Chips, the Sequel

Plenty of others before Intel Corp. have come to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune.

Of course, the Silicon Valley behemoth already has plenty of both--its microprocessors run about 85% of all personal computers. But with an ever more powerful line of Pentium processors and a voracious appetite for new markets, Intel is hoping to improve on the record of such Tinseltown darlings as Silicon Graphics and Apple Computer by nurturing the fledgling new-media industry.

The Santa Clara-based company has courted such key institutions as the American Film Institute and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and outfitted with free PCs influential training grounds like USC’s School of Cinema-Television and the California Institute of the Arts. Intel has also invested in many of the Tech Coast’s most innovative firms.

In fact, Ron Whittier, Intel’s senior vice president and general manager for content, has become so immersed in Hollywood culture that he even scored tickets to the Academy Awards last month.

“It’s quite a show,” Whittier said. “I’m sure all of that was being driven by Intel architecture.”

Whittier was kidding about the Oscars--but not about the company’s overall strategy. Its efforts to woo important members of Los Angeles’ entertainment and new-media scene have been focused on a single-minded goal: to sell more microprocessors.

“If we could get a fraction of the entertainment industry embracing technology, we think we could build some very exciting products together,” Whittier said. “Obviously, it would be good for the entertainment industry’s business, and selling a whole bunch of high-performance digital platforms for consumers would be great for Intel.”

That strategy has led the chip-making giant to sink millions of dollars in Southern California start-ups. Intel won’t say how much of the $750 million it has invested in more than 100 companies across the country has gone to local entertainment firms, but it has surely been enough to make Intel one of the area’s biggest venture capitalists. No other company that can afford to make so many long-term investments--such as Microsoft Corp. or IBM Corp.--has targeted the entertainment industry with such intensity.

Equally important, beneficiaries say, is Intel’s sharing of technical expertise and the loan of engineers to help the people who make entertainment fulfill their vision of a digital future.

“The money is not the key thing in the relationship,” said Richard Baskin, co-chairman of Santa Monica-based Intertainer, an Intel-backed start-up that aims to deliver movies, television shows and music to PCs. “Having the benefit of their thinking and knowledge and experience is far more valuable than the dollars they invest--although we’re happy to have the dollars too.”

Intel’s adventures in Hollywood began in earnest in early 1996, when the company decided to build a state-of-the-art multimedia lab at the top-tier talent firm Creative Artists Agency. The CAA lab was designed to show the creative community what computer technology could do--and to encourage it to create content worthy of its potential.

“This is a showcase for the best-of-breed technology in the content space,” said Sriram Viswanathan, director of Hollywood and talent programs for Intel’s content group, who used to run the lab.

The lab offers Intel’s vision of the PC-centric future, when a single computer is used to play video games, check TV listings, order movies on demand, surf the Web and even buy concert tickets.

The people who will turn these visions into hardware and software are spread throughout Southern California, and Intel is pairing up with as many of them as it can.

For example, when Intel was looking for a partner in the music business, it invested in Launch Media, a Santa Monica company that produces an interactive music magazine distributed on CD-ROM. Soon after, Intel featured Launch magazine in a television commercial and began helping the company integrate Web-based interactive elements--such as real-time chat--into the CD-ROM environment, Launch Media Chief Executive David Goldberg said.

The top brass at Ticketmaster turned to Intel for help in improving the company’s Web site with three-dimensional graphics, push technology and personalization software to boost online ticket sales. Both companies will share revenues from the site, said Ticketmaster Chief Executive Fredric Rosen.

“What they saw in us was a consumer product that anybody could understand that would propel usage of the Web,” Rosen said.

Showcasing the potential for PCs to become everyday entertainment appliances--especially ones that offer new ways of making money--is a key part of Intel’s campaign to woo Hollywood. Without a clear business model, entertainment companies aren’t willing to take the risk, Viswanathan said.

Intertainer is counting on subscription fees and commissions from online shopping to make its entertainment content service pay off, said Baskin, a composer and producer who met Intel Chairman Andrew Grove last year at the lab at CAA, where Baskin is a client. Intel’s engineers are working with Intertainer to develop technologies ranging from video chat to set-top boxes for TVs, Baskin said.

“We’re like a little R&D; division for them,” he said. “They get access to unusual thinking that they wouldn’t get on their staff.”

Intel is also keeping an eye on the bigger picture via partnerships with key universities and entertainment institutions. The goal is to blanket Hollywood’s up-and-comers with Intel technology so they’ll use it the rest of their careers.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of this strategy is the California Institute of the Arts, the Valencia school that trains students in film, video, theater, music, art, dance and graphic design. Intel has pledged to upgrade the entire school to state-of-the-art PC technology, said CalArts President Steven Lavine.

“If you want a big brother in the world, Intel is the one you want to pick,” Lavine said.

Intel will also outfit USC’s School of Cinema-Television with a cutting-edge animation studio, said Vibeke Sorensen, a USC professor who chairs the division of animation and digital arts.

Professional organizations are another important Intel target. The American Film Institute in Los Angeles embraced the company last year, and since then Intel has helped initiate programs to encourage artists to adopt PC-based tools.

“Intel is a company with a vision,” said Jean Picker Firstenberg, AFI’s director and chief executive. “They know that making a commitment to helping film and television storytellers understand their stake in the future of the digital revolution makes good business sense.”

Intel’s introduction to Hollywood has not been entirely smooth. One of the company’s first investments was in American Cybercast, a promising online entertainment pioneer that was also backed by CAA and Tele-Communications Inc. American Cybercast’s claim to fame was “The Spot,” an original Web soap opera with a cult-like following.

But the Marina del Rey firm stumbled badly after premature and clumsy efforts to build a television-style network around “The Spot” and other online shows. Fans were turned off by increased commercialism and reduced interactivity. The company went bankrupt last year.

Intel could make similar missteps again, especially by underestimating the creative community’s attachment to Apple’s Macintosh computers. Lavine said he felt a tinge of disloyalty embracing Intel-powered PCs, but he can’t deny that most graphics and multimedia software runs just as well on lower-priced PCs as it does on Macs. Besides, even Intel concedes that some applications still run better on Apple computers, Lavine said.

Indeed, Intel’s entertainment partners all say that the chip giant is extremely modest for a technology company--especially one from Silicon Valley.

“They’re not the kind of company that comes in and tells us how to do our job,” said Alan Citron, president of Ticketmaster Multimedia. “They’re smart enough to know what they know and what they don’t know.”

Intel’s engineers also win high praise for their focus and quick follow-through with projects.

“In Hollywood, you have nine meetings and then maybe something happens,” Intertainer’s Baskin said. “With Intel, you have one meeting and something definitely happens.”

That wealth of attention can be overwhelming, though.

“We sometimes have to be careful with Intel that they don’t love you to death,” said Goldberg of Launch Media. “Everyone is great to work with, but they have so many people that they can sort of drown you with people.”

That abundance of resources is what allows Intel to make its myriad partnerships work. But sometimes it breeds expectations that are too high--even for Intel.

“They may have been overly ambitious in some of their projections internally, and then they kind of get frustrated when things don’t happen,” Goldberg said, “even though they’re making progress.”

Times staff writer Karen Kaplan can be reached at karen.kaplan@latimes.com