Piru Turns to Hollywood for Ideas on Renovating Town : Rebuilding: Residents ask studios how they would like the quake-damaged hamlet to look so more productions can be filmed there.

residents think it’s a gold mine for the silver screen.

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Working to rebuild the wreckage of last year’s Northridge quake, some residents are turning to Hollywood to ask film and television studios how they would like the turn-of-the-century hamlet to look so more productions can be filmed there.

Piru recently hosted California Film Commission Director Patti Archuletta at one of its town meetings, and now residents plan to send letters to Hollywood studios asking for suggestions on how to renovate downtown.

“This is an interesting opportunity for people in Piru,” Archuletta said.

“And the town is such a desirable film location that it makes perfect sense for them to ask the film industry for their input on the renovations.”

Piru’s request is unusual, Archuletta said, and so far there is no official support by the commission to offer help.

“I think eventually we will do what we can to help them, just because the community is so often filmed and in so much need of help,” she said.

Also at the request of residents, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors hired a consultant for $14,000 to study how to attract more movie productions to Piru and increase tourism, said Marty Robinson, deputy chief administrator for the county.

The consultant is expected to contact Hollywood studios and come up with suggestions.

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“I truly believe that the film industry is our only source of income and I find it necessary to go after them,” said Jeanne Warren, president of the Piru Film Commission.

“We’re a ghost town. The kind of town that you only see in the movies. So why not take advantage of that?”

Warren said that since the county has stepped in to rebuild the town, it is sensible to seek the opinion of movie companies that have used Piru as a backdrop for such hits as “Cobra” and “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” and for television shows such as “Murder, She Wrote.”

“Piru is a very popular spot for simulating crashes, people jumping off a bridge and Western scenes,” Warren said, adding that the airplane crash scene in the movie “Heroes” was filmed at a Piru bridge.

Daniele Benoit, a gaffer who has often worked on movies in Piru, said Hollywood loves the town’s rural atmosphere.

“Piru has what Hollywood wants: a feeling of small-town America, a piece of nostalgia that has been frozen in time,” Benoit said. “Why should they go to a city in Illinois when they have Piru so near to L.A.?”

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As more film projects are expected in Piru, residents are working with the county to develop guidelines so film crews will not disrupt the community, as they have in the past.

“It can be a madhouse when we have 200 people filming all over town,” Warren said. “So we’re in the process of reorganizing the way we deal with them.”

With grants given by the Historical Preservation Society and the federal government, the county has also hired an architectural firm to come up with plans to restore six historical buildings downtown and improve access to the town’s roads, Robinson said.

“I think people in Piru have the kind of life that the movies try to reflect--quiet, quaint and old-fashioned,” said Nicholas Deitch, an architect with Mainstreet Architects and Planners Inc. of Ventura. “And I think people [there] want to keep it that way.”