Picture a kitchen countertop so completely covered with tortilla chips, wads of Silly String and half empty plastic cups that you can hardly see the tiles. Oh, yeah, and lying in the middle of it all is a guy passed out cold with his mouth hanging wide open. It's not pretty.

But what seems like a post-party disaster zone--and definatly one you'd never want to clean up--is something else entirely. Look closely and you'll see that the chips have been there for weeks, the Silly String is a carefully placed prop and thos half-empty cups hold warm, non-alcoholic beer. And the guy in imminent danger of drooling? He's and overworked movie extra who's just trying to catch a quick nap in a quiet place. In fact, everything is buisness as usual on the Valencia, Calif., set of the new Columbia film Can't Hardly Wait, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ethan Embry.

Scheduled to arrive in theaters June 12, Can't Hardly Wait hopes to do for romantic comedies what Scream did for horror films: Use hot yound actors to jump-start the genre among the high school set. With nary a knife to be found, Can't Hardly Wait is the first major teen flick since 1995's Clueless that's setting out to lure kids with love, not blood.

"We wanted to make an energetic, funny movie," says codirector Harry Elfont. "Every high school movie has a party scene, bu there's never been..." "...a movie that takes place entirely at a party," says his directing partner, Deborah Kaplan, completing his thought. (The two collaborated on the screenplay for 1996's . Can't Hardly Wait, which they also wrote togeather, marks the pair's directorial debut.)

lights, camera, party!

The film takes place at an out-of-control high school graduation bash. "By the end, the entire house is destroyed," says actress Michelle Brookhurst, whose character is referred to in the script simply as Girl Whose Party It Is. (With so may cast members, Harry and Deborah often resorted to using descriptions instead of names.)

Like just about every real pary you've been to, the theme at this fictional fiesta is romance: Lovesick Preston Meyers has spent his entire high school career pining away for class knockout, Amanda Beckett. Now, with graduation come and gone, this monster bash may well be Preston's last chance to proclaim his love to her. Fortunatly, the timing couldn't be better: Mike, Amanda's jock boyfriend of four years, has just dumped her, and seeing as how Amanda was ready to put an end to things herself, she isn't exactly crying in the punch bowl.

Casting the part of Amanda was the filmmaker's first order of buisness, and their first choice was 19-year-old Jennifer Love Hewitt, best known as sweet Sarah Reeves on TV's Party Of Five and as the terrorized Julie James in last year's hit film I Know What You Did Last Summer. "She was the only person we went to," says executive producer Jenno Topping. "And she loved it and said yes immediatley."

Finding the perfect Preston was a little trickier. Ethan Embry (That Thing You Do!), 20, eventually won the role, but he admitts that "the studio wasn't completely convinced I could pull it off. Preston's the straightforward guy that I usually don't play." That only made Ethan want the part more, though, and in the end, recalls Harry, his audition "blew us away."

Filling out the cast of usual high school suspects are Laurne Ambrose (In & Out) ad Denise, Preston's tomboyish best friend; Peter Facinelli (Dancer, Texas Pop. 81) as superjock Mike; Seth Green (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) as homeboy wannabe Kenny; and Charlie Korsmo (Hook), who continued working on his MIT degree (he's majoring in physics) on the set while playing the nerd, William. Other young actors pop up in memorable cameos, including Jerry O'Connell, Jenna Elfman, Donald Faison and Melissa Joan Hart.

Back on the set, filming begins for the first scene of the day. Love as Amanda, enters the kitchen, her tight turquoise skirt clinging and her long, dark hair bouncing with each step. She stops and asks Earth Girl--a hippieclad classmate played by Sara Rue--if she knows a guy called Preston, who has piqued her curiosity with a love letter. Love gives a seemingly flawless performance the first time out, but the directors ask her to do it again. And again. Finally, about a dozen takes later, the scene is wrapped. "It's not always because it's bad or you didn't do the right thing," says Love. "Sometimes it just has to do with someone in the background moving a different way then they did before, or that they had to get my reaction in a close-up."

A little later, Love whose alarm went off at 4:15 in the morning, takes a quick break in her trailer, where she has traded her tight skirt for a fluffy white robe. It's barely noon, but she's already been on the set for six hours and probably won't be going home for another seven. (To ward off loneliness, she has adorned her trailer with at least a dozen photos of her boyfriend, Will Friedle of Boy Meets World). Love has to split her week between two full-time jobs--this film and Party Of Five--so extra long hours on the set are inevitable. Still, the chance to play Amanda has been worth every minute of lost sleep. "I've never gotten to play the dream girl who has perfect hair and perfect clothes," she says. Her pet peeve about her part as Ms. Perfect? "I've never had to spend so much time in hair and makeup. For Party Of Five, the hair takes 45 minutes; here, it's an hour and a half. I'm like, 'Okay, how far away am I from this part, exactly?'" (Not far, but it takes time for the hot rollers to transform her hair into what Love calls "the Charlie's Angels little curl thing.")

Meanwhile, the action on set has moved from the kitchen to the living room. Preston is sitting on the couch next to Amanda, trying to get up the nerve to talk to her. But Reminicing Guy, an annoyimg fellow who's already waxing nostalgic about their just-ended high school years, keeps interrupting him.

To Reminiscing Guy's left are extras Jason Majik, 24, and Angela Miles, 19--whose job is to keep making out take after take! "There was this one shot a couple of days ago where there was a long line for the bathroom and they wanted to have a couple outside the door kissing," says Jason (he and Angela have been dating for two years). "Then the directors wanted it to become a running gag. So we are going to be everywhere--just making out and acting oblivious to everything around us."

Between takes, Ethan jumps around and pretends to hit one of the crew members with a light stand. He's also been known to play his electric guitar so loudly in his trailer that the crew was forced to unplug his power. "He's like a kid who's had too much sugar," says Love. "He's hilarious." Adds Peter Facinelli, "When I met him it was 4:30 A.M. in the makeup trailer, and he was jumping up and down, pounding on the walls."

"I'm high-strung," admitts Ethan. "I've learned how to amuse myself." It's a necessary survival skill for the actor and his colleagues. Lucky for the movie's stars, when the grueling--and frequently tedious--schedule starts to take it's tole, they can retreat to their trailers and strum a guitar or catch up on their sleep. The hardworking extras, on the other hand, don't enjoy such luxury. They have to catch what rest they can right out in plain view--which makes them easy targets for their more devious castmates. "We have, like, 80 extras on the set at a time, and it gets really hot and people get tired," explains Seth Green. "Whenever somebody falls asleep, we very quietly start taping them to their chair. Or else we try and put as many stickers on a person as we can without waking them up."

Hmmm. Wonder if the drooling guy crasjed out in the kitchen had a relaxing little nap...