Company Town : Hollywood Plugs In : New Technology Lets Studios, Stars Communicate Globally

During the frantic final weeks of post-production on “I Love Trouble,” director Charles Shyer and actor Nick Nolte got together on sound stages nearly 6,000 miles apart for the latest in Hollywood technology--the transcontinental sound-dubbing session.

A scene from the movie simultaneously flickered on screens at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, where Shyer was directing, and a sound stage in Paris, where Nolte was based. As the action began, Nolte and his co-star, Julia Roberts, were working late into the night at a diner. Nolte is seen going to the counter for coffee.

Nolte (to Roberts, on film): “Doughnut?”

Shyer (to Nolte, in Paris): “Make it a tad more confident.”

Nolte: “Confident?”

Shyer: “Your voice went up a little at the end.”

Nolte: “Well, it’s really quite charming and clever the way it is, but I’ll change it.”

Shyer (rolling eyes): “OK, thanks for the warning.” Turning to the others in the room, he jokes, “That’s one of the great things about this technology, I don’t have to get that eye contact with him. He could be cursing us out over there and we wouldn’t know.”

The communications system that allowed Nolte to “loop” his lines from Paris is emerging as a key element in the technological transformation of Hollywood--changing production routines, giving directors more creative control and occasionally even saving money. In the increasingly dispersed entertainment industry--where travel expenses are high and time is often more important than money--it’s becoming possible to work from anywhere at any time.

With Nolte on location for “Thomas Jefferson in Paris” and Roberts in London for “Mary Reilly,” Shyer originally planned to travel to both places for the customary dialogue touch-ups. But in the crunch of a 14-week post-production schedule, he ran out of time.

“We’re cutting pictures here, scoring here, looping all the other actors here,” Shyer said during a remote looping session in early June. “You do miss the one-on-one--maybe you’d get more nuances--but this system saved us.”

The “I Love Trouble” communications system was supplied by the Entertainment Digital Network, a San Francisco-based start-up known as Ednet with close ties to director George Lucas. The company was to be acquired by IDB Telecommunications Group this summer, but the deal fell through when IDB’s accounting firm resigned in May. Several other firms, including AT&T;, are said to be interested.

The technology, which has been used on several films in recent months, allows high-fidelity audio to be compressed and sent over digital phone lines, while a synchronizing system ensures that the studios on either end see and hear the same thing, with no delay.

Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott, who first developed the service at Lucas’ Skywalker Sound for the 1991 film “Backdraft,” left the firm in 1993 to found Ednet, with the goal of developing applications for evolving telecommunications technology specifically for the entertainment industry.

With the support of WilTel, a long-distance provider of fiber-optic phone lines, and seed money from friends and family, the company has signed up recording studios across the world that have used its system for projects such as Frank Sinatra’s “Duets” album last fall.

Ednet has yet to turn a profit. And bigger fish like Pacific Bell and Sprint are beginning to experiment with similar set-ups. But Ednet’s revenues increased threefold in the fiscal year ending last month to more than $1 million, and are expected to triple again this year. David Gustafson, its marketing director, says Ednet expects to be in the black by next summer.

For now, Ednet is concentrating on the audio end of the business. But the ultimate Hollywood application--the instantaneous sending of film dailies from production locations to be reviewed by studio executives in Los Angeles--may be possible later this year.

One of the key selling points of the “virtual” production environment made possible by the advances in telecommunications is that it allows directors to have more creative control than time might otherwise allow. Director Oliver Stone supervised the French and Italian sound mixes of his film “Heaven and Earth” from Los Angeles earlier this year, for example.

And director Robert Zemeckis had his home in Montecito linked to Skywalker Sound in San Rafael via Ednet’s system so he could monitor the preliminary mix of “Forrest Gump.”

Zemeckis demanded more suspension squeak in an early scene where a pickup truck chases Gump (Tom Hanks) down an alley. Since the sound designer was able to make the changes early on, says producer Steve Starkey, it saved time in the rush of the final mix.

“All of this is changing the face of the industry,” Starkey says. “I wouldn’t want to let it get out of hand because it is very costly to be on-line with the system. But I would definitely use it again.”

Indeed, the technology doesn’t come cheap. The “I Love Trouble” production paid $800 an hour to be on-line with Roberts and Nolte from Europe.

Still, the savings in first-class travel, meals and hotel room expenses for various talent is not trivial. Sara Duran, post-production manager for feature animation at Walt Disney Studios--which had Matthew Broderick phone in his lines for “The Lion King” from New York over Ednet’s network--calculates a net savings when the cost is compared to flying the usual four people to New York or London.

“We used to do this by speaker phone,” Duran says. “But you get a delay, and you can’t really hear what’s going on. This has allowed us to really hear.”