Early Works of Film Greats Move Pair in Right Direction

Twenty years after Cal State Long Beach student Steven Spielberg used his 24-minute feature “Amblin’ ” to open doors in Hollywood, two San Diego State University graduates are using the film, and others like it, to fuel their own film careers.

Spielberg, the legend goes, screened “Amblin’ ” for a half-dozen movie executives, eventually earning himself a job as a television director for Universal Pictures at the age of 20. He would later name his production company after the film.

Fledgling filmmakers Dave Tanaka and Ken Apperson will present “Amblin,’ ” the story of two young hitchhikers, and five other student films by some of the world’s best-known directors in “The Best of Back to Film School,” Friday and Saturday at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.

The roster also includes short films from the early careers of Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Robert Zemeckis, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen.

It will be the third presentation of student films from Tanaka and Apperson, who put the proceeds toward their film projects, including a comedy show, “Channel Zero,” modeled after the Second City television program, and embryonic plans for a full-length feature.

“We’re obsessed with the idea of doing a feature for under $10,000,” Apperson said.

Each graduated from San Diego State earlier this year. Tanaka works for a video-monitoring service, and Apperson produces videos for a local firm. He is also the lead singer of a local rock band, the Ninth.

In September, they expect to move to Los Angeles to pursue their film careers, to try to follow in the footsteps of filmmakers such as Spielberg and Lynch.

They see the “Back to Film School” as a way to earn extra money for their projects. Later this year, they plan to take the student films to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Beyond money, the films provide the pair with education and inspiration.

“We looked at the films these guys did, and they weren’t films that I said, ‘No way I could make a film like that,’ ” Tanaka said.

Yet the films usually reflect the style and skill of the young talent.

“You can see a Spielberg film and . . . you can see his trademark shots,” Tanaka said. “You can see ‘The Grandmother’ (about a boy who grows a grandmother from a seed) and see that it is undeniably a Lynch film.”

They hope to use their own film projects in much the same way that many of the directors in the package did, as audition pieces to open Hollywood’s closed doors.

“If anybody’s student film got them where they are today, it’s Spielberg’s,” Apperson said. “That’s the power the student film represents in the marketplace.”

The pair hoped the first “Back to Film School” package, in 1987, would pay for their senior project, a 30-minute film. The idea for the show came out of a brainstorming session.

“I thought it was a great idea,” said La Jolla Museum film curator Greg Kahn, one of Tanaka’s teachers at San Diego State. “We don’t have an opportunity to see these student films because theaters don’t show shorts.”

Although they had no experience in promotion, Tanaka and Apperson soon learned volumes about advertising, marketing and the hard work necessary to get people to attend a show.

The first package included films by Orson Welles and George Lucas. To their surprise, people lined up to see the films. A midnight showing had to be added to accommodate the overflow.

The show was so successful that they decided to scale back their senior film and save money for larger projects. And, now that they are on their third show, the pair has found that an increasing amount of their time is spent tracking down obscure, long-forgotten films by today’s hot directors.

They often come upon titles while reading books about directors. For example, a small reference sent them searching for Woody Allen’s “The Laughmaker,” a 30-minute TV pilot starring Alan Alda and Louise Lasser that he made after dropping out of film school in 1962.

It is included in the “Best of . . . “ package. “We put the Woody Allen film in just because we were so happy to have found it,” Tanaka said.

He and Apperson pay a small, variable fee to a distributor to rent the movies. Many of the films have been easily found in distributors’ warehouses. Others have been more difficult to unearth, and the two have had their share of frustrations.

“We called Francis Ford Coppola’s studios and asked about his films,” Tanaka said. “A secretary told us Mr. Coppola doesn’t want any of his early films shown because they’re all blue films.”

Apperson still dreams of finding the elusive early films of Stanley Kubrick, as well as one by “Raising Arizona” director Joel Coen. Oliver Stone’s first film, “Last Year in Vietnam,” is another goal.

“I’m dying to see that,” Tanaka said.

Kahn said he was impressed by the diversity of the films the two were able to find. Of the films scheduled to screen this weekend, he particularly likes Scorsese’s “The Big Shave,” a six-minute black comedy, and “The Grandmother,” the work by Lynch, whose television show “Twin Peaks” recently debuted on ABC.

“Who had a chance to see these films?” Kahn asked.

Tanaka and Apperson hope to one day do an international “Back to Film School” show. They already have leads on the early works of Francois Truffaut, among others. But they don’t want go into the business of exhibiting films.

“We want to make films,” Tanaka said. “This is just a way to get there.”