One-Man Film School

STRANGERCROMBIE WINNER! This article was bought-and-paid-for in The Stranger’s annual charity auction—which this year raised more than $50,000 for the Seattle nonprofit Treehouse, helping foster kids since 1988. Thank you, everybody!

Alek Talevich is done with Hollywood. Gregarious and earnest, the
30-year-old self-described “California refugee” (a former UCLA film
student now pursuing his master’s in English at Western Washington
University) explains, “If I’d never read another script, never talked
to another actor, never picked up a camera again, I would’ve been
happy.” He snapped out of his post-Hollywood disillusionment when he
met and started working with fellow Bellingham filmmaker Caleb Young.
“I saw him, with his infectious enthusiasm, and I thought, ‘Okay, maybe
I can do that.'”

In addition to their individual projects, Young and Talevich
collaborated on a web series called Short Ends: Talevich wrote
the script and directed; Young was cinematographer, editor, provided
the equipment, and scheduled the three-day shoot. The finished product
is a comedy with emotional depth—a wry, adroit take on the
absurdities of film school (all necessary stereotypes apply: the angry
feminist, the blowhard professor, the sunglasses-at-night auteur,
etc.).

But Young and Talevich aren’t just filmmakers who happen to live in
Bellingham. They’re Bellingham filmmakers. Talevich believes
that Bellingham, in its own way, is just as viable as a hub of film
production as Hollywood: “We’ve got beautiful people, beautiful drama,
beautiful vistas, and the willingness to support freak culture.” Young
concurs: “I’m staying in Bellingham—I love it here, and it’s a
great area to shoot in.”

Problem is, the town offers very few resources for aspiring artists.
There is no film program at Western. “Anyone who has interest in film
has basically no outlets,” Talevich says. That’s where Young comes in:
“He’s like a one-man film school up here. He’s enabled four first-time
directors to make their full-length movies (myself included) without
ever asking for a dime in return… all for free, offering his own
equipment.”

Young, 27, grew up in Lynnwood and started making films in his early
20s. He writes all his films with his twin brother—the two are
interested in drama, mostly, in “telling something honest, a small
story… about divorce, sex, the way people should be connected, the
way people don’t open up.” (He’s just finished a feature that he’ll be
submitting to festivals this year.) But Young’s more immediate
interests lie in filling that educational void in Bellingham’s film
community.

Currently studying to be a teacher, Young plans to start an
after-school film program for high-school kids—to help new
generations of Bellingham filmmakers the way he’s already tirelessly
helping his peers. “What I really would love to do,” he says, “is get a
bunch of kids together who are interested in film, come up with an
idea, and make a film. Help them collaborate and create one product
that they’re all happy with.”