Indie Ingenuity

What’s it take to make a movie and get it screened? Five Orange County amateur movie-makers with entries in the Newport Beach International Film Festival, which starts Thursday, say inspiration and determination count more than connections or cash--none spent anything close to six figures. And one, David Sperling, spent only $300. Here’s a look at the local contingent:

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‘BOB PECKERWOOD’

Writer-director: Jon Schnitzer, 21, of Lake Forest

Education: Completed film-video certificate program at Orange Coast College, where he is still enrolled

Previous festivals and/or awards: 1997 Raw Energy Film Festival, Toronto; 1997 Pacific Coast Film Festival, San Diego

Synopsis: Fictional “docu-comedy” chronicling the career of writer-director-producer-actor Bob Peckerwood delves into his power battles with egomaniacal colleague Bob Fellini and shows clips from his films, including “Rabbi Schlomo, the Jewish Avenger” and “Johnny Q vs. the National Pimp Assn.”

Key locations: El Toro High School, the principal’s office and theater department; a Santa Ana scrap metal yard; the Orange Coast College library

Friends/relatives who get screen time: “My dad was in it, but he wound up on the cutting-room floor.”

Screening: April 4, 6 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Indie idols: Kevin Smith; Sam Raimi (“Army of Darkness,” “Evil Dead”)

Quote: “I used to act at South Coast Repertory, I was, like, 8 when I started, and I became good friends with [longtime SCR actors] Richard Doyle and Hal Landon Jr. . . . so I wrote parts with both of them in mind. I thought of Richard Doyle’s voice and how he talks to write dialogue for the lead [Doyle plays Peckerwood], and Hal Landon plays Rabbi Schlomo. His accents and dialects are so wonderful.”

Next up: Writing more scripts

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‘FLOODING’

Writer-director: Todd Portugal, 27, of Irvine

Education: Bachelor’s degree in film studies, Cal State Long Beach, 1993

Previous festivals and/or awards: 1998 Laguna Beach Film Festival

Synopsis: A psychological thriller about an agoraphobic woman who, in therapy, unspools the mysteries underlying her crippling disorder and her husband’s murder.

Key locations: The carousel and Ferris wheel at the Balboa Fun Zone; a residence in Aliso Viejo

Friends/relatives who get screen time: Portugal has a cameo.

Screening: Friday, 8 p.m., UC Irvine Film and Video Center, Humanities Instructional Building, Room 100, West Peltason Road; April 4, 8 p.m., the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Indie Idols: The Coen brothers; Ed Burns (“The Brothers McMullen”); Kevin Smith (“Chasing Amy,” “Mallrats”)

Quote: “We set a door on fire. I wanted a close shot of an eye looking through a peephole. So we apparently set [a movie] light too close to the door, and after we did the take, we opened the door, and it was a bit scorched and the glass in the peephole had melted and bubbled out the backside.”

Next up: Writing another script

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‘GIRL COTTAGE’

Writer-director: Steve Morris, 30, of Balboa Island

Co-writers: Scott Woods, Tom Springston and Christian Bakewell

Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, UC Irvine, 1990

Previous festivals and/or awards: None

Synopsis: Four female friends spend the summer before graduating from college partying with four slacker dudes, in whose company they begin to think seriously about their futures.

Key locations: A Balboa Peninsula beach cottage; the Balboa Island Fun Zone

Friends/relatives who get screen time: “Pretty much all my friends were extras in party and beach scenes.”

Screening: Friday, 6 p.m., UC Irvine Film and Video Center, Humanities Instructional Building, Room 100, West Peltason Road; April 1, 6 p.m., and April 4, 2 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Indie idol: Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan,” “Barcelona); Richard Linklater (“Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused”)

Quote: “We were shooting a scene at the Fun Zone on a Sunday. It was really crowded because we wanted a summer, beachy feel. And the [four lead actresses] went down and got on the Ferris wheel, and [the operators] could have just kept the ride going, but next thing you knew, they stopped it for us so we could get the shot. Even the people in line were saying, ‘Oh, no problem.’ ”

Next up: A short film, now in pre-production

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‘OCEAN TRIBE’

Writer-director: Will Geiger, 35, of Seal Beach

Education: Completed Orange Coast College’s film-video certificate program in 1995

Previous festivals and/or awards: 1997 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, best director for “Ocean Tribe.” 1994 Chicago International Film Fest, second place for student film, “In Love and War.”

Synopsis: Four surfer buds reunite seven years after high school to take a friend dying of cancer on a final surfing road trip to Mexico in a rickety old ambulance painted like the wind.

Key locations: Huntington Beach Pier; Woody’s Diner, Huntington Beach; Baja California, Mexico

Friends/relatives who get screen time: Geiger has a cameo.

Screening: Friday, 1:30 p.m.; Tuesday, 8 p.m., Edwards Island Cinemas, Fashion Island, Newport Beach. Also April 4, 8 p.m., Captain Blood’s Village Theatre, 1140 N. Tustin Ave., Orange

Indie idol: John Sayles

Quote: “A friend of mine, Eric Walls, was paralyzed in the seventh grade from a fall, and he rides a surfboard on his belly. So I based the movie on Eric and on another guy, Bob Cook [a former Balboa Island resident who died of cancer in 1991]. All of his friends got together and shaved their heads when he lost his hair to chemotherapy. The movie’s dedicated to Bob.”

Next up: In negotiations to write and direct a feature film for Phoenix Pictures (“The People vs. Larry Flint,” “The Mirror Has Two Faces”)

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‘DRUNK IN PUBLIC’

Writer-director: David Sperling, 29, of Mission Viejo

Education: Bachelor’s degree in social ecology, UC Irvine, 1990

“Drunk in Public: The Mark David Allen Story”

Writer-director: David Sperling, 29, of Mission Viejo

Education: Bachelor’s degree in social ecology, UC Irvine, 1990

“Drunk in Public: The Mark David Allen Story”

Writer-director: David Sperling, 29, of Mission Viejo

Education: Bachelor’s degree in social ecology, UC Irvine, 1990

Previous festivals and/or awards: None

Synopsis: A documentary for which Sperling, a jailer at the Newport Beach Police Department, trained his VHS camcorder on Mark David Allen, who was arrested for public drunkenness 97 times, according to the filmmaker. The 18-minute, black-and-white video follows Allen, who has since left the county (with 10 court appearances pending), from local park to rubber-lined drunk tank and back out onto the streets. Sperling also interviewed Newport Beach law enforcement officials about Allen.

Key Locations: The jail and Channel Place Park in Newport Beach

Friends/relatives who get screen time: “The people I work with, like Mark Satin, one of the department’s custody officers.”

Screening: April 4, 6 p.m., Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach

Indie idols: Michael Moore (“Roger and Me”); Joel and Ethan Coen (“Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski”)

Quote: “Lots of times [Allen] would get arrested because he’d just fall down in the middle of the street. He was so drunk he’d be a total danger to himself. In his earlier days, he was a fighter, but toward the end, they’d just bring him in to sober him up so he wouldn’t get run over or hit his head falling down or something. . . . I made the video for about $300 on a crappy old VHS camcorder and just kind of threw it together. The content is more interesting than the technical aspects of it.”

Next Up: Pre-production on a short film