Springboard or Standby? : Training Films Keep Both Veterans and Newcomers on Payroll

Leon S. Gold is a successful film maker--the producer of almost 70 motion pictures in a 30-year career--but chances are you’ve never heard of him. And it’s virtually a sure thing that you’ve never spent $6 on a Friday night to see one of his movies.

Gold’s company, Roundtable Film & Video of Beverly Hills, produces training films for business. Films with titles such as “People at Work,” “Meeting the Meeting Challenge” and “The Rewards of Rewarding.”

Training films are a $1.4-billion-a-year business and an important employer of actors and technicians in Hollywood, the Midwest and New York. But Gold readily acknowledges that there is little glamour in his corner of moviedom.

“I don’t get a good seat at Spago’s,” he sighs.

Training films--a misnomer, really, because about 95% of the programs are recorded on videotape--are the most widely used method of instruction in business. According to Training magazine, 83.2% of companies that conduct training use tapes, 82.5% use lectures and 73.2% conduct one-on-one instruction.

One databank lists 32,000 films and videos available for purchase or rental by business. Many feature actors or other celebrities. Monty Python’s John Cleese founded Vid eo Arts in 1972 and stars in 54 of the company’s comical training films.

The catalogue of Chatsworth-based National Educational Media boasts films starring Dinah Shore, Peter Marshall, Vic Tayback, Chad Everett, Robert Reed, Jack Valenti, Dick Van Patten, Don Galloway and John Astin.

Astin--perhaps best known for his role as Gomez Addams in the ‘60s TV comedy “The Addams Family”--began his film career performing in Army training movies in the 1950s and has appeared in training productions ever since.

“The writing is civilized,” Astin said during a break last month at a

Van Nuys sound stage, where he was taping an NEM film on handling checks and credit cards. “There’s a good, pure motive in wanting to help people learn how to perform their jobs more happily and efficiently. And they make sense. So it’s a pleasant way to earn your money.”

Actors whose talents had not yet been discovered by Hollywood often pop up on training department video monitors. Gold’s firm still markets a film called “Pattern for Instruction” that James Sikking appeared in before he joined the cast of “Hill Street Blues.” Robert Hayes filmed “The Fine Art of Keeping Your Cool” for National Educational just before he starred in the movie comedy “Airplane.”

The industry’s biggest problem is piracy. A study by the Training Media Distributors Assn. estimated that one-third of the videotapes in corporate libraries are unauthorized copies--a loss of about $300 million a year to producers.

The association offers a $5,000 reward for information about tape piracy, and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) is studying possible legislation to better protect producers’ copyrights.