What caused the flurry was a film crew, complete with heavy camera on tripod, glaring lights, cables snaking across the snowy asphalt, even a patient guy holding a boom mike on a long pole. And actors, too, of course: a young man and a gray-haired lady, standing in staged conversation just outside the store doorway. Their one scene had to be filmed repeatedly, and it was only between shots that we gawkers could step into the store for coffee or newspapers.

Once inside, all of us wondered if we might be called on as extras. Not likely, said a quiet man who was drawing coffee for the crew outside. The go-fer was Dr. Peter Gencarelli, Bassett anesthesiologist, who’d given over his day to helping the film’s director. She’s his daughter Emma.

Emma, a 2003 Cooperstown graduate, is a senior in the film program at SUNY Purchase. The film, which she also wrote, cast, and is now editing, is her Senior Thesis Project. It’s a horror film and based on a Native-American story that was used, I guess, to scare papooses into good behavior. The legend’s main character is Hagondes, a long-nosed monster. Cannibalism is only one of his bad habits.

In the scene being filmed just outside the store, evidently a local busybody was warning the film’s hero about Long Nose.

When the crew took a break, the scene’s two principals came inside and sat down with me for their coffee. Both were aspiring New York City actors who had tried out for the parts, even though the only pay was for transportation and housing. I questioned Doug Taurel, an affable, square-jawed young man, about his role.

"If this is a horror film," I asked, "will you still be alive at the end?" Doug gave a look of mock anguish, leaned across the table, and whispered hoarsely, "They won’t tell me!" Nancy Franklin, his scene-sharer, glanced at Doug and shook her head sadly. "Nope. You’re not going to last."

In the plot, Spencer (Doug) shares an old farmhouse with his younger brother Roland, for whom he’s a surrogate dad. But Roland has gone missing. The plot’s tension is in Doug’s search and, I take it, how it brings him closer and closer to confrontation with Long Nose. And I’m guessing that a confrontation with Hagondes, or at least with his handiwork, does take place: Emma’s mother told me there’d been a hasty trip to Larry’s Custom Meats in Hartwick to buy several yards of raw sausage casing. It was brought home and tossed with lots of catsup.

Home base for the production was the Gencarelli’s home on Christian Hill. Joann Gencarelli told me she had quickly found herself both housemother and commissary cook for the whole cast and crew, many of whom were also bunking with them. "The cooking was endless_could those kids eat!" Both Joann and Peter also found themselves hauling people back and forth to the Rensselaer train station, and to the motel where the overflow was staying.

There were also unnumbered trips to the general store for vacuum canisters of steaming coffee, since filming not only took place at the store but in the snowy woods above the Gencarellis’, in a big, cold barn, in Charlie Chetner’s nearby old house (suitably spooky), and at Kathy and Karl Steere’s big firewood pile. The last was scene of some artful axing that need not be described here. (I’ll just remind you of that sausage casing.)

You’ve sensed, I guess, that a lot of the Christian Hill community also backed up Emma and her cohort in their work. Besides Charlie Chetner and the Steeres, Joann said I must mention Ted Levandowski, who used his four-wheeler to ferry the heavy equipment up into the snowy woods.

Peter and Joann both said that, besides the company of so many lively, enthusiastic youths, a real delight was watching their daughter conduct a big and complicated project_and boss a whole set of her peers in the process. "She did a film last year," said Peter (that one was set at the Otesaga Hotel), "but this year you could really see her growth in organization and especially leadership."

Joann laughed. "The problem is that we two have learned so much about movie-making, we now have trouble just enjoying a film. We’re busy critiquing the scene sequence or the pacing or the shot set-ups. And after a really good scene, our first question to one another is, Wow! I wonder how many takes that one took?’"

At the Gencarellis’ suggestion, I emailed Charlie Chetner, who is down in Westchester Country just now. Charlie responded at once, saying his great experience was watching kids who renewed "my faith in the youth of this country!"

He continued, "What impressed me so much was their attitudes toward each other and especially to me ... They were always apologizing for causing a hardship ... but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was exciting! It was different. It was enjoyable. And they were, too!"

Emma’s work will be done by her spring graduation; I guess that’s when we should begin looking for it on Sundance Channel’s short films specials.

But I’m hoping, of course, for a Fly Creek premiere. Can’t you see the klieg lights crisscrossing the sky over Cemetery Road, the police lines holding back the mobs outside the Grange? Probably there’d even be an airhead from "Entertainment Tonight" to prattle about Fly Creek coiffures and couture.

And of course we’d crowd the velvet ropes to watch for Emma’s entry with her entourage, their spirited walk up the red carpet and into the Grange. We’d all cheer those talented youths, and especially Director Emma Gencarelli.

"Yea, Emma!" we’d yell. "You go, girl!"

Read about Jim Atwell’s new book, "From Fly Creek _ Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at www.JimAtwell.com.