Ghost Town Seeks Gold on the Silver Screen : Renovation: Quaint, quake-damaged Piru wants to rebuild in an image suitable to film and TV producers.

This hard-luck, earthquake-damaged town 60 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles may be a sad sight to some, but residents think it’s a gold mine for the silver screen.

Working to rebuild in the aftermath of last year’s Northridge quake, some residents are turning to Hollywood to ask film and television studios how they would like the 220-acre, 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 offer of support by the commission.

“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.

“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?”

Residents are working with the county to develop guidelines so film crews will not disrupt the community, which has a population of 1,600, as has occurred 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.”

Warren said that because 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 films 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.?”