VIDEO FILMS WITH CLASS A LOCAL TEACHER'S BREAKOUT MOVIE ARRIVES ON DVD.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

ON VINCENT JAY MILLER'S first day as a teacher at Reseda's Stirling Academy, a student asked him if he was going to quit because he'd been assigned a class of rejects.

Miller didn't quit his assignment; he used it. He also used material from his years as a teacher for emotionally disturbed kids in Reseda and Pasadena and as a social worker for troubled teens in South Central and East Los Angeles.

All this material was incorporated into his film ``Gabriela,'' which comes out on DVD and video June 25. While Miller was teaching, he was also attending film school at the University of Southern California. But the teaching experiences that helped him write this first film also helped him as a director.

``If you can deal with having 12 different people who have these extreme personalities and deal with being the leader of the group and keeping everybody together as a team, it's very good preparation for being a director,'' Miller said.

The players

Seidy Lopez (``Mi Vida Loca,'' ``Selena'') plays Gabriela, a young Mexican woman who comes to work as a therapist at a mental-health clinic. There, she meets Mike (Jaime Gomez, ``Training Day,'' ``Nash Bridges''), a handsome, caring therapist. The two begin to fall in love, but Gabriela is engaged to marry Pat (Zach Galligan, ``Gremlins''), a lawyer.

``Gabriela'' was filmed in Palmdale, Burbank and other sites around Los Angeles on a grueling 20-day shoot, with a production budget of only $18,500. Miller's fifth-grade teacher, who was one of the investors, also found an Arcadia restaurant that was used for four different scenes in the film.

The film was released nationwide in 80 cities in 2001, earning $2.35 million at the box office and glowing reviews. Juan Rodriguez Flores of La Opinion wrote, `` 'Gabriela' is the best love story since 'Pretty Woman,' '' and Cynthia Farrah of ABC TV said, ``Vince Miller is a brilliant new director.'' Luke Y. Thompson of New Times wrote, `` 'Gabriela' is qualitatively light-years ahead of 'The Wedding Planner.' ''

Too often, Miller said, there isn't any tension in a love triangle because the third party is either revealed to be a jerk or voluntarily bows out of the romance. While writing the script, Miller changed his mind several times about who would win his heroine's heart, and the film makes it clear that whomever Gabriela chooses, someone will be hurt.

``I did this film because it was really a beautiful love story, and it's very rare to find that,'' Lopez said. ``If you don't have someone jumping off a building and dying, blood all over the place or some explosion somewhere, someone killing someone, then people feel that it's not as marketable. We've forgotten about the romantic and we've forgotten about the positive and beauty and fantasy of life.''

The stereotypes

By casting Lopez and Gomez, whose previous roles have included tough characters, as the romantic leads, and by making Gabriela a therapist and her mother a lawyer, Miller felt he was making a statement about the stereotyping of Latino actors in films.

``It's rare to play a professional Latina,'' said Evelina Fernandez, who plays Sofia, Gabriela's mother. ``The roles we usually go up for are suffering gang mothers, kneeling in front of La Virgin de Guadelupe, 'Oh, please God, my son, he's a gang member,' that kind of stuff. And it's so boring and such a victimizing image of Latina women. I really hate it. So this role was great.''

Miller himself isn't Latino, but grew up in El Monte, a working-class Latino community of about 90,000 people east of Los Angeles. His father, David, was a former gang member from the Bronx who became a social worker; he died of a heart attack when Miller was only 14. Miller's mother, Alyce, was a poet who died of ovarian cancer while Miller was in graduate school. His father's example of helping others inspired Miller to go into teaching, and he used some of those experiences in his script for ``Gabriela.''

Miller recently finished writing the script for ``Prankster,'' another film based on his teaching experiences, and also has finished the screenplay for ``Captain Blood,'' with his brother, Mike Miller. It's based on a 1922 by novel by Rafael Sabatini. Actor Hugh Jackman (``X-Men,'' ``Kate & Leopold'') will co-produce and star in the project, which will be filmed in Jackman's native Australia.

``Gabriela'' (First Look Pictures) lists for $24.98 on DVD. It features interviews with cast members Seidy Lopez (Gabriela) and Zach Galligan (Pat), the original theatrical trailer and a separate music track. The video and DVD will be available at Blockbuster and Hollywood video stores, Best Buy, Circuit City, Albertsons and other major retail outlets. Rainbow Entertainment, which owns Bravo, IFC, AMC and WE, obtained exclusive rights over HBO and Showtime. The Grindstone Pictures Film was released theatrically by Power Point Films.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) Vincent Jay Miller, a teacher at Stirling Academy in Reseda, used his experience to direct ``Gabriela,'' now on DVD and video.

(2) LOPEZ

(3) GOMEZ