Block Island is not the place to turn for evidence of the digital revolution. But a haze of spotlights from the home of Sean and Sheila Kelly late Wednesday night was a harbinger of change.

In this case, the change is in the movie industry, where digital cameras are allowing upstart movie companies to shoot full-length feature films on tight budgets, even in offshore locales like Block Island.

"Tricycle" is a screenplay about two emotionally scarred adults coming together to find solace and happiness, in the face of their mutually devastating pasts.

The screenplay's author and the film's director, Patrick DiRenna, was noticably careworn as the hour approached midnight. He and the crew had arrived in the afternoon and gone straight to work. "We're getting bogged down," DiRenna warned. "Let's shoot the bathroom scene and move on."

The lean, dark-haired director coached actress Linelle Leigh on how to effect the retching sounds of morning sickness; then, with the attentive crew of six, he arranged a boom mike, sound engineer, camera, camera man, and two actors into the cramped space of a half bathroom on the first floor.

The edgy romance opens with a car accident on the day President Kennedy was assasinated. The crash leaves a 5-year-old girl, Amanda, without her immediate family. These scenes were shot in the Rhode Island village of Waverly, at a Catholic school that grants movie companies access to its campus.

Assistant Director Mevlut Akkaya termed the film "a love triangle with two broken people who can't fix themselves."

"You should see a doctor," was the line recited by the work-obsessed husband, played by Charles McMahon — a character whom Amanda will soon leave after eight years of marriage.

The other jilted character is a cross-dressing widower who lost his wife in a fire, played by DiRenna. Also in the mix is an undercover agent, crooks and cops. Add a mysterious package being chased by just about everyone, and "Tricycle" promises to be, at the least, an intriguing film.

The drama is expected to be wrapped and edited by September. It will then be entered in a number of film festivals. Good reviews at such events, like the Sundance or Cannes film fests, are feathers in the caps of emerging actors and movie makers. Profit making is not necessarily a primary objective for independent film companies.

Apart from the outside chance that an independent film is picked up by a major studio, as was the case with "The Blair Witch Project" last summer, independent films are largely money pits. But because of technical innovations, including digital cameras and digital film editing, which can be accomplished on juiced-up Macs and PCs, the projects can be accomplished on tight budgets.

DiRenna said he planned to shoot other scenes outdoors and at the Beachead restaurant, time permitting. The crew expects to return next month to finalize its work in New Shoreham.