Busy Studios Reach Out for Stage, Office Space

John Warren has been a motion-picture location manager for almost 20 years, but he just started cashing in on an idea that is helping to make Valencia an extension of Hollywood.

Last month, he opened Lindsey Film Studios, named for his 5-year-old daughter, in an industrial building near Magic Mountain, with dressing rooms, production offices and four fixed sets--a courtroom, morgue, hospital and police station. They are sets, he says, that have been popular, especially with television shows, for at least 13 years.

That’s when Warren first had the idea but not the cash. So far, this year, he has invested about $1 million leasing the building, soundproofing it and constructing the sets.

He started the studio now, he says, because the time is right.

Hasn’t Been Disappointed

“That’s not to say that the time wasn’t right 13 years ago, but it just wasn’t as right. Then, we might have had people shooting in our studio 10 days a month. Now we’re expecting at least 18 to 20 days a month.”

So far, he hasn’t been disappointed. “We had Universal here one day, Michael Landon Productions here the day before. We thought the studio would be booked three days the first month, but--instead--it was booked six days the first week, and we’ve been booked daily ever since.”

Warren’s experience in keeping sound stages rented is not unique. Nor is it confined to Valencia, which Warren’s studio manager, Douglas Randall, calls “Hollywood North.”

Although a threatened strike by the Directors Guild of America could slow activity after contracts expire June 30, the Hollywood film industry has been hopping with activity, stimulated by new markets in videocassettes and cable television. There are hundreds of new, independent production companies and many new heads of old production facilities.

These changes have contributed to a demand for and shortage of studio-related offices and large, well-equipped sound and tape stages. With increased demand and capital--from the booms in videos and stock, bond and film partnership offerings--the rush has been on to rent, renovate and build.

Vacant Stores Converted

Entrepreneurs like Warren have been developing stages-for-rent in vacant supermarkets and stores, but major and not-so-major studios are also planning, building and remodeling sound stages and offices on their lots.

Among the office projects being built is a four-story one at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, a 12-story one in Burbank for the Entertainment Sector of the Coca-Cola Co., parent of Columbia Pictures, and a five-story one at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood.

A 50,000-square-foot building, with post-production facilities, is expected to be under way in July as part of a $50-million construction program at the Culver Studios, which changed its name in December--with a change of ownership--from Laird International. The lot also has been known as Selznick Studios, RKO and Desilu.

Besides two new sound stages and a renovation of 12 existing ones, the construction program includes refurbishing the three-story, 20-room Antebellum-style mansion, built by producer Thomas Ince, into offices.

Offices Renovated

More offices are being renovated at Lorimar Telepictures, which occupies the former MGM lot in Culver City. The 44-acre, 24-sound-stage property was acquired last year by Lorimar, a major television firm that, before the purchase, occupied rented quarters there.

Irwin Molasky, Lorimar vice president and one of its founders, said the historic Thalberg Building will be remodeled to provide offices for 300 people, and the beautiful old facade of the Producers Building will be restored, with the interior renovated into offices for 400 people.

Lorimar also plans to remodel its commissary at a cost of about $1.5 million, so there will be a deli, fast-food operation, and indoor and outdoor cafes.

The office pinch is also being felt by the Walt Disney Co., which got the Burbank City Council’s go-ahead in May to plan a theme park, mall and hotel on a 40-acre redevelopment site near Disney’s studio in Burbank.

Irwin Okun, Disney’s vice president of corporate communications, said, “We have run into an office shortage, and we hope to build eventually on our property.”

Stages in Florida

Disney also has a shortage of sound stages. “We have the smallest number of any of the major studios, with only four,” Okun conceded.

However, Disney is building four sound stages near its Disney World in Florida to help accommodate its increased production from two or three live-action pictures this year to 15 planned in 1988.

MCA, which is building a studio and studio tour on 440 acres in Florida, has more than 30 sound stages on its 420-acre Universal Studios property in Universal City.

Jay S. Stein, president of MCA Recreation Services, acknowledged that Universal Studios has “no shortage of sound stages.” As for offices, though, he said, “We have several concepts on the drawing board, and I believe we have wonderful capabilities here and in Florida for expansion.”

Retained Its Property

Universal differs from 20th Century Fox Film Corp., which sold off its back lot for development as Century City. Since it was founded in 1915, Universal has retained ownership of most of its property, but what was once more than 200 acres at 20th Century Fox has dwindled to 54 acres with 20 stages.

