L.A. County’s Film Office Rates an Enthusiastic Two Thumbs Up

Sitting in her Hollywood Boulevard office, across the street from Mann’s Chinese Theater, Chandra Shah is furiously working the phone.

In the space of 10 minutes, the deputy director of the Los Angeles County Film Office must appease an irate pizza parlor owner who has forbidden a company shooting a beer commercial from parking in front of his restaurant; dress down an overzealous music video maker who planned what might have become a riot-sized concert at a Sunset Boulevard record shop, and convince a frazzled West Hollywood city official that such productions are still a good idea.

This frenetic atmosphere is standard fare in the film office, where Shah and five colleagues have spent the last year trying to smooth the way for film companies on location in Los Angeles County.

If Shah and company succeed, they will prevent two uniquely Southern California maladies: “location burnout” and “production bailout.” The former afflicts homeowners and business operators so overexposed to film crews that they don’t want any more. The latter refers to production companies that leave Los Angeles for locations with less regulation, lower costs and friendlier natives.

Combatting location burnout is a daily struggle, with the film office’s work judged anew by each neighborhood or business district invaded by lights and cameras.

But if first-year reviews from entertainment executives are any measure, the County Film Office is applying what could be an effective antidote to production bailout.

Industry officials say the private, nonprofit film office is quicker at issuing permits, solving problems and finding locations than its predecessor--the One-Stop Permit Office that was operated at the same location by the Los Angeles County Internal Services Department.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted in April, 1990, to place issuance of permits in the hands of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, which created the County Film Office to handle the job. The supervisors switched to a private organization to save money and to take a more aggressive stand toward retaining the region’s signature industry.

The new office issues permits for unincorporated areas of the county and five cities--Calabasas, Diamond Bar, Malibu, Santa Clarita and West Hollywood. Film companies must have a permit to film on any property not zoned as a movie studio, including roads, highways, parks and beaches.

The operation has been so successful that film executives and location managers are lobbying for similar red tape-cutting reforms in the city of Los Angeles. City Councilman Michael Woo plans to convene hearings within a few weeks to solicit proposals for putting more punch into the city’s Film & Video Permit Office.

The industry has complained that Los Angeles’ film permit office--a division of the Department of Public Works--does not have the political juice to get other city departments to comply with its demands. They also protest that their phone calls are sometimes placed on hold for 45 minutes or more and that permits can languish for days on film coordinators’ desks.

In San Pedro, the industry and the community have clashed often in recent years, with residents angry about late-night filming and downtown merchants complaining that movie crews are clogging streets and hurting business. At times, the conflict has been so fierce that community meetings were staged to outline local restrictions on filmmaking.

Those meetings have apparently persuaded filmmakers to be more mindful of local residents and merchants in the hours of filmmaking and the intrusion on the community, said Kate Acuna, an aide to Harbor Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

“In the last six months, we haven’t had any significant complaints about film companies,” she said. “(Film companies) know the feelings in San Pedro about filming . . . and I think they are trying hard not to disturb the beehive” of potential controversy, Acuna said.

Film industry officials said the county office is not as squeamish about hard bargaining with bureaucrats, since the office is an independent entity. And the new regime has minimized delays in issuing permits.

“I have been hearing that they are helping a lot of people in the industry. There is a really good feeling about it,” said Jim Thompson, president of Real to Reel, a company that scouts film locations.

The County Film Office issued 2,449 permits in the fiscal year that ended June 30, a 5% increase over the prior year. Cody Cluff, director of the film office, said he hopes expansion will continue along with other reforms. Already:

* Office hours have been extended two hours daily to the current 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

* Film office officials can be reached 24 hours a day by beeper to help resolve emergencies--for example, intervening when a county facility has not been opened for a film crew or calling off sheriff’s deputies from issuing parking citations when special production arrangements have been made.

* Guidelines have been redrawn so fire safety advisers are not assigned to locations where they are not needed. The advisers are now found on less than 40% of locations, compared to more than 80% before.

* Some county beaches that had been closed to filming after 10 p.m. are now open at all hours.

* Permits are issued by computer, greatly speeding the process.

The film office also lobbies on behalf of the film industry--for instance, protesting an ordinance approved last month by the Malibu City Council that levies a $400 daily filming fee and requires five days’ written notice of production plans.

