THAT'S A WRAP!
Two North Valley teens are working hard to make their filmmaking dream a reality

By Carolyn Carson, Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer

A pair of young Albuquerque filmmakers hope that with the right break and a lot of hard work and determination they will become an up-and-coming filmmaking team.
The North Valley youths – Dominic Riccobene, 17, and Mikey Rempen, 16, share a passion for filmmaking.




They started making movies after they met in sixth grade at Bosque School. Using family video cameras and lots of imagination in the beginning, their early style was stop action animation using toy figures. In stop action animation, inanimate objects become animated by shooting each frame one at a time. An example is Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Rempen said he and Riccobene are inspired by Robert Rodriguez, a well-known filmmaker who is considered the “guru” of short filmmaking.
Rodriguez is also known for his popular movie, “El Mariachi,” and for his mainstream Spy Kids movies.

This summer, the two youths decided to make a real movie. For that, they needed a better camera, which meant they needed money. Each pitched in several hundred dollars and then they went to their parents.
“We put together a power-point presentation and pitched it to our parents as an investment,” Riccobene said.”
Rempen said a good quality digital camera can cost as much as $4,000. To earn their parents’ investments, they had to agree on a few things first – keep up their grades and promise that their parents would get to see the movies first.
Oh, and if the boys have an Academy Award to pick up, their parents get to attend the Oscars ceremony.

The boys, who share the titles of director, producer, writer and actor, wrote a five-minute movie script. They also rounded up a couple of actors to volunteer their talents.
But where would they show it? Who would see it?
They entered November’s Primate Memory Factory digital filmmaking competition in Albuquerque with a film titled “La Niña del Desierto,” or The Girl of the Desert.
It won second place.



The Primate Memory Factory 5-minute film competition, or PMF, is a monthly event held at noon on the last Saturday of each month. The competition showcases local filmmakers on the big screen at Madstone 8 Theater. It is free and the audience votes on the films.
Tom Szymanski, one of the founders of the PMF, said Riccobene and Rempen are two of the most dedicated filmmakers he knows.
Szymanski agreed to a bit part in their current film project. “They are really into filmmaking,” he said. “These two may be the youngest ones we have making films.”

Their current movie is titled “The Waiting Room,” and is based on a short story they read in Spanish class.
“We started planning in August – doing storyboards, building some equipment and lighting we needed,” Riccobene said.
On Monday night, the pair, along with a handful of actors and crew volunteers, filmed two minutes of their current 15-minute project on the top level of the Downtown Century 24 Theater parking structure.
They will be filming at the bus station across the street from the theater in January.
By jumping through all the right hoops, they were able to get the city’s permission to film inside the parking structure and at the bus station.
On the set Monday, Riccobene’s sister, Melanie, who is home from college in California for the holidays, happily took direction from her little brother.
When asked what they boys were paying the actors and crew, Patrick McElwee, one of the actors, said with a smile, “Doritos and water.”

They filmed from about 9 p.m. until nearly 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Because the annual Taos Talking Film Festival is on shaky ground after going bankrupt, they will be looking to enter their film in one of the other competitions held each year.

For more information on the Primate Memory Factory 5-Minute Film competition log on to www.sketchy.com/pmf5/index.php.