Don Fletcher, senior vice president of studio operations, said that Fox is doing no new real estate development but denied as “untrue and unfounded” rumors that Fox will sell its property, as MGM did, and relocate.

MGM is now firmly ensconced in the (eight-story) Filmland Building (in Culver City), occupying four or five floors, Lee Rich, head of MGM/UA Communications Co., said.

United Artists Pictures Inc. and the corporate headquarters of MGM/UA, the parent company, will be situated in a company-owned, $20-million, three-story, 110,000-square-foot building expected to break ground July 7 on the northeast corner of Crescent Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

Rented Offices, Stage

In May, Orion Pictures, which distributed the Academy Award-winning film “Platoon,” moved from several other Los Angeles-area offices into six rented floors of a 21-story Century City office tower and signed a 10-year lease for a 63,000-square-foot West Los Angeles warehouse that Orion is turning into a sound stage, offices, and editing and screening rooms.

Referring to office operations like Orion’s, MGM’s, the Cannon Group and others, Les Small, a vice president of Cushman & Wakefield real estate brokerage, who represented Orion in all the lease transactions, said, “What’s happening is that the studios are being stacked vertically. They’re substituting concrete and steel for land.”

A major studio executive who spoke on condition of remaining anonymous said, “It’s the new breed of film makers, if anyone, who are spitting on tradition. These new companies don’t need to own a studio. What’s important when you make a film is not where you hang your coat. It’s the product.

“It’s the Cokes and Gulf & Westerns that are putting money back in the business (through the real estate they own as parent companies of major studios). For them, it’s viable to own the real estate, because they are long-term players in the entertainment field. It’s that old principle: If you can own your home, you do.”

Not Pleased by Change

Studio ownership by corporations and individuals not associated with entertainment is a change not particularly liked by Hollywood historian Marc Wanamaker.

He is critical of the lawyers and accountants who first replaced the old-time studio executives in the ‘60s. These newcomers sold studio property in several cases, he said, “as a quick fix to pay debts.”

He objected to MGM getting into the hotel business in the ‘60s at what he considers the later expense of the studio.

Columbia Pictures came back after selling its property on Gower Street in an area called Poverty Row for the many struggling studios that were there in the early days of Hollywood.

Columbia Shares Lot

Columbia didn’t come back to Gower Street, but it came back as a major studio, sharing the Burbank Studios lot with Warner Bros., which is not developing any real estate at the moment although the company is “looking at the possibility of building some low-rise office buildings with some screening rooms,” said Richard Reiner, who handles Warner’s real estate activities.

Stephen J. Geiger of Christensen/Geiger, a Burbank real estate development and consulting firm that has worked on master plans for several studios, said, “I think the back lot on campus will disappear over the next five years.”

The reason: “The pressure of development in L. A. is great. There is only so much land, and with the down zoning that came with (the passage last November of) Proposition U, remaining land became that much more valuable.”

Even the Big Sky Movie Ranch, one of Southern California’s last large movie ranches, is biting the dust, with two-thirds of its nearly 10,000 acres in Simi Valley for sale, and the remainder being prepared for development.

‘Business as Usual’

At the 38,000-acre Newhall Ranch, which calls itself “Hollywood’s biggest back lot,” it’s business as usual, though, with film companies shooting there 200 to 300 days a year, said Luis Rios, film location coordinator for the Newhall Land & Farming Co., which owns the property.

Most of the ranch is within the union-required 30-mile radius of Hollywood, in Valencia, where Warren opened his studio. It’s also where Robert L. Thompson of Toluca Lake opened Valencia Independent Studios, with four sound stages, in another industrial building.

David Witt, assistant manager of Thompson’s studio, said, “There are only two of us running this studio, so our costs are minimal.” He claims his costs are also less than some in-town studios because he does not demand that independent producers use union technicians.

Rios looks at the Thompson and Warren projects as being complementary to the ranch and noted that he also has had some inquiries about building a major sound-stage on Newhall Land & Farming Co. property.

Thompson, formerly general manager of GMT Studios in Culver City, is trying to get financing to build a 78,000-square-foot facility there with four sound stages, and Herman David, a 25-year studio veteran who was most recently studio manager for 20th Century Fox, is negotiating to buy 19 acres for a 24-stage facility that he’d like to complete by next spring.

Bill Welsh, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said he has heard that there is a shortage of sound stages, “but the industry will have to demonstrate that it can stop runaway production before we see any heavy investment or commitment” to new projects.