Ready, Ms. De Mille

By MARLA DICKERSON

Sept. 3, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Like thousands of aspiring actresses before her, Jean Kini Chang arrived in Los Angeles looking for a career in film. She found it, but not in the form she’d originally envisioned.

Rather than wait tables when parts failed to come her way, the Dallas native recognized there was plenty of work to be had on the other side of the camera. Chang immersed herself in classes on digital film editing and last year emerged as JKC Digital, editing industrial films, creating TV public service announcements, jazzing up actors’ demo tapes and producing other video projects.

“I’d rather be working in this industry than waiting for my agent to call,” she said. “It’s a digital world. So I decided to find out what was going on behind the scenes.”

Much has been written about the glass ceiling in the executive suites of Hollywood’s major television, music and film studios, not to mention the dearth of women in the director’s chair.

But a glance at new business formations in Los Angeles County reveals that female entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry are creating their own opportunities rather than waiting to be discovered.

In contrast to the rest of the nation, where businesses such as beauty salons and child-care agencies dominate the list of women-owned start-ups, Los Angeles is unique in the relatively large number of women stepping into the technical, creative and service realm of entertainment.

Female entrepreneurs entering the field of “audiovisual production service” doubled between 1993 and 1996, to 402 new entrants last year, according to an analysis by County Data Corp. of Winooski, Vt. That put the category fourth among the top 20 types of new businesses formed by women in Los Angeles last year. In the first half of 1997, another 138 women took the plunge, accounting for nearly 30% of entrepreneurs venturing into that business segment in Los Angeles this year.

Most are sole proprietors providing everything from commercial TV, film and video production to set design, music scoring, special effects and other support services, in addition to corporate video and industrial filmmaking.

Observers credit the mini-boom to a host of factors, from the surging California economy and increasing global demand for Hollywood entertainment to the falling cost of computers and technical equipment and an industry shakeout that has turned many former studio employees into independent contractors.

But entertainment entrepreneurs say cultural changes also have enabled them to see beyond the footlights.

“It used to be that when women thought of the business, they only thought about being an actress,” said Harri Mark, co-founder of Studio City-based Evil Twin Productions, which performs creative and technical production of commercials, electronic press kits and trailers for film and music clients. “We’re a lot more confident now.”

With good reason. The Southland’s entertainment industry is one of the engines that has powered the region out of recession. And like their male counterparts, women are climbing on board.

Nearly 250,000 people are employed in motion picture and television production in Los Angeles County, according to statistics from the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles. Chief economist Jack Kyser says that segment is on track to add another 22,000 jobs this year, thanks to growing demand for American entertainment worldwide and expanding outlets such as mega-channel satellite TV, home video and new media.

Few of those workers will be added to the payrolls of the major studios, which have been rocked by a wave of mergers and downsizing in recent years. Instead, small and medium-size businesses will generate most of those jobs through myriad freelance technicians, independent production companies, post-production houses and other auxiliary firms that service big-name studios and corporate clients.

“This is an industry in constant turmoil,” Kyser said. “It’s a revolving door. But that change also offers a lot of opportunity for those that can adapt.”

Kristin Armfield credits that turmoil for turning her into an entrepreneur. A former copywriter and production coordinator who made commercials for MCA Records, she found herself transformed overnight from an employee to an independent contractor after Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. purchased MCA Inc. in 1991 and began trimming the payroll.

That’s often a ticket to lower income and vanishing benefits. But Armfield thrived in the new atmosphere, tripling her income with a steady influx of clients.

Last year, she and Mark teamed up to form Evil Twin. Business is so good they have taken on another partner (they have no plans to change the name to Evil Triplet) and are eyeing more ambitious film projects.

“Fear is a great motivator,” said Armfield, reflecting on her plunge into self-employment. “It was sink or swim. I didn’t have a choice.”

Although many sectors remain overwhelmingly male, the sheer size of the West Coast industry means that women are employed in numbers not seen in other fledgling entertainment outposts.

