TRAILER-TROVE SHORT ON SMALL-TOWN LIFE HEADS TO FILM FESTIVAL.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - First-time director Phil Lantis, better known as the head of Santa Clarita's Arts and Events Department, and his wife, Nancy, better known as the artistic director of the Santa Clarita Repertory Theatre, are heading out of town this weekend to rub elbows with the likes of Robert Redford in Park City, Utah.

Well, at least they'll be in the same place at the same time, both attending film festivals. The Lantis posse, which includes cinematographer Andrew Gaspar and line producer Ryan Doremus, will be there to promote their short feature ``Away In a Trailer,'' which has been accepted into competition in the Slamdance Film Festival.

``It's the harder one to get into,'' Phil Lantis said, smiling.

``Away In a Trailer,'' a seven-minute short film featuring Nancy playing five different roles, is about ``the spirit of Christmas dragged kicking and screaming into a trailer park in Sweet Home, Oregon.'' For the competition, it will be paired with ``Memron,'' described as ``an improvisational comedic romp through the ruins of corporate fraud.''

``It's good they're both comedies,'' Nancy said.

The film is a distilling of two live theater works authored by Nancy Lantis - the 1999 ``Trailer Villa'' and 2000's ``Trailer Villa Christmas,'' which were produced by the pair at the Eclipse Theatre in Hollywood. ``Away In A Trailer'' was filmed in late 2002 (``the weekend of the Love Ride, in a Simi Valley single-wide'' Phil said).

``We're both from small towns in Oregon,'' Nancy said. ``This project started when we were driving home to Sweet Home, population 7,000, yee-haw. We met people with no pretensions and no qualms about talking about themselves, and realized we had some great material here.''

For the film, Nancy spent hours in makeup to transform herself into the various characters, including the 65-year-old grandmother Lavona, her born-again cosmetologist daughter Cheryl; Cody, Cheryl's 17-year-old son, a stoner/philosopher/drummer (``In that order,'' Nancy insisted); Candy, Cheryl's 15-year-old Mensa member daughter, who is working on her Pulitzer acceptance speech; and Rick Pudd, Cheryl's live-in boyfriend, an old football hero.

``The funny thing about Rick was that I'd get one of two reactions from my girlfriends,'' Nancy said. ``Either they said they knew him in high school or they were attracted to him. It was kind of scary.''

Phil said that working with Nancy's chameleon-like characters offered some funny as well as scary moments. ``She did flirt with me as Lavona, which was pretty disturbing,'' he said.

``Nancy's working on writing a feature-length script using these characters,'' he added. ``We're kind of obsessed with them. But this short film was a way for us to see if it would work on a broader scale.''

Phil drew from his days in film school ``back in the early '90s'' to do the multiple split-screen imagery required for crowd scenes in the film. ``Things are a lot easier now than they were then. The basic technique would be a split screen like they used in 'Bewitched,' where Samantha was on both sides of a straight line. With digital, it doesn't have to be a straight line,'' he explained. ``It just requires hours and hours of trying to find just the right spot to match up.''

Phil Lantis and Gaspar filmed each character separately so that Nancy wouldn't have to change makeup. The trick, Phil found, was to find scenes that matched when shooting days lapsed over a period of time, and lighting or settings needed to be matched perfectly.

The foursome have already packed some promotional items to hand out at the festival - press kits, business cards, videos and sample scripts - and some specially marked MoonPies.

``It's true comfort food and very much in keeping with the theme,'' Nancy said. ``And each is a collector's item, because they have different characters on them.''

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Phil and Nancy Lantis will present ``Away in a Trailer'' at this month's Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer