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Hired after original helmer Brad Silberling parted ways with the project, Reitman assembled some of his core dream cast -- Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby and J.K. Simmons -- and filmed the Sunny D out of 'em.

"I brought the four of them down to Panavision and set up a black background and a 35mm camera and spent the entire day shooting, and I shot like 40 pages of the movie," Reitman recalls. "Two sides of each conversation, coverage, wide and tight, shooting different styles, figuring out how to shoot these actors, trying to go over the shoulder, trying to go over the hip, trying to go three-quarters."

After the footage was edited with much of the care that would go into the final project, Reitman (who had directed only one previous feature, the Golden Globe-nominated "Thank You for Smoking") sent the proto-"Juno" DVD around to the producers and key crew. The reaction was a precursor to the warm response that eventually brought four Oscar noms to the film, including director for Reitman.

"It was one of those things, you watched the scenes and you got it," he recalls. "You got the actors, you got the tone of the film, you got how the screenplay was going to come to life, you got how it was going to be emotional. And it was inspiring to watch."

In a sense, Reitman had been preparing for "Juno" since he was 15, when exposure to pics coming out of Sundance compelled the son of comedy director Ivan Reitman to pursue the trade.

"I realized there was a paradigm change happening," says the younger Reitman, now 30. "And there were going to be really small, important films, and I realized I wanted to be a director, too. ... 'This is my voice, and there's a place for me.'

"So when I made 'Smoking' and 'Juno,' I never thought of them as award films, but I thought of them as film-festival films: films that I could bring to Toronto, that I could bring to Sundance that would be taken seriously."

The rise to Oscar status took Reitman by surprise, but in hindsight, he does have theories about why "Juno" broke out.

One is the fact that the cast and Diablo Cody's screenplay were "firing on all cylinders." In addition, there's the emotion and resolution that come through the teen-pregnancy film, almost as a counterpoint to what many filmgoers have been feeling.

"Of all those other films that came out this year that are really good -- and by the way, I loved those films; I loved 'No Country for Old Men' -- something that unites them is that many of their third acts are left with many questions in the air," Reitman observes. "And it's because we as a society right now have many questions in the air. There's no certainty, there's a lot of fear, and we kind of don't know what's around the corner, and the films reflect that.

"I made a movie that has an ending of certainty, where you look at all the characters, and you feel emotional closure to their lives and you know where they're going. And I can't help but feel that is the reason why it just connected."

Even though he hopes to make movies until he drops, the "Juno" hoopla has had a surreal effect on Reitman.

"I can't help but look at this and go, 'This is probably the opening line of my obituary,'" he says.