Malibu City Manager Ray Taylor said that, after the film office’s protests, the ordinance will be reviewed to ensure it complies with a state law that allows cities to collect only as much in film permit fees as they spend in processing the permits.

But the most important change in the County Film Office has been the addition of an ombudsman program, which is designed to bust the bureaucracies that stand in the way of filming, said Kathleen Milnes, director of governmental affairs for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Shah, who acts as chief ombudsman, said she considers it a personal challenge to keep film permit denials to a minimum.

When, for instance, the county Department of Beaches and Harbors denied Finger Roll Inc. permission earlier this year to erect a basketball court on a parking lot at busy Venice Beach, Shah was back on the phone. Working with the offices of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and County Supervisor Deane Dana, Shah helped find alternative parking spaces for beach-goers so the basketball court could remain intact--preserving a key set for the forthcoming feature film, “White Men Can’t Jump.”

Producers of an upcoming Bruce Willis film were also denied a permit this year to blow up a car on the streets of West Hollywood. But the film office helped clear the way with city officials and several utilities, and the cameras rolled.

“The county had historically been turning away filming and the revenue associated with it,” Shah said. “My job is film retention. But if they go too far, we won’t endure it because we are concerned about location burnout. I don’t just back the film companies.”

The rules of the game are specified on each camera crew’s filming permit.

The pizza parlor owner had protested, for instance, because “No Parking” signs had been posted on the few spaces in front of his Santa Monica Boulevard restaurant. Such postings are only permitted with the permission of adjacent property owners.

Shah feared the angry businessman might hold out for an exorbitant payment to give up the parking space--”They are all extortionists in West Hollywood,” she declared--so she resolved the matter by simply restricting the film crew to the other end of the block.

The music video maker had a stickier problem. He had taken out a newspaper advertisement to promote filming of the chart-topping musical group EMF at a Sunset Strip record store, despite a strict prohibition in his permit against advertising.

West Hollywood officials--recalling the traffic gridlock that rocker David Lee Roth brought to the same location--declined to have a replay with EMF. They canceled the concert production. “You broke a rule that was in writing,” Shah told the video maker, “so you’re at their mercy.”

The weary public is increasingly standing up to the industry, often demanding payments of $500 to $1,500 when a camera crew interrupts their normal routine. Merchants, in particular, say this is not “extortion” but an attempt to recoup money they lose when access to their businesses is impeded.

Despite attempts at accommodation, some neighborhoods have not been appeased.

Altadena residents protested last year, for example, that film crews for the television program “Beverly Hills 90210” were creating a nuisance and a traffic hazard with large trucks that they regularly parked in the community.

An official in the film office apologized at the time to one man in a wheelchair who was prevented from crossing a street during filming. But the film office said other complaints from neighbors seemed overblown.

Despite its aggressive advocacy for the film industry, Cluff insists that his office acts as an impartial intermediary between film companies, residents and business people.

“We must develop a recognition in the industry that people must behave themselves and not make themselves unpleasant to the community,” Cluff said. “And we must work with the community so they know the value of these productions in their communities.”

Entertainment executives said the city needs a more aggressive film retention policy of its own. They point to statistics that estimate location filming generates nearly $5 billion annually for the economy in the greater Los Angeles area.

Several members of the entertainment industry attribute slow service in the city film office to a shortage of employees and modern equipment. Others are less generous, saying the operation is burdened with moribund bureaucrats, who have lost interest in their jobs.

Charles M. Weisenberg, director of the city’s Motion Picture and Television Division, conceded that his office occasionally is slow to answer phones and issue permits. But he noted that the city processes roughly twice as many permits as the county does. And whereas county permits often apply to beaches and other wide open spaces, the city is more likely to confront the dilemmas of filming on crowded city streets.

A recently installed computer system should produce permits more quickly, said film permit officer Dirk Beving. Two other upgrades are planned--installing new telephones and hiring another permit coordinator to bring the office staff to a total of 10.

The city’s anemic budget demands that those last improvements be tied to an increase in the basic film permit fee from $130 to $160. The fee increase was approved recently by the city’s Board of Public Works.

Woo says the Film & Video Permit Office needs more than new equipment and personnel.

He said the office “is now considered co-equal with other city departments. And that can be a problem.

“More is needed in terms of a high visibility position,” Woo said, “that clearly has enough political clout to be able to move the bureaucracy to get quick results.”