By DANIA AKKAD
The Salinas Californian

SPRECKELS -- Ten scripts, two years and one small miracle later, Eli Steele watched his dream unfold Tuesday.

This June, the 30-year-old from Monterey is filming his first feature-length film called "What's Bugging Seth" -- a film he wrote, produced and is directing -- in spots across the county.

"Writing and directing at the same time is the hardest," Steele said, in between shots on the set on Railroad Avenue in Spreckels.

His film tells the story of Seth Singer, a deaf bug exterminator struggling to start his own business and untangle his way out of a love triangle.

The story is meaningful to Steele not only because the film is his first large project for his company "Man of Steel Productions" but also because, like Seth, he too is deaf.

Born profoundly deaf, Steele received a cochlear implant four years ago, a mechanism that has enabled him to talk on the telephone, go to movies and listen to music for the very first time.

"It's been a small miracle in my life," Steele said modestly.

Even though Seth and his life share coincidences, Steele said the film is not biographical.

"What's Bugging Seth" is the first 35-millimeter movie to be shot entirely on the Monterey Peninsula since Clint Eastwood's "Play Misty for Me" -- and a fantasy realized for Steele.

"I've always wanted to film here -- it's just a dream,'' he said. "People couldn't have been more helpful."

Many of the production crew and cast also are locals, including Rebecca Willis, a 1998 graduate of Notre Dame High School who is now studying theater production at San Jose State University.

"I try to rearrange things to make them pretty," Willis said of her job as the film's set decorator.

Dugan O'Neal, a Carmel Valley resident and 2001 graduate of Carmel High School, said he was jazzed to be back in town.

"It's cool because I've been able to show the crew all the cool spots," O'Neal said.

Even Edie Karas, wife of late Monterey County Supervisor Sam Karas and former next-door neighbor of Steele, will play a small role.