COEUR d’ALENE — Production was under way throughout the weekend in Coeur d’Alene on the 20-minute film to be called “Without a Ladder.”

The picture is being made, in part, as a mentoring project.

The production is providing workforce training opportunities for people interested in working in the film and video industry.

Students of different ages and backgrounds from the Coeur d’Alene-Spokane area observed, asked questions and tried their hand at different aspects of the process, including directing, producing, wardrobe, construction, production design and camera operation.

“They learn every part about it,” said W.J. Lazerus of Hayden Lake, the movie’s director. “If they want to learn a little about camera today, tomorrow they can learn more about grip and electric.”

The movie is a Christmas story about a man in his mid-70s whose wife dies, and a young boy who comes into the picture and tries to help him out. It’s filmed entirely in Coeur d’Alene and should be out in time for the holidays late this year, premiering in both Coeur d’Alene and Spokane. Copies will be for sale at area stores.

The nonprofit organization called Northwest Independent Film Video Entertainment Society, also known as kNIFVES (pronounced “knives”), received a grant from Mountain West Bank to produce the film. The organization also received a grant from the Idaho Film Office, which is part of the Idaho Department of Commerce.

The Film Office “loved the project, and loved what we were doing trying to mentor people,” Lazerus said Saturday.

Long term, kNIFVES wants to build up a film workforce in the area to attract more film production.

Russ Simons, a kNIFVES board member and spokesman, said film production in an area boosts economic activity, including job production.

Tiger Ashtiani, of Coeur d’Alene, is acting in his first film. He plays the boy who befriends the man who loses his wife. Ashtiani helps the man get his home ready for family guests arriving for the holidays.

Sounding less like a 12-year-old and more like he’s been doing Hollywood press interviews for years, Ashtiani, son of Jahan and Christina Ashtiani, said, “It’s a really good script. I was reading it with my mom and she got a little teary eyed because it’s so moving.”

Hollywood veteran Ted Parvin of Sandpoint wrote the screenplay.

Asked before filming started on his scenes what he expected to learn making his first film, Ashtiani said, “I’m not sure, I’m ready for a surprise.”

Eric Hertsgaard of Spokane, a film industry veteran, is working on the project to gain new skills.

He’s done sound editing in his career, working with dialogue or production tracks shot by others on location or on sets. He’s been doing sound editing for Warner Bros. Studios.

Saturday, he took a crack at doing work on the production side.

“Now I’m going to be actually shooting the production tracks,” he said. “This is a fantastic opportunity. I’ve worked in Hollywood for 19 years and I’ve never seen anything like this, short of going to an actual school and paying tuition.”

T. Dawn Richard, a Spokane writer who joined kNIFVES to learn how to write screenplays, spent Saturday shadowing Lazerus.

Seeing a film through a director’s eyes will improve her screenplay writing, she said.

“He has a lot of interaction with the actors,” she said. “He gets to look over the set and say this works and this doesn’t work. He pays very close attention to every single detail.”

As a writer now, she’ll know how important it is to include the little details, “So I can envision what it would look like if it were made into a movie, knowing that this might be impossible to shoot or this would be a really exciting scene.”