HOLLYWOOD--THE PERK EXPERIENCE

The packing boxes have arrived. Studio executive VP Danielle Lanford has lost more than her $250,000-a-year job. Lanford already misses the Hockney print on the wall. The peach marble desk is no longer hers; nor the glass-brick bookshelves and the Donghia leather armchairs. She realizes that her soon-to-be vacated corner office is more lavish than her own home.

The reason: She could never have afforded the decorator.

As in any good fiction, this scene from an as-yet-untitled novel about young Hollywood executives by producer Lynda Obst and writer Carol Davies-Wolper works because it is not far from reality.

Hollywood has a long history as one of America’s most perk-intensive industries. Perks (short for perquisites ) can be anything from an assigned parking space for a junior executive to a private screening room built into a studio chairman’s home. They are the cushy bells and whistles that light up an executive’s life style and contract. But with new tax laws soon to take effect and the cost of movie making soaring, all of that may change.

“There’s a definite sense of belt-tightening,” says one producer who until recently was a studio executive. “It’s getting to the point that unless you are working at a very successful studio you can expect the rest to be very frugal. People are starting to complain.”

Perks are by no means endemic to the movie business. Companies in other businesses pay for club memberships or employee meals and entertaining expenses, but somehow it all seems to matter a great deal more in the movie game.

In a business where power (the ability to get a script made) is equally important as creativity (the ability to write a makeable script), the appearence of power is often manifested through the quality of an executive’s available perks.

“Perks can really go too far,” says writer Kenny Solms. “Even if your out-of-town screening is a smash, you can get depressed if your limousine is the wrong color.”

There are perks and then there are perks.

For example, a production VP is entitled to the studio’s Laker tickets, but the studio chairman only goes if his seats are on the playing floor. A creative executive is allowed to fly first class but the president of production prefers to travel on board the company plane. (Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Disney all have their own jets.)

A production executive chooses a hip but reasonably priced Melrose Avenue decorator to redo her new office, while the studio top gun hires production designer Ferdinando Scafiotti (“American Gigolo”) to do his. (True story.)

Perks, like movies, come and go in cycles. Under Gulf + Western head Charles Bludhorn’s firm hand, ranking Paramount executives were free to choose the car they wanted--but it had to be American. Now the lot is packed once again with Jaguars and Mercedeses. This being the Christmas season (translation: time to renegotiate), below is a guide to current studio perks large and small for anyone considering a career as a studio executive.

Assigned Parking Space: The most visible sign that one has arrived. Creative executives and higher-ups all get their own spaces--sometimes marked by a sign but more often stenciled on the curb. (It’s easier to repaint than make a new sign). Power sign: The closer the space is to your desk the higher you probably rank. Wave of the future: An office large enough to house you and your black Porsche Cabriolet.

Expense Account : While some studios actually provide limits ($500 a week is not unusual for production VPs), most leave it to the conscience of the executive. Says one: “I knew a guy who took agents out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for three months straight and nobody said a word. Finally, they told him to stop going to Morton’s so much (a pricey Melrose Avenue restaurant) and take them to The Ivy once in a while.” (An even pricier eatery on Robertson.) Power sign: A reservation in your name at Spago guarantees you a table against the front room window. Advice to remember: Accountants know that Bloomingdale’s is not a French restaurant.

First-Class Travel: Some studio executives contract for a guaranteed number of trips to New York and Europe each year whether they have business there or not. Executives of any stature at all fly first class and usually special order their meals. (Red meat is out.) Top-level honchos book their trips around the availability of the corporate jet. Power sign: Limousine (black only) takes you to the airport. Humorous rumor: If “The Golden Child” is a megahit, Paramount plans to install its own runway on the back lot so executives don’t ever get stuck in traffic.

Automobile Allowance : Most studios pick up all or part of an executive’s auto expenses by giving a monthly car allowance (anywhere from $300 a month to “whatever it costs”). An added benefit: At some studios there are gas pumps and mechanics so you never have to pay for a fill-up--or get your hands dirty filling the tank. Note: Only certain cars are acceptable to power positions. It’s tacky to get a $500 car allowance, lease a Yugo and pocket the difference. Power sign: You own your Jaguar XJS and passed on personalized plates.

Decorating Budget: Here again the money varies with your title, the taste and style of your superiors and the success or failure of the studio’s movies. At Paramount these days (“Star Trek IV” “Top Gun” and “Crocodile Dundee”), you can hear hammers pounding and saws buzzing all day, and the studio’s not building new sets. VPs can select new carpeting, fresh paint and designer furniture. Junior execs pick up fired senior executives’ rejects. (Overheard: “I know the couch is torn but this was Alan Ladd Jr.’s when he was on the lot.) Power sign: You run the studio but there is never a script or even a loose piece of paper on your desk.

The ultimate perk today is having your own building. When Steven Spielberg decided to make Universal his home, the studio built him his own adobe-styled mansion complete with treated wood shipped in from New Mexico. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (“Top Gun” and “Beverly Hills Cop”) are housed in their own ultra-modern centrally located building on the Paramount lot.

At this time of year studios also are busy gathering their gift lists for stars who have made the company money through their performances. It was once popular and not at all uncommon to give a star a car as a thank-you.

These days, while cars are still occasionally given, stars opt instead for what are known as “artist relation” deals. In these cases stars are given their own production companies where they can develop their own scripts and ideally maintain more control over what movies they appear in. “Any big star can afford another car but they can’t finance their own scripts or office overhead,” says Obst. “That’s really the modern perk.” (Actors Molly Ringwald, Daryl Hannah and Bruce Willis among others all have such deals.)

With the new tax law looming on the horizon, it is quickly becoming clear that studios may be forced to cut back. The new law requires, for example, that meals are “necessary and ordinary” expenses. Now what kind of a perk is that?