Some kids express themselves through music, drawing or acting. And some combine all these into one hobby: filmmaking.

Brian Hahn, 16, and Brandon Nicholas, 19, who live near Los Angeles, have been making movies together since 1998 and aspire to careers in Hollywood.

"(Brandon and I) met in the sandbox, then we went back to his house that first day, and we started on animation. It just went up from there," said Brian.

"You can just express so much more with a movie, 'cause you can incorporate music, images, sound, dialogue and everything."

They have produced award-winning short films, and last year, their 16-minute movie "Jaime Vu," about a local band, earned a first place at the 16th annual International Videomaker/Panasonic Short Film Festival, which drew 167 entries from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Last summer, their company, Beakn Productions ( www.beaknproductions.com .), debuted its hour-long film at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza to a sold-out audience of 400, charging $12 apiece. The teens' current project is a full-length war movie, "Beauty in Chaos."

In Indianapolis, Eastwood Middle School students Clayton Nygaard and Lou Milrod, both eighth-graders; and Jay Warrick and Ethan Wellin, seventh-graders, are members of News Crew, an extracurricular group. The crew of more than 30 broadcasts the morning announcements at the Washington Township school and also produces short films, some of which have earned them awards.

Ethan's work, like Brian and Brandon's early pieces, is primarily animation.

Last year, working with Jay and other News Crew members, Ethan produced "Bob the Light Bulb and the Evil Batteries," a 6 1/2 -minute clay-animation video.

The film took a first-place award in a national Thoughts and Dreams Contest sponsored by VideoNics and a first division award in an Association for Media Educators competition.

Bob "is this extremely childish giant light bulb . . . he's not very smart, but he always seems to accidentally save the world," Ethan said. A Bob sequel recently took Best of Category in the International Student Media Fair, as did a sample news broadcast Clayton and Lou helped produce.

"Our earlier movies (were) based off different movies that we had watched before," Brandon said. "We couldn't really come up with ideas on our own."

"Now that we're older," Brian added, "we're creating our own style. . . . We don't really copy other ones, we just sort of like pick a style and try to portray that style as best we can."

Lou said he has always had a unique style.

"I just have crazy ideas that people don't think I can pull off, so I try to pull (them) off," Lou said. Other pieces have been inspired by conversations with Clayton.

Once, he and Clayton sent actors wearing dog suits to the canine area at Broad Ripple Park, then filmed people's reactions.

Ethan's method for developing a plot is more systematic.

"I usually start with trying to think of a character, and then as I build up that character's emotions and thought style and stuff, I can kind of get a story out of it."

While the local teens produce their own scripts or work without one, Brian and Brandon hire writers to work out their ideas.

On their current film, "we've gone through, I think, three or four writers," Brandon said, looking for the right chemistry.

In the end, the final script was written by the man portraying their main character; the actor is an English major at UCLA.

All agree that making a film is complicated.

"There's a ton of planning involved in shooting. . . . And while you shoot, you hopefully portray whatever genre you've picked at the beginning," Brian said.

With bigger productions comes elevated responsibility.

"The biggest thing that you don't realize (you have to have) is insurance. . . . It's really difficult to get insurance for kids," said Brian.

"And permits," Brandon added.

They once held car washes to raise money, and though they don't anymore, it doesn't necessarily mean they have more money in their pockets.

"We're not really counting on making too much money for this project because it's been costing so much. We just got a producer. . . . The last movies have been totally with our own budget, you know, with whatever money we make," said Brandon.

"All of a sudden we got the producer, and all these opportunities, and so it's turning into this huge production we're gonna be shooting with 30 extras on a big property, doing this whole battle scene and everything."

The Eastwood News Crew is school-sponsored, so the budget and scale of their projects differs.

"The money we do get is like technology grants from whomever, and that goes to News Crew in general, not just to us," said Jay.

Lou was more blunt.

"Zero dollars. Actually, we are cheap and we are poor and we are a public school, so we try not to spend anything," he said.

Producing a film also takes time, which can affect grades, schoolwork or other activities.

"I used to do football, and I had to quit that because it's too much stuff to do. It's difficult to keep up classes, especially harder classes, and do a movie. You just figure out ways to get around it, like staying up late," said Brian.

Although the costs can be high, the novice directors are hooked.

"You like live, sleep, breathe, (and) dream the movie." Brandon said. "Non-stop, all day, all night. It's pretty scary. It's pretty intense. It's like we don't stop thinking about it until it's done.

"A week later, we're working on the next one. That's where we are now. It's like we can't stop. We're addicted."

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Stuart McWhirter, 16.

REPORTERS: Jessika Officer, 11; Daniel Morgan, 11; Connor Glass, 11; Stephanie Bolen, 13.

Who we are

Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

Go online for more

Filmmakers: If you want to read more about this topic from a child's perspective, check out www.ypress.org. Y-Press also invites students' response to a poll question and wants your comments about student-written movie and book reviews.

See the movies

Both of Ethan Wellin's "Bob the Lightbulb" movies can be viewed at www.bobthelightbulb.tk