from across the country.

This year, Kuperberg is working on two possible entries for the Conejo contest, including a dark comedy and a music video. His advice to newcomers is ``pick a subject that you know well and tell a good story.''

The entries must be submitted either in standard VHS or DVD (with MPEG 2 or better) formats by the deadline of May 31.

Aaron Blum, 15, won the award for teen videographer 14 and under last year for a documentary about a 12-year-old neighbor girl who is a champion mountain bike rider. Blum first entered the contest when he was 12 with a documentary about a day at a Thousand Oaks fire station. The next year, he did a documentary about prejudice, for which he interviewed Holocaust survivors and African Americans.

This year, he is working on another documentary about Thousand Oaks High School students in a rock band called Cicada.

``I think the contest has really helped me,'' Blum said. ``I've progressed so much by seeing what other people have put together and gaining ideas from them.''

Nick Truhan, 14, and Dylan Walsh, 12, of Colina Middle School in Thousand Oaks are also planning to do a documentary about 12-year-olds in a local band called Counterparts.

``The mother of one of the band members saw some of our videos and liked our work; they sent us a CD,'' said Walsh, who said he had been making videos since he was 7.

``Teens are more knowledgeable than they were when it started,'' said Pete Martinez, who helped establish the festival with the Conejo Recreation and Park District and teaches classes related to the contest at the Thousand Oaks Teen center. ``If they don't have a camera, and if they take a course at Adelphia, they can get a video-making kit for free.''

The general entry categories are documentary, fiction and music video. The documentary and fiction entries cannot exceed 10 minutes, and music videos are limited to four minutes.

Awards cover everything from best documentary, to most original and best music video, best screenplay, best cinematography, best special effects, best editing, best actor and actress and best video (for videographer under 15 years old) and overall best video.

Monica Nolan, chairwoman of the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission and one of those who helped Martinez create the competition, said a number of contestants have gone on to film school.

``One of our first winners actually went on make a skateboard film for a Japanese company,'' Nolan said.

``Two years ago, we had a lot of special effects, including a computer animated shot of a bullet going past someone's head. One guy had a camera attached to a small helicopter, a toy helicopter, so he could film aerial shots.''

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Ethan Kuperberg, 16, of Agoura Hills was a winner in last year's Conejo Teen Video Festival, with a documentary about cutting his hair. He plans to enter two projects in this year's contest.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer