For the director of a new film, the idea came at an unlikely time.

Spencer Reed, 18, director of the independent film “Charlie’s Closet,” was sitting in math class when it hit him.

After two weeks of writing, a month of filming and a year of editing, his film will debut at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday at Lakehills Covenant Church located at 7000 Rossmore Lane in El Dorado Hills. The event runs until 11:30 p.m.

“When I go through the script now, I don’t remember writing it,” he said. “I was in a focused state, and the script just wrote itself.”

At 100 minutes in length, “Charlie’s Closet” is about a girl, Zoe Jacobs, (Anna Esling, 15) who befriends the monster, Charlie (Spencer Borup, 20), she finds in her closet.

“Their friendship is so strange that the only way I could explain it to someone is to have them read the script,” Reed said.

Because the film had to be completed before school started in the fall — the majority of the 25 actors are teenagers — the crew filmed from throughout the day and night.

“It was insane,” Borup said. “We had some shooting days when we’d start at noon and finish at 5 in the morning the next day. It was a complete adrenaline rush and it was exhausting.”

Reed edited the film using Final Cut Pro — software used in major motion pictures such as “King Kong,” he said. The film cost $15,000 to make.

Doug Orofino composed the music for the film and Reed’s mother, along with a group of four kids, worked exclusively on costumes.

The set was also designed on as low a budget as possible. Sperling’s mother, a Realtor, was able to procure an empty house for the filmmakers to use.

Borup said he didn’t have trouble getting into the role of the monster.

“When I first read the script, I could tell there were a lot of human aspects to Charlie,” Borup said.

Charlie is a “reluctant monster” who feels like he doesn’t belong, Borup said.

“I was able to relate to a lot of the feelings he was having. There was a lot of emotional pull I could use.”

Borup, like the majority of the actors in the film, has participated in El Dorado Musical Theatre.

But he had very little experience with film.

“I had to get the actors to internalize emotions and put them in their eyes instead of in their body language,” Reed said. “It’s all in the eyes in film, and that’s a challenge for stage actors.”

Borup said Reed was an effective director.

“He knows how to get the actors to deliver exactly what he envisioned when he wrote the script,” Borup said. “You just tell him something he hasn’t heard of and he’ll just run to the computer and to his books. Within minutes he’ll understand the term better than you ever did.”

Reed became interested in filmmaking in seventh grade, when a friend in a film class asked Reed to help him with his assignment.

“We made a short film for the class, and I was hooked,” he said.

The next year he attended the El Dorado Hills Vision Coalition’s film and media workshop.

He began working with the Vision Coalition to shoot public service announcements and then a yearlong TV program that aired on public access television.

“When you’re on set for an entire year, you fall in love with filming and you get a lot of experience,” Reed said.

Before long, he was writing scripts on his own—and he wrote a 13-minute musical called “Half Alive” that won the Newport Beach Film Festival’s “Most Innovative Film.”

He was then named the Sacramento International Film Festival’s “Up and Coming Filmmaker of 2009.”

Reed plans to submit “Charlie’s Closet” to film festivals as well.

“I think (Reed) has that driving force and unstoppable ambition that is really rare in people in general and something you never see in people his age,” Borup said.

Reed will attend Chapman University’s Dodge school of film next fall.

“I’m really excited to see what Spencer does when he goes off to Chapman this fall,” Borup said. “I don’t know any other 17-year-old who could write and direct an entire film.”

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KNOW AND GO

What: “Charlie’s Closet”

When: 6:30 p.m., Saturday

Where: Lakehills Covenant Church, 7000 Rossmore Lane,

El Dorado Hills