James Franco, Seth Rogen, and friends team with teens to make short film

Seth Rogen, James Franco, Michael Peña, and more Hollywood talents are helping kids in Los Angeles and Toronto get a hands-on filmmaking education.

As chronicled by the Hollywood Reporter, the actors recently starred in an 11-minute short film, Dumpster Diving, as part of a new program founded by Rogen’s longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and Toronto-based teacher Adrienne Slover.

So far the project, which is called And Action!, has yielded two shorts: The aforementioned Dumpster Diving is a peer-pressure-themed comedy produced by 13 students at John C. Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, and the Jay Baruchel-starring Robot Bullies was made by grade-schoolers at Rene Gordon Health and Wellness Academy in Toronto.

“I was obsessed with the number of people I know who didn’t stumble into filmmaking until they were older,” Goldberg told THR. “I thought it would be cool to show these kids that there are opportunities.”

Rogen added, “Of all the s— I’ve performed in a long time, this made me really nervous. Because I had to rap in front of a group of high school kids. Who wrote the rap lyrics.”