In the three-story, Tudor-style building on Olive Avenue in Burbank, there remain some furnishings left from the days when the offices served as the headquarters of Dick Clark Productions and now are home to New Wave Entertainment. For instance, there is a fireplace on an upper level. Clark’s former office is immediately to the right after one enters through the main doors. And on the first floor is the bar, complete with brass rail transported from England. Though lacking the essentials to make any bar complete, i.e., bottles of liquor, there is however, track lighting, a large flat panel television screen on one wall, and a New Wave employee sitting in front of a computer monitor working on a commercial for the syndicated version of the medical show, “Scrubs.” “We’ve brought it into the 21st century but have honored what it was and who worked here before us,” said senior creative director Gary Lister, of the bar area. Growth and consolidation led New Wave to take over the space once occupied by the production company of the self-styled world’s oldest teenager. The company began its move in May and five months later the print creative services, marketing, accounting and human resources departments have settled in. “Being here you feel you are part of larger team,” said Danielle LaFortune, vice president of print creative services, the division of New Wave responsible for posters, advertising, billboards, home video packaging for feature films and television shows. Prior to the move the division had been located in a storefront, a five minute walk away from the main New Wave building in the 2600 block of Olive Avenue. The availability of the Dick Clark building allowed New Wave to bring the print, creative services and marketing departments under one roof. The building was in slight disrepair before the company began renovations to alter what company cofounder Alan Baral described as a “maze-like” space plan. The second floor, where the marketing department now works, was most changed, with cubicles and offices removed to open up the space. The windows allow plenty of natural light that gets drawn into the center of the room. “The windows are the best thing for being creative,” said Scott Williams, a vice president and creative director. “Knowing there is an outside world is inspiration enough.” Both Lister and Williams said that prior to the renovations and before Clark’s production company had moved out, the walls were covered with memorabilia Clark collected over his nearly 50-year career. “It was like a collector’s paradise,” Williams said. “It was the history of his life on the walls.” Uncovering Uncle Walt The first major biography on Walt Disney in decades hit bookstores on Oct. 31. Author Neal Gabler researched his 800-page behemoth for seven years, including time at the archives of The Walt Disney Co. in Burbank. “Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination,” however, was not authorized by the Disney company nor did it review the manuscript before publication. “The opinions are his,” said Howard Green, a spokesman for Disney Studios. “Nobody tried to change him or sway him.” Green calls the book amazing and described Gabler as an amazing writer and first-rate researcher who set out to take a fair and balanced look at the man who created one of the great icons of 20th Century pop culture in Mickey Mouse and the theme park when he opened Disneyland in 1955. “He did an 80-page chapter on the making of ‘Snow White’ that’s a real page turner,” Green said. “It takes you through the whole drama of the creation of that movie and you worry they are not going to make the deadline.” Gabler’s past books include “An Empire of Their Own,” a history of Hollywood