It's important to those who worked on the film "Envying Alice" that people see it in a theater.

"We busted our butts on it," said Millikin University junior Amanda Bolenbaugh, the chief production assistant on the film, which premieres at the Avon Theatre on Saturday. "And there's a difference between showing it to your friends in a room and having a lot of people see it on a big theater screen."

The film is the second offering from Gimpydog Productions, which presented "Miles Away" at the Avon last year. Colby Hanik and Aaron Covich are the visionaries behind both efforts.

The two-hour dramedy - Hanik's senior project - tells the story of four single friends, which includes a love triangle.

"It's about the way different relationships play out," Hanick said. "But the underlying message is about dealing with societal fears" - including "love, loneliness, rejection, sexuality" - "and learning to accept them and overcome them."

The cast includes Jake Metiva, Jeremy Curran, Jenny Joy, Jessica May and Jessica Bergman. The two-hour film would receive the equivalent of an R rating, Hanick said, because of language and adult content.

The film was shot on 24 frame-per-second digital video. That medium is as close to film as digital video can get, and the experience for Hanik, Covich and their co-workers was memorable and unexpected.

"I think one of the things you don't realize," said Michael Makowka, a freshman from Evergreen Park, "is how much work you'll have to do."

"Or," added Amanda Bolenbaugh, a junior from Evansville, Ind., "the crazy things you'll get asked to do."

"The soup!" all three exclaim, with a combination of laughter, disgust and disbelief.

One of the film's scenes involves a can of soup that was thrown to the ground and burst open.

"There was a knock on the door," Bolenbaugh recalled, "and there was Colby, looking at me and saying, 'How much do you love me?' "

Hanick asked Bolenbaugh to clean chicken dumpling soup off the sidewalk. She did it.

"And there was some other garbage around there," she said, "so I did my civic duty and picked up that, too."

The street? Division Street in Chicago.

"We were up there filming for three weeks," Hanick said.

"Was it just three?" Bolenbaugh asked. "It felt like more."

While Bolenbaugh said the filming took "an eternity," Hanick said it was actually a little less than six months, and that includes a stretch over Christmas where the group did no filming.

Despite the amount of time, Bolenbaugh insisted, "We never got sick of each other. The whole process was so fun."

"Everybody helped each other out," Makowka said. "It wasn't any problem letting somebody vent, because you knew they'd do it for you later."

"Everyone had a real unified approach," said Hanick, who added he and Covich plan to submit the film to the festival circuit.

Many in the group plan to stay together as Hanick and Covich pursue film production work, probably in the Chicago area.

"I have a lot of faith in Colby and Aaron," Bolenbaugh said. "They helped start this group, and they're really ambitious and passionate about what they're doing. I'm pretty positive they'll do well."

While Hanik would like to make films, he said a life behind the camera, regardless of what he's doing, is his ultimate goal.

"Yeah, as long as I'm doing something I love," he said. "I'm always going to be dreaming and ambitious, but if I end up filming weddings 20 years from now and I'm happy, that's fine with me."

Tim Cain can be reached at timcain@herald-review.com or 421-6908.