While the City Sleeps : Late at Night, Downtown L.A. Comes Alive if Only Through Hollywood Make-Believe

An imaginary curtain swishes closed on downtown as suited professionals scurry home and storefront doors clang down.

The city streets are soon empty, except for the transients, a trail of paper advertisements left behind by shoppers along the Broadway mercado, and the buses whizzing through the darkness.

But just as downtown seems to settle in for the night, a second cast takes the stage.

At an intersection here, a tunnel there, bright lights that seem to rival the sun’s strength stretch out the day as crews film motion pictures, television shows, music videos, commercials--even live-action segments for CD-ROM games.

On Broadway, uniformed off-duty police officers hang out in front of a building where a commercial is being filmed. One worked another film job earlier in the evening, supervising an explosion shot on Santa Fe Avenue near the Los Angeles River.

And now, on an otherwise quiet section of Main Street, fake gunshots rock the neighborhood.

A company called P.M. Entertainment is filming “Riot,” a story set in Los Angeles’ future.

As three actors in black attire fire guns into smashed, burning cars, production crew members stand back, plugging their ears. And some residents of a nearby apartment, enjoying the show, let loose with a loud cheer.

The choreographed mayhem is a welcome sight for those in the industry. For years, production companies have been packing up for other parts of the country, as well as Canada, because of rising costs and difficulties in filming on location in Southern California. To reverse the trend, Los Angeles city and county officials last year approved the creation of the nonprofit Entertainment Industry Development Corp., which streamlined government film permit procedures in an attempt to keep film business here.

The agency reports that the number of shooting days in the city of Los Angeles and unincorporated Los Angeles County has gone up dramatically. Although the number remained practically the same from 1993 to 1994, the number of shooting days shot up about 25% to 33,438 days after the agency took over last year.

“We are booming right now,” said Stephanie Hershey Liner, the organization’s executive vice president. “Permits are up, problems are down.” Some days, she said, as many as 150 productions are being shot in the Los Angeles area.

That means more exposure--and money--for the city.

“We may inconvenience you with parking and bright lights, but what it does for the entire community as a whole is worth it,” said Anita LeGault, head of the Assn. of Independent Commercial Producers-West.

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In addition to popular Southern California locales such as the beaches, downtown is one of the most versatile backdrops.

“When they’re watching a movie or a commercial, people don’t always realize the scenes that they’re looking at were shot downtown,” LeGault said.

“It’s got so many great looks,” said Kathleen Milnes, vice president of the Public Affairs Coalition of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “It can double for a lot of urban environments--plus you don’t have to wade through seven feet of snow.” Even “NYPD Blue” films in downtown Los Angeles.

In “Riot,” starring Gary Daniels and ex-boxing champ Sugar Ray Leonard, a former British Special Air Service officer finds himself in the midst of an L.A. riot a few years in the future.

During shooting on Main near 11th Street, the burning cars were a block away from where the real riots of 1992 raged in the wake of the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial.

“We wanted [to shoot] it in the inner city, in the environment of L.A. and the riots,” said co-writer Joseph Barmettler. The small production company often films downtown to make use of the “gritty streets” and the old-looking buildings, he said.

As Daniels, harnessed to a cable, dangled in midair over the side of a parking garage, orders flew past him through the night air:

“Larry, can I have some more fire on that white car?”

“More smoke, Larry!”

A few moments later: “Turn the fire down!”

After taking a “lunch” break around 10 p.m., the company shoots for several more hours. By dawn, the streets will belong to the neighborhood once again.