Anderson (Looks around anxiously--then a timid smile of relief) THANKS!

Director Good That's nice We'll do it once more

What the principals stressed about their work for the screen was not art--or accuracy Anderson, who is 20-years old, is a veteran of nine of these tele-movies in her 12-year career. Her reason for doing "The Freshman Year" is simple: "The fact is, it's very commercial, and I knew I would be foolish not to," she said, dangling a cigarette between takes last week.

"It's a love triangle, and people like that--or like it or not, they watch," Anderson said.

"It lends itself to an audience," director Gus Trikonis said "You know, Valley Girls are big now, young people, their troubles in school. This is basically entertainment, and if you can slip in a few little slice of life on them, you're lucky."

In fact, few people on the set saw their work as fine art. "This script is moronic," whispered one crew member, as Anderson and Lang rehearsed one scene.

"Radcliffe girls...too serious," said Lang. "I'm kidding, really. Honest, I like serious girls. I won't even go out with Wellesley girls--too rich, no...content."

"You're funny!" gushed all blonde Anderson, wide-eyed and smiling."

"She's perfect!" marvelled Erica Van Wagener, a New York import with a bit part. "They want corn-fed sweetness, and she fits in the hole. She can play all the teen-age girl roles until she's 25." Van Wagener complained that her own career was impeded because she could not be stereotyped so easily. It is those stereotypes that TV uses to build its picture of life.

"Freshman Year"'s approach to Harvard is a perfect example. "Remember," Mary Lou Zuelch, Anderson's stand-in, said, "this is Hollywood's Harvard. Don't let anything surprise vou."

Hollywood's Harvard, to the professional eye of costume designer Josephine Ynocencio, is "an east coast preppie college--button down shirts, you know, and rag sweaters." For the wardrobe, "I shopped at Bloomingdales, to tell you the truth, and Brooks Brothers," she said.

The characters dressed like L.L. Bean paper dolls. Extras were told to "wear layers" and carry squash raquets and lacrosse sticks. A typical line which Lang intoned to Anderson when editing one of her news stories was: "This is Harvard; you can assume a high comprehension level."

"It's a track," claimed Judith Parker, who wrote the script. "Most people at Harvard, most people, come from prep school, they've been to Europe each summer, they have the family contacts. This is the story of someone (Anderson's character) who didn't have that priviliged environment, and must come to grips with it."

Also critical to Parker's theme were the latest network demographic surveys. Originally, she had planned a theatrical film for actresses Kristie McNichol and Jane Fonda. But because the movie audience is "a kid's audience"--15 to 22--that feels threatened by the Harvard mystique. Parker said. The studios suggested the University of Chicago as a more "fun," "collegiate" environment.

When her project moved to television, the target changed. Parker said surveys showed the TV audience to be "older people" with a different view of college and "grass roots, midwestern demographically," who would enjoy watching a girl struggle to cope with eastern values and the Eastern Establishment. Harvard became the setting again.