Behind-the-screens action

Many films are now accompanied by “making of the movie” documentaries that appear along with other special features on DVDs. Some people apparently spend all their waking hours watching movies -- and then the movies about the movies.

For audiences intoxicated with screen imagery, the excitement of seeing something live -- or in “real time” -- is rare.

In the slyly deconstructive “Flicker,” at REDCAT, the New York-based Big Art Group allows the audience to see, simultaneously, the “real time” making of a movie -- and the movie itself.

The movie in question is a dreadful, so-bad-it’s-good slasher video. With a technique they call “real-time film,” “Flicker” creators Caden Manson (credited for direction, set and video) and Jemma Nelson (sound and music) are making fun of their creation even as it’s assembled before our eyes.

Here’s how it works: A bank of three adjacent, low-lying screens crosses the stage. Atop each screen is a video camera, pointed at the behind-the-screens -- as opposed to behind-the-scenes -- action.

We see not only the projected images on the screens but also the upper parts of the actors’ bodies over the tops of the screens. So we watch as they scurry from shot to shot and as body-doubles stand in for the primary actors at crucial moments.

Befitting an ultra-low-budget exploitation flick, the actors also serve as the crew. So we see them emoting one moment and then coolly taking over the camera duties for the next scene.

The script, by Nelson with Manson and Rebecca Sumner Burgos, tells two stories. The first is a yarn about a proverbial group of young people lost in the woods, threatened by a maniac. These characters seem more or less interchangeable -- which suits a production in which many actors take over the same roles, apparently depending on who’s closest to the appropriate camera angle at any given moment.

As the actors pass the roles around, they hastily change wigs and costumes in an attempt to ensure the continuity of the narrative, but the seams show. The funniest moments occur when a role passes from one actor in front of one camera to another actor in front of the adjacent camera, usually with little regard for whether the actors are of the same gender, race or body type.

The script’s second story is a more detailed look at three young people who have shared the same apartment. One of them (Jeff Randall) is a voyeuristic videographer whose no-nonsense style is one of the evening’s most pointed satirical comments about a world that’s intent on recording every moment.

The two narratives literally collide in the climax.

Each viewer has to decide when to watch the screens and when to watch the action behind the screens. The screen images provide their own comedy, especially in moments of extreme close-up.

By bringing “Flicker” to Los Angeles, Big Art Group may discover that some audience members have experienced a genre that’s similar in certain aspects: the live tapings of three-camera situation comedies for TV.

But “Flicker” offers clear-cut advantages over the sitcom tapings, which often drag for hours with retakes. “Flicker” retakes nothing -- it lasts little more than an hour. And the audience at REDCAT isn’t nearly as manipulated -- there are no warm-up comics or applause cues.

By inviting its audience to enter into its own world of the fake, “Flicker” produces laughs and applause that are genuine.

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‘Flicker’

Where: REDCAT, 2nd and Hope streets, Los Angeles

When: 8:30 tonight through Sunday

Ends: Sunday

Price: $20 to $32

Contact: (213) 237-2800, www.redcat.org

Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes