Earthquake: The Long Road Back : For Film and TV, the Show Can’t Go On : Delays: Production schedules for some projects will be pushed back. Executives used the day to assess damage to offices and sets.

The earthquake didn’t wake up members of one Los Angeles movie crew. They were in the middle of production, filming just miles from the epicenter.

“All I could think of was the movie ‘San Francisco,’ ” said photographer Tony Friedkin, referring to the 1936 Clark Gable film set against the 1906 quake.

Friedkin and the 100 other cast and crew members scrambled off a sound stage in Sylmar at 4:31 a.m. Monday, moments after they had completed a courtroom scene for “Murder in the First” at the Tri-Scenic Sound Studio.

“Director Marc Rocco had just gotten a take that he liked and the cast (including actors Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman) were just sitting there, and then this thing hit. The sets stayed up, but the building started to go and I got thrown like a trampoline into a metal cart,” said the 44-year-old, 170-pound Friedkin. “Other people had significant injuries.”

“Murder in the First” was probably the only active production so close to the quake’s epicenter and almost certainly the last in Southern California to roll cameras Monday.

The film, TV and music industries were nearly at a standstill Tuesday as the day was used to assess damage to sound stages, studios and offices and to allow employees to avoid the damaged freeways and survey their own property.

Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios and Universal Pictures, the three major studios in the San Fernando Valley, and therefore those closest to the epicenter, were closed for the day. The studios suffered flooding, broken windows and destruction of office interiors. Losses, including dollar estimates, are still being tallied.

For Hollywood’s feature film studios, the timing of the quake could not have been more opportune. There was no shooting planned at the major studios and only limited work on locations around Los Angeles County. Fearing a strike several weeks ago by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the companies had deferred studio production months in advance.

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But not everything came to a standstill. Calls went out to crew members working on “The Crossing Guard,” an independently made movie directed by Sean Penn (whose Malibu home was destroyed in the fall fires), that shooting would resume Tuesday. Jack Nicholson, the movie’s star, was also expected to report to work.

Television production delays were more widespread and could eventually affect what viewers across the nation watch.

“Later in the season there may be an extra rerun or two or an extra preemption in the middle of the schedule,” said one studio executive. “But it shouldn’t affect viewing too greatly. It all depends on what the damage looks like when all is said and done.”

Many of the inconveniences on the sets were no different than those faced by residents, such as the plates that came crashing down in the kitchen on the NBC Burbank set of the sitcom “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

The damage was more severe on other shows, especially on those shooting in the Valley. On the set of Fox’s ensemble drama “Melrose Place,” which films near the quake’s epicenter at the Santa Clarita Studios, overhead scaffolding crashed and the sets became a shambles. Production is expected to be delayed for up to two weeks.

Most incidents involved broken pipes, fallen sets and structural damage to buildings. A broken water line at Sunset-Gower Studios flooded the stage of NBC’s “The John Larroquette Show” with four inches of water, setting production back a week.

Many shows were trying to find ways to continue production this week, but many employees could not even get to work because of freeway damage. At NBC, only 20% of the employees were in Tuesday. “The priority has been put out to take care of your personal lives first,” an NBC spokesman said.

The syndicated “Arsenio Hall Show” will stop production for one week, although a Paramount spokesman did not know why. Sources speculate that shows shooting in the San Fernando Valley may be shut down for two weeks or more. The headquarters of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood will be closed the rest of the week after the ceiling of the main conference room collapsed and the glass doors at the building’s entrance shattered.

For the most part, the recording industry was shut down Tuesday, with just a trickle of staffers coming in to clean up their offices or check their phone messages. There was no word on buildings that had been damaged, but inspections were planned for, among others, Warner Bros.’ Burbank headquarters, Sony Music’s new Santa Monica complex, Virgin Records’ offices in Beverly Hills and the A & M lot in Hollywood.

Around Hollywood, events were being rescheduled. A dinner Thursday at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where Clint Eastwood was to receive a humanitarian award from the American Jewish Committee, was postponed and a new date will be set.

The headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills was closed Tuesday as workers tried to clean up a water leak. The academy’s board of governors postponed until next Tuesday a meeting to determine the future of short-subject Oscars.

A spokeswoman for the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which hands out Golden Globe Awards for film and television, said the annual dinner show will go on as scheduled Saturday night.