As sparks fly and lights fall from above, a spaceship plummets into the isolating voids of the universe, malfunctioning in a large rumble and flooding its cockpit with a layer of hazy, gray smoke as a female pilot turns and looks over her shoulder.

This electrifying scene was created by members of SF State's Cinema Collective, a four-year-old organization comprised of students and alumni with different talents, of various ages and levels of expertise in the field of cinema.

Together, they helped build the spaceship prop and contributed to the creation of its dramatic, deep space disaster at a colleague's home in Walnut Creek this summer to make "Heart of the Argos," a science fiction film.

"The cinema collective is a very positive and very creative unit, a truly amazing networking tool of individuals that go above and beyond in filmmaking," said Spenser Nottage, the current collective president and director of Heart of the Argos. "Through this club and its social connections on campus, we had cultivated the community beforehand and we didn't have to build up a new one, it was already in place."

According to co-founder and SF State alumnus Sam Messe, 22, who graduated in May, the collective aims to give an experience one can't get in classic classroom cinema training, with lessons in "screenwriting, directing and producing- to exhibit student films to the school and to the city, even across California- to showcase that San Francisco is becoming the place to be," he said.

Messe is one of three alumni who worked tirelessly in getting the organization off the ground after officers and active participants graduated and interest began to fade in 2002. By 2003, Messe and twin brothers Phil and Joe Mattaresse, 22, had heard about the abandoned collective and decided to brainstorm ideas for a new organization while sitting around in the lobby of the Cesar Chavez Student Center.

Coincidentally, the organization's ex-president happened to be in that lobby, sitting in the seat next to them. He felt inspired by their drive, and handed the three the reigns to the club, its meager savings and wishes of good fortune.

Taking a leap of faith and throwing $100 each into the piggy bank, Messe and the Mattaresses held a barbecue on the campus Quad and raised another $300. Word of mouth and self-promotion in the cinema, theater and the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) communities helped generate a following of around 100 people that academic year.

Classroom showings of student films soon grew into open-submission film festivals that attracted many more outsiders. Events like the collective's 24-hour Alan Smithee Festival--in which groups of students are given one day to write, shoot and edit a five-to-ten minute short--proved popular, with around 50 people in attendance.

Although he graduated in 2006 and now lives in Los Angeles, Phil Mattaresse says he still checks the collective's success by counting the number of attendees for the festival each year.

"The amount of people entering to participate has tripled in the last three years we've held it. Seeing [the collective] change and flourish since I have graduated has been a mark of success in my eyes," Mattaresse said. "It's good to see it can stand alone on its own feet with the three founders gone."

He feels that the organization has successfully built a community focused on film education, on-set experience and the idea of working together. Mattaresse said he was so enthused he came up to San Francisco to work on the sci-fi movie production this summer.

"Heart of the Argos was the perfect way to get as many members of the collective involved on a project as possible," he said.

The film, whose crew was made up of around 80 percent Cinema Collective members, was written and directed by Quandary Film and Animation's Spenser Nottage and Matthew Elium. The two 21-year-olds said they have been making films together for years, and have worked with the likes of Oakland rapper Mistah FAB and indie rock band Modest Mouse. Their last project, Two Men in Suits, earned a spot in Los Angeles and New York film festivals.

For more information about the Cinema Collective or future events, visit their office in Fine Arts room 546.