SUN VALLEY : Picking Up the Pieces for Movie Magic

In an obscure Sun Valley recycling yard where the studios go shopping, special effects experts pick over the offerings, literally turning scraps into dreams.

“All water flows to the ocean,” owner Bill Slater said philosophically. Slater has owned Apex, a recycling business on San Fernando Road, for 40 years. Electronic, mechanical and electrical discards turn up in his warehouses or his yard, and all of Hollywood comes to him.

“With four or five trips you can get everything you need,” said Jordan Severy, a special effects technician with Warner Bros. Severy has been coming to Slater’s junkyard for 14 years. Parts he has found here have been used in films such as “2010,” “Ghostbusters” and “Big Trouble in Little China.” He has also found parts for special effects on the Jackson Victory Tour several years ago.

“If you want something that looks impressive, you come here,” said Severy, holding a piece of computer cable he just found that he plans on using for the upcoming production of “Disclosure,” based on the Michael Crichton novel.

There may be other scrap yards to go to, but movie makers here know Slater has one of the widest selections and many say he is the best to work with. One special effects expert from Hollywood Pictures--a Disney subsidiary--browsed through Slater’s shelves and complained that some other places have everything catalogued. Although time-consuming, he said it is much better to look through piles of cable, motors, transformers, light bulbs, buttons and switches, and let the creative mind pull together the elements to create movie props.

“Usually, if I spend too much time here it gives me headaches,” he said.

Slater’s association with the entertainment business started in the 1960s when he got a visit from the television shows “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and “Lost in Space.” He realized the potential of the consoles and cable that he picked up as scrap, and he developed an eye for picking out which items to save for the movie makers.

“What we’re after is the look,” said Art Meier, a special effects technician with Stargate Films, a small Burbank studio that worked on “Highlander II,” “Star Trek IV” and “Ghostbusters.” Using parts from Slater, the company built the interior of an Apache helicopter.

A lot of the items come to Slater from the defense industry. Army and Navy officials with a Lockheed engineer once picked through Slater’s supply and picked up items they needed, Slater said.

In a room in one of his two warehouses, Slater displays his rental equipment--panels and control lights that may be used for “seaQuest” one week and a different project the next. An entire shelf is made up of the altimeter dials and controls from airplanes which can be used to create faux cockpits.

Cables, especially the color-coded kinds that add realism to a set, are a popular item.

“I get cable here at 25% of what I’d pay for from the distributor,” Meier said. “There’s no list, no catalogue. I just pick up what I need and put it in my truck.”

Slater’s business--and his association with the studios--has grown not through advertising and slick publicity, but through his own simple low-key business style.

“If you have what somebody wants and you have enough of it, they will find you,” he said.