‘Naked Hollywood’: More Than Skin Deep : Television: The documentary, airing in September on A&E;, consists almost entirely of movie people talking about the business and going about their work.

When people here discuss “Naked Hollywood,” the six-part BBC documentary about the off-camera machinations of the L.A. film industry, they invariably mention the animal footage.

It’s the part that comes on screen as talent agent Jeremy Zimmer is describing agencies as being like “wild animals” who “spend much of their time feeding upon each other” by stealing clients. While he talks, gorillas, rams, sea lions and other wild beasts are seen fighting and mating. Viewers can almost envision them negotiating three-picture deals.

Another scene shows Zimmer, in slow motion, idly twirling his telephone cord while on a call. The cord suddenly takes on the sound of helicopter blades slapping the air and the visual changes to a low, sweeping shot across palm-lined Los Angeles. It could be an assault on Beverly Hills by the 1st Airborne Cavalry.

“Naked Hollywood,” currently airing weekly in Great Britain and set to run in the United States on the Arts & Entertainment cable network in September, is not your standard journalistic look at movieland.

There is no host or voice-over commentary, no Tom Brokaw to interpret what it all means. Instead, the documentary consists almost entirely of movie people talking about the business and going about their work. Viewers get to sort out the meaning for themselves.

Commentary, such as it is, comes in the form of the odd sights and sounds that are spliced in, and occasional insights from L.A. journalists.

At the end of a segment that contrasts the careers of James Caan, actor, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, megastar, who is seen working on the set of “Kindergarten Cop.” All viewers can hear, however, is the song, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” It’s a scene meant to reinforce the notion that Schwarzenegger is packaged and marketed no differently than a can of Coke.

Certainly, Schwarzenegger would be hard-pressed to complain about the comparison. He never refers directly to soda pop, but lectures over and over about the importance of marketing himself, of shaping his image, how he learned to meet the right people, be in the right places, say the right things.

In addition to segments on actors and agents, series topics include screenwriters, producers, studio bosses and directors.

Dozens of other Hollywood luminaries appear on camera, sometimes with just a quick quip, like Mel Brooks, or sometimes as main subjects in a particular category, such as Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer in a segment about producers. Others appearing in the BBC series include Barry Diller, Oliver Stone, James L. Brooks, Penny Marshall, Tom Pollock, Ivan Reitman and, as they say in show business, many, many more.

“Naked Hollywood” producer Nicolas Kent got access to most of the biggest names in filmmaking after his first requests for interviews were universally rejected. The breakthrough came when Diller, Schwarzenegger and director Sydney Pollack all agreed to participate. Others quickly followed.

Creative Artists Agency head Michael Ovitz, considered the most powerful person in Hollywood, remained the only major figure to elude Kent. But Ovitz makes an unwitting appearance anyway, captured on film at a Lakers game with Kevin Costner, Barry Levinson and Michael Eisner. When Ovitz spots the camera, secretly trained on him, he rises up from his chair and shoots a cold, hard look that will send chills through some viewers.

Kent said that he ultimately was able to round up his Who’s Who of series participants with the pitch that Europe represents the biggest growth market for American movies and American television programs. Here, he told them, was a chance to show outsiders how the business works and correct some of the myths.

“It was a pitch that worked,” Kent says. “And the series has been sold all over the world.”

Kent, founder and former editor of the British Film and TV magazine Stills, said that he knew from the very beginning he did not want to have “Naked Hollywood” presented by a host or narrator.

“What I wanted to do was let Hollywood present itself,” he says.

Kent, who began working on the BBC documentary more than a year ago, says his impression of Hollywood has changed during that time.

“One way it’s changed very much for the better,” he says, “is I think Hollywood is a far more sophisticated and complex community than people imagine it to be. The cliche about Hollywood is that it’s a movie business run by philistines, people who don’t understand the more rarefied considerations of European filmmakers.”

But at the same time, he says, he was struck by the sense that almost everyone in the movie business seemed to be playing a role. He recalled that while filming a sequence in the mailroom of a large talent agency, one of the top agents leaned over and told him, “I hope I like what I’m going to see. Otherwise, you’ll never work in this town again.”

“He literally said that,” Kent says. “It was a perfect movie moment. I felt like I should have said, ‘This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.’ ”

Kent also was surprised to find “what an inward-looking society it is. It’s easy when you’re there to forget an outside world exists.”

He learned just how inward looking in one of his first meetings in Hollywood. He had arranged to have breakfast at the Polo Lounge with a studio executive. When he arrived, the executive was reading the paper and pointed to the huge headline about the revolution in Romania.

“I sat down,” Kent says, “and he said, ‘This news is extraordinary,’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ He said, ‘Do you know what this means?’ ” When Kent replied that he did not, the studio executive answered, “This has incredible consequences on the number of videocassettes we’re going to sell in Eastern Europe.”