Hollywood’s Race for Inner Space : Entertainment: With regular studios heavily booked, producers are turning to other venues--like warehouses--to shoot television shows and films.

Everywhere you look there’s a Hollywood this or a Hollywood that.

There’s North Hollywood (home of the television academy) and Hollywood North (Toronto and its once-feared “runaway” studio facilities).

There’s East Hollywood (home of the old Monogram studios, now public television’s KCET) and Hollywood East, also known as Hollywood on the Hudson (New York’s Astoria studios) or Hollywood on the Potomac (anywhere in D.C.).

There is West Hollywood with its recording studios, and Hollywood West with Hawaii calling.

There are also hundreds of self-proclaimed new Hollywoods, states, cities and whole nations armed with smiles, a camera and a lust to lure film companies. Recently, almost 200 American and foreign film commissions got together in Santa Monica to sell themselves as the new Hollywood.

Then we have world-famed Hollywood and Whine.

That’s where a bunch of local governments and independent filmmakers have collided in a protracted and often frustrating struggle over another Hollywood, Warehouse Hollywood.

The kicking, fussing, shouting, and sometimes rare reasoned debate have centered on the issue of when is a studio a studio, when is a warehouse not a warehouse, and when is a warehouse considered a studio. The arguments are over a multimillion-dollar chunk of film and television production in Los Angeles, it’s about dribble-down budgets, public safety, lots of jobs and at times the future of a big piece of the Hollywood pie.

But while everyone from Mayor Bradley to his city agencies to local filmmakers say something has to be done about the safety and regulation of Warehouse Hollywood, the city isn’t doing anything about helping the one person everyone agrees can solve local stay-at-home production issues.

The background:

Most big studio sound stages are occupied year-around with their own productions along with some of the major independent companies. Few sound stages have been built in recent years. At the same time, television film production has zoomed; cable television is crying for room for production of its movies, specials and series; the home video market has sprung up with its needs for studio space; independent, low-budget companies are looking for wide-open interior spaces; commercial photographers and advertising agencies are also busily studio shopping. And everyone wants to cut rising production costs.

At the same time, a number of old-line businesses have fled the downtown and industrial areas, leaving behind massive, two-story, domed-roof, post- and column-free buildings. Warehouses for the stars from downtown Los Angeles to Vernon in the east and San Pedro harbor in the south and out to north Los Angeles County.

Now, the conflict:

Traditional film and television studios were built to certain safety, earthquake and building codes. They sit on land zoned for studios. They all carry city certificates of occupancy that define the building’s use as a studio. Warehouse Hollywood is usually a building in commercially zoned territories, its certificates of occupancy are for warehouses (few doors, fewer windows), it’s usually an older brick building lacking earthquake construction details, its wiring and fire-prevention equipment possibly dated and inadequate.

For filmmakers, here are buildings that can be rented for half the cost of studio space; far cheaper than leaving town for any of the hundreds of new Hollywoods; and close to the labs, dubbing facilities, editing rooms and all of the other cinematic scientists.

But for city fire inspectors, here is the potential for Inferno Hollywood, old buildings that may lack sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, separation of construction from shooting areas, grounded electrical equipment, proper storage for volatile materials.

For building inspectors, here is the potential for Falldown Hollywood, buildings lacking earthquake retrofitting, proper number and sizes of doorways, safe interior construction.

Whole, new enterprises have sprung up in the 10-year history of Warehouse Hollywood.

Television producer Barney Rosenzweig may have set off the trend to off-studio facilities when he took his “Cagney and Lacey” company down to Lacy Street in Lincoln Heights almost 10 years ago and put some money into upgrading the building for filming. The measure of his success was that after “Cagney and Lacey” wound up, the building’s owner kept it going as the Lacy Street Production Center. When Rosenzweig came back hoping to shoot his new show, “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill” there, the building was booked for “Alien Nations.” Instead, he leased a building in Little Tokyo, made improvements and settled down for what he hopes will be several years of production.

“The only problem I had on Lacy Street was when the city started building a dog pound there and I thought the noise would disturb our work. But in our days on Lacy Street we put $123 million into the local economy through salaries, purchases and eating out. It was good for me and it was good for the city.”

A few years ago, Jim Thompson was a Hollywood location manager who started a business called Reel to Reel, an agency that helped producers find off-studio settings for location filming. He expanded Reel to Reel into the old building business. Four years ago he leased a seaplane hangar in San Pedro from the city, installed sprinklers, sound proofing, brought it up to code and named it the Harbor Star Stage. Canon shot “Invaders From Mars” there and HBO last week wrapped the movie “Lovecraft” there.

In addition to warehouses, other buildings have been converted to studio use: Rancho Encino Hospital, one Masonic Temple, the old Bingo Building on North Main Street.

“I’ve seen a 33% growth rate in my business every year,” Thompson says. “Video has opened up this business greatly. I started with six people, now I have 22. When I get a new client I make sure they understand the local regulations. I think in the city of Los Angeles there’s an effort toward cooperation between building and safety, fire department and the filmmakers. After all, we have the best crews in the world here. There’s no need for anyone to go out of town.”

But other warehouse operators can tell horror stories. One recalled the shutting down of a major shooting because of a last-minute demand by a city official for a multimillion dollar insurance policy. Another tells of starting a movie unaware the city had given a demolition permit nearby. Jackhammers and pile drivers prevented daytime shooting because the building lacked sound-proofing. Others tell of the daily rotating fire inspectors, each with different standards of hazard and fire control. “One day the inspector thinks everything is safe and sound, the other day someone else comes along and the cables are a hazard,” a production manager said.

There are no single, clear-cut requirements for turning empty, seemingly useless old buildings into studios. A few months ago producers, fire officials and building and safety regulators along with the city’s film office got together to see if they could work out differences and come up with a plan.

Frank Kroeger, the retired general manager of building and safety, was offered a contract to work out the differences between the regulators and the producers.

He met several times to hash out what he calls “matrixes” for the regulators. What, for example, should be required if a portable generator is used inside a building? What, for example, is acceptable electrical equipment?

But that promised contract never arrived.

Still, Kroeger met again, drafted more matrixes, saw that several of the matrixes became guidelines for some of the city agencies in regulating the old buildings.

Everyone involved applauded the new spirit of cooperation between fire, building and safety, and the property owners.

So far, no contract. No new codes.

Even if the contract is resolved, it would take another eight months to get codes passed and signed. Meanwhile, the shows go on, the television seasons fly by, the independent filmmakers hunt for studio space, the video directors look for the big spaces for their flashy enterprises. The fire inspectors make their daily prowls, the building and safety department checks out the buildings.

Warehouse Hollywood waits for a director.