MANCHESTER – The makeshift detective stand in the front yard of the house on Wellesley Street looks like the work of young boys at play. A piece of plywood with the words "MYSTERY TEAM," scrawled in big red lettering, rests on top.

The three 20-somethings huddled behind the stand seem a little out of place. They look a bit too old to still be playing make-believe. And, what about the 30 or so other people milling about? The tents and canopies set up along this quiet street in a well-heeled North End neighborhood? The guy who keeps yelling "Cut!" for no apparent reason? And the man in the jump suit and harness with a monster camera attached to it?

OK, you don't need to be a detective to figure out something different is going on here.

Movie-making has come to Manchester. "Mystery Team" started production in April and is expected to wrap up filming sometime next month. Most of the scenes are being filmed in and around Manchester.

Actors (from left) DC Pierson, Donald Glover and Dominic Dierkes work on a scene yesterday for the movie being filmed in a Manchester neighborhood. (CHERYL SENTER/UNION LEADER)

A pair of Central High School graduates are back in their hometown filming an independent movie they hope will make it to the big screen one day. For Dan Eckman, Meggie McFadden and the three other members of Derrick Comedy, making a full length movie is a natural progression in their budding theatrical careers.

Eckman and McFadden, 2002 graduates of Central, formed Derrick with three of Eckman's classmates from New York University's Tisch School of Arts: Donald Glover, DC Pierson and Dominic Dierkes. They have all stuck around New York, founding the sketch comedy troupe the Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz before finding a niche as Derrick Comedy, performing short films they post on the Internet (www.derrickcomedy.com/videos).

Pierson is 23; the rest are 24. All are in the entertainment business. Eckman is the video production director for the Blue Man Group, McFadden works for Jon Stewart's Busboy Productions, Glover is a writer for the television show 30 Rock, while Pierson and Dierkes both perform stand-up comedy, write and do improv theater.

Eckman is directing "Mystery Team," while Glover, Pierson and Dierkes are playing the three main characters. McFadden, who graduated from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, is working on the production end.

They are young, talented and ambitious. The success they had with their short films on the Internet was just a stepping stone for their ultimate goal of making a movie.

Independent film director and former Manchester resident Dan Eckman works on the set. (CHERYL SENTER/UNION LEADER)

"We saw that as a means to an end, not an end itself," Eckman said.

Eckman directed the Derrick shorts, was the film director to the Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz and his New York University undergraduate thesis film, "Checkout," won several awards, including Best College Short at the 2006 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen (www.checkoutthemovie.com). It's a smart, funny piece that is well worth the 20 minutes, 50 seconds, it takes to watch.

Ponying up their own money with the backing of private investors, the group was able to put together a working budget for their movie. They started writing the script last year for this mystery comedy about three young detectives that Glover said is in the genre of Encyclopedia Brown.

They hope to have it ready to start shopping it to film distributors sometime late this year or next.

McFadden won't say how much the film will cost, but calls it "low-budget." They had to be smart with their money.

"The big thing is making sure the movie we're making is the movie we want to make," McFadden said.

They imported some cast and crew members from New York and hired Bill Tracey of Goffstown, who specializes in television commercial productions, as the line producer, but they also are using friends and family to help out and managed to secure locations where they could film cheaply -- like McFadden's family house on Wellesley Street.

"My parents are at work, they don't know," McFadden said jokingly.

The crew arrived at the McFadden house early yesterday morning, converting the family's two car garage into their headquarters, arranging their set on the front lawn and starting to film as people drove by on their way to work.

Eckman and McFadden have used their families' houses before for filming, as well as other locations around town, like Stadium Ten Pin Bowling and Bunny's Superette, which also served as the primary location for "Checkout."

Eckman and McFadden are both alums of Manchester's Acting Loft and have been using the company's new location on Pine Street as their base.

"I'm so proud of them," said John Sefel, the producing artistic director for the Acting Loft. "They're talented people, but there are a lot of talented people. It's another thing to have the drive to make your dream come true."

Eckman, McFadden and the other members of Derrick Comedy are almost there.