Cause for … ‘ACTION’!

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, May 1, 1998 | 10:15 a.m.

It's the stuff Hollywood legends are made of: Being discovered by a filmmaker and handed a movie role on the spot.

It's what happened to Chris Cheatham.

The Horizon West High School senior was spotted in the school's office recently by local independent film producer Temma Pentecost-Keatan, and cast as a lead player in "Our Fate."

The hour-long television pilot has been filming around Las Vegas since last month and wraps up production this weekend. Once editing is completed later this month, it will be entered in several film festivals and pitched to television and cable networks for broadcast, possibly later this year.

No one was more surprised than Cheatham -- who plays a girl-crazy teen named Ken -- about being discovered.

"I didn't know what (Pentecost-Keatan) was talking about (or) who she was," he recalls. "I was confused about what she was doing, but then she explained it to me and I was like, 'OK.' "

The adventure-themed pilot also stars Cheatham's classmate and fellow acting newcomer Richard Pak, as well as local residents Corrina Tapoof and Reimi Chatman, as four teenagers who ditch school and head to Red Rock Canyon.

There they encounter the spirit of a Native American in traditional regalia (played by Spotted Eagle, a spiritual leader of the Paiute tribe) who non-verbally relays a message, which the teens decide to ask their teacher, whose forte is Native American folklore, to decipher.

On the way back to school, the foursome learns that a shooting has occurred on campus -- and that their teacher was caught in the crossfire.

Because "Our Fate's" message is anti-violence, "she does not die ... we don't see the shot, we don't see blood," says Pentecost-Keatan, whose Las Vegas-based Silver Eagle Entertainment Inc. is producing the program.

She also wrote the script, which was inspired by the song "Our Fate," penned by her husband, Robert Pentecost. (It will be performed for the movie by Henderson's Thurman White Middle School choir, and also in an upcoming music video, which will be marketed to MTV and other networks. A second video will follow.)

"We were so tired of hearing about all of the gangs and the violence," Pentecost-Keatan says of the couple's inspiration for the works. "The kids today, all they hear is bad news. The majority (of youths) are on the good side, but you never hear about them because it's not news. These kids (in the production) get the idea that they've ... got to get (the message) out there and stop this violence."

Chatman, a 1990 Bonanza High School graduate, agrees: "The message about school violence, I think, is a message that needs to be told."

Other Horizon West students worked on "Our Fate" as extras and a few were given small speaking parts.

Lawrence Vigil, a junior, repeated the line, "Don't do it," over and over again for the camera during a classroom scene filmed at the school. Initially, "I wasn't supposed to have any lines; I was supposed to be quiet," 18-year-old Vigil says. "I wanted to steal the spotlight. I'm a class clown, so it comes natural to me to change my expressions and act how I really don't feel."

Giving 'Peace' a hand

A portion of the profits from the lease of the rights to "Our Fate" and the accompanying music videos will benefit the Henderson-based, nonprofit World Peace Flag Organization (WPFO), which is dedicated to combating hunger around the globe.

Founded last year, most of the organization's funds are generated through sales of the World Peace Flag, the design of which features the flags of 197 countries. Profits, which are being compiled in a trust account, will eventually be distributed to each nation based on its population figures.

"We want to get the money to the people who need it most," Lyle Noorlun, WPFO's chief executive officer, says. "There are thousands of people a day dying (of hunger) in this world. It just doesn't make sense when something like this is so simple."

Pentecost-Keatan also serves on WPFO's executive board of directors. "Even though it's a charitable organization and it has good intentions, marketing it can sometimes be difficult," she says.

Given her commercial- and movie-making background (her family opened Los Angeles-area film studios during the 1920s, and her father worked as Charlie Chaplin's stand-in), a film project for WPFO was a natural choice.

"The whole idea (behind) the World Peace Flag is peace," she says. "Our fate ... starts with the kids, so that's why I wrote (the script) around the youth."

"Our Fate's" bare bones budget of about $30,000 was supplied by an independent backer from Las Vegas, who requested anonymity. Small salaries were paid to the actors and crew members, including low-budget filmmaker Ted Mikels, who serves as the production's director of cinematography.

Mikels, who has 40 films to his credit (mostly '60s and '70s cult classics including "The Doll Squad," "Astro Zombies" and "The Corpse Grinders"), says: "I love being involved. Anything having to do with making movies for me is sheer pleasure."

Even working with the novice talents who comprise "Our Fate's" cast? "There is a talent present in everybody in front of the camera," he says. "You just have to have the patience to get it out of them."

It didn't take 25-year-old Chatman -- who plays the self-centered character "B.J." -- long to find hers. "I'm the little African-American girl that loves herself and thinks she's God's gift to men," she explains.

Getting used to movie-making's intricacies, however, was another matter.

"It surprises me how they go about it," she says. "You've got to wear this (outfit) because you wore it (in the last shot). I didn't realize how detailed it had to be."

No reason to sweat the small stuff, Pentecost-Keatan says. "We're not looking to do 'Gone With the Wind,' or 'Titanic,' " she says, "just something that gives a message."