Budget: Rs 2 Crore IN VOGUE: Chandra was the first to sniff and cash in on the trend of small-budget films aimed at youth with his Style

In Mumbai's claustrophobic Nataraj studios, Payal Rohatgi, a 20-something starlet clad in a near-invisible outfit and knee-high leather boots, is sprawled on a vintage Chevrolet Impala. Her brawny co-star Prashant is toning his biceps with push-ups. On the choreographer's cue, they burst into a song, writhing like amorous snakes. Payal and Prashant are part of the cast of Harry Baweja's Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai?, a film with no stars but eight new faces, most of them models.

In another part of Mumbai, director Kalpana Lajmi frantically dials for blue-and-yellow party pills even as she hands out a list of designer drugs to an assistant. She isn't planning to gatecrash Mumbai's rave party circuit, but is prop hunting for a scene in Kyon?, her Rs 3 crore campus film about the travails of five fresh-faced teenagers and the noir side of rave parties.

For an industry reeling under a string of box-office turkeys, hopes are now being tagged on short-term gains with small budget, non-star films aimed at the bubble-gum crowd; Yeh Kya..., due for a September release, and Kyon?, out next January, are the latest in the wave of coming-of-age teen flicks. They have arrived exactly a year after Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai became the blueprint for the new genre of films aimed at the cola-swilling, disc-hopping, upwardly mobile, post-liberalisation yuppie. But DCH was powered by a Rs 8 crore budget and a strong script besides, of course, Aamir Khan's blue-chip appeal.

BUDGET: Rs 3 Crore WHY NOT? Lajmi's Kyon? is banking on five fresh faces to carry through its story on rave parties and drugs

However, with multi-starrers crashing at the box office and the air hissing out of Salman Khan and Govinda superstar balloons, these quickies make perfect commercial sense. With Rs 1-3 crore budgets, the usual superstar fee, and featuring models-turned-wannabe stars like Reema, Raima, Sharman Joshi and Shayan Munshi, these films are wrapped up in eight-week schedules and are ready for release even before a hassled producer has elicited the first set of dates from a superstar. As producer Mahendra Dhariwal says, "I'd rather make three films for Rs 12 crore than one film for as much."

N. Chandra was the first director to successfully recognise the new trend this February when Style, made for Rs 2 crore or what Devdas spent on a single set, ended up with a Rs 4 crore box-office take. The film, which recovered its cost from the Mumbai territory alone, is about four college-goers involved in a murder mystery. Chandra is cashing in on Style with the sequel, Excuse Me, and hopes to release it in December.

Budget: Rs 3 Crore EIGHT FOLD: Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai? features eight new faces, mostly models, with funky attires and attitudes to match

He's not alone. Bollywood's production lines have started to roll whackily titled teenie clones like Yeh Kya... and Deepak Tijori's Oops! featuring funkily attired non-stars wearing an attitude as easily as their underlip soul patches and spiky hairdos. Dhariwal-his last film was the pop patriotic Maa Tujhe Salaam starring middle-aged Sunny Deol-has just launched 16-A Love Story and The Bachelor, where his teenage protagonists wrestle with hyperactive hormones and girl trouble. Comedy czar David Dhawan says he now wants to make a Grease-style musical, top-lining, hold your breath, not Govinda's comedy shtick, but newcomers.

It was DCH that reminded the industry of a young, urban audience-an estimated 60 per cent of filmgoers are below 30 years-that was beginning to duck formula films. A generation tickled by the antics of American Pie and Forty Days Forty Nights but one that doesn't find comparable fare in Bollywood. "We are trying to reach out to this audience. We want them to say, 'that's the way I am, that's the way I feel','' says Harman Baweja, executive producer of Yeh Kya...

Which partly explains the fresh faces. "Established stars are too predictable," says Chandra. Adds Dhariwal: "For once I play producer and call the shots instead of chasing the stars for dates." Tijori has cast three models in his bilingual Oops!, a story about the film industry's trendy background dancers, because he believed they looked the part.

Funky attitudes and dressing right are often the first step to looking the part. Help is forthcoming from the next generation of filmmakers. Harry brainstormed with his 22-year-old son Harman, trained in a US film school, before handing him the production reins for Yeh Kya.... Chandra liberally borrowed cool lingo and college-isms like Style's shake-leg greeting from his 18-year-old son Nachiketa, who now pores through his script, making suggestions.

While coming of age and romantic discovery are decidedly the principal focus of these films-the American Pie-inspired Yeh Kya... has four boys vowing to discover love, romance and women before they graduate-sex isn't. Chandra says it will be at least five years before the Indian audiences can take films dealing with sexual experimentation. "Indian sensibilities have to be respected," he says. So the English version of Oops! will be seen only in theatres abroad as it is replete with sex and four-letter swear words. "It's our everyday lingo, but I wouldn't have a hope of getting it past the censors," says Tijori.

These films may also subtly mirror the changing ambitions of the youth which is what Kyon? deals with. "There is an erosion of values and boredom among the young people who harbour ambitions of getting rich quickly," says Lajmi. Chandra shrugged off his penchant for violent films and angst-ridden youth-Ankush, Tezaab, Narasimha-as he too detected a tectonic shift in attitudes. "Youngsters want to get rich quickly. How it happens isn't important. Ankush is hardly their kind of cinema. They empathise with the lead characters of Style," he says.

Which should hardly be cause for distress, especially if the new genre helps the film industry tide over its current drought of box office hits.