In the Market for a Used Sky or Riverbed? : Arts: A city-sponsored warehouse recycles film studios’ materials for use by nonprofit theater and cultural groups.

The blue sky in a big-time Hollywood movie might end up in a neighborhood troupe’s play, thanks to a Los Feliz warehouse called Materials for the Arts.

Film studios routinely used to toss expensive backdrops, sets and props into landfills before the warehouse organization was founded last year by the city of Los Angeles.

A project of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, Materials for the Arts collects castoffs from studios, corporations and museums and distributes them to nonprofit art and cultural groups.

The studios and other organizations “are happy to unload goods since it’s for a good cause, and they get a tax deduction,” said Bert Ball, the group’s executive director.

More than 700 theaters, schools, churches, filmmakers, photographers and other artists have shopped at the 5,000-square-foot warehouse during its first year, hauling off about $2 million in materials.

Ball and his crew of three run daily pickups at Hollywood studios, which Ball calls “the real backbone of this operation.” He estimates that his organization has diverted about 400 tons of goods from landfills, 50% of it from studios, since the organization began.

Art and cultural groups must first register with Materials for the Arts before shopping at the warehouse. One other area organization, Re-Sets in El Monte, also picks up studio waste. Re-Sets receives mostly wood, which is sold to pallet manufacturers, but 20% of its donations go to needy groups.

“Studios are now recycling most of their waste, so Materials for the Arts arrived at the perfect time to handle the volume,” said Gretchen Lewotsky, executive director of environmental operations at 20th Century Fox Film Corp.

Ball’s newest project is a 10,000-square-foot set-storage library that will lend small theaters sets, step units and platforms. The facility, in a nearby public storage facility, will open in April.

When the nonprofit theater A Noise Within opened on Brand Boulevard in Glendale last year, Materials for the Arts gave the group not only sets, but an entire office.

“They outfitted us with desks, chairs, tables and lamps,” said the theater’s executive director, Julia Rodriguez, who has shopped at Ball’s warehouse 14 times. “Those are things we usually have to purchase. It saves a lot of time, not having to shop all over town for items.”

A Noise Within, which produces classic plays, has also shopped for lumber, props, lighting gels and flats, as well as fabric, costume racks and full-length mirrors for its costume shop.

“Bert is really good about watching out for things we need,” said Rodriguez, who keeps a wish list on file at Ball’s office.

Leading a tour through his warehouse, Ball pointed out stacks of mock weapons, bowling trophies, rubber chickens and hay bales that lined shelves stretching to the ceiling.

“These are things theaters are always clamoring for,” he said, leaning against canvas backdrops hanging from the ceiling. “Studios are the perfect resource for materials. They use stuff at an amazing rate and then just spit it out.”

Two 25-foot-long bolts of canvas material--the rolled-up blue-sky backdrops from the movie “Toys,” were stacked on shelves waiting for just the right theater production.

Adjacent rooms were packed with office and stereo equipment, including computers, printers, telephones, paper clips, amplifiers and desk organizers. Ball has received offers of cars, trucks, vans, a motorcycle and a sailboat in the past, but says, “At the time, we had no room.”

“We’re completely thrilled. This is just like Disneyland,” said Consuelo Garcia, principal of Telfair Avenue Elementary school in Pacoima. Garcia stood amid dozens of donated five-gallon paint buckets.

“We have this big mural project planned for the school, so we can really use this paint,” Garcia said. “The money we save can go for other things. It’s been real tight, with all the budget cuts.”

Ball said school administrators “go nuts” when they stroll through his warehouse. “We get eight-foot stacks of colored poster board in each month from a framing company,” said Ball, stepping aside as a South-Central Los Angeles theater group director toted a computer away.

Outside, stacks of sets littered the one-acre lot. A pile of sheets that resemble various surfaces, including stone, brick, stick and riverbed, lay nearby.

“Theaters love to rummage through that stack,” Ball said. “A new sheet would cost about $144. It just goes to prove that one man’s trash is another’s treasure.”

To donate to Materials for the Arts or to register as a recipient, phone (213) 485-1097.