That critical mass motivated Cristiane Roget last year to set up a Beverly Hills office for Producers Resource, a business she launched in Miami 10 years ago to arrange lighting, sound, logistics and other nuts-and-bolts production services for creators of film and video.

“I felt there was a lot more potential for women in the established reality of film and video in Los Angeles,” Roget said. “That was basically what spurred my move.”

Roget credits rapidly changing technology for helping women gain inroads into the industry, particularly in the highly computerized world of post-production.

Editing and sound equipment have grown so sophisticated and relatively inexpensive that soleproprietors working out of their garages can now create quality effects to rival those of major post-production houses, at much lower prices and without all the overhead.

Take Abigail Schneider. A musician since the age of 6, Schneider combined her first love with computer technology and last year founded Synchronized Soundworks.

At her Los Angeles studio she creates sound effects for video games and commercials and is now scoring a low-budget film. She charges about $75 an hour for her services, compared with the $350-plus hourly rate commanded by larger sound design facilities.

The work is highly technical as well as creative. Schneider says she has encountered a fair number of women doing the same thing, particularly in new media such as CD-ROM.

“With the newer fields there are no preconceived notions of who should do what,” Schneider said. “Still, I don’t know if it has so much to do with gender as there simply being more opportunities for everyone.”

Lack of opportunity is what drove Susan Crawford to launch a word-processing business out of her San Fernando Valley home after being passed over for a promotion at an aerospace company.

She found herself doing resumes for actors, who eventually pointed her toward script editing. Today she is the head of Crystal Hill Productions, a Lancaster-area firm that provides administrative support and business consulting to entertainment clients. She also is the principal of Evening Star E-mail Order House, a 1997 start-up that handles the mail-order business for Los Angeles-based Evening Star Records Inc., a small independent label in which she is vice president.

Crawford describes herself as a “background person” who provides the administrative underpinnings for more creative types to flourish.

“I think you’ll find that women have a tendency to find the services an industry needs and fill them,” she said. “That may sound terribly backward and anti-feminist. . . . But I am making more money, enjoying more freedom and have had more opportunities to learn from some truly talented people this way.”

Indeed, economist Kyser said the “below-the-line” trenches are where entertainment entrepreneurs are most likely to find a niche to exploit.

“Everyone approaches the industry and wants to be an actor or director or something high-profile,” he said. “But the real money, the steady money, is to be made in the service and technical areas.”

But don’t tell that to Deborah Holiday.

Tired of producers telling her she should try to sound more like Whitney Houston, the black rock singer-songwriter in March launched NEWSI Records as a vehicle for recording and marketing her first album. (The acronym stands for Nobody Else Would Sign It.)

She and her guitarist fiance acquired some sound equipment, taught themselves how to operate the mixing board and cut an album, “Splitting Atoms,” in their garage. They’ve had a few thousand discs pressed and will soon begin shopping the CD to labels around town.

Holiday said she was inspired to tackle the job herself after watching a scene in a film in which the star gazes at a pair of shoes and notes that some entrepreneur somewhere had the inspiration to make those little plastic tips on the ends of the laces.

“It made me look around and realize that everything you use was once just an idea in someone’s head,” Holiday said. “If the music doesn’t work out, maybe we’ll start our own furniture business.”

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Where The Women Are

Nationwide, the most popular businesses started by women continue to be in realms that are female dominated, such as beauty shops, child care and travel agencies. But female entrepreneurs in Los Angeles County are branching into more nontraditional business segments. Businesses launched by women:

Los Angeles County 1996

1. Miscellaneous retail stores: 545

2. Consultants/business: 540

3. Clothing/retail: 452

4. AudioVisual production service: 402

5. Beauty salons: 399

6. Restaurants: 343

7. Crafts: 336

8. Gift shops: 272

9. Travel agencies: 258

10. Florists/retail: 249

11. Business and trade organizations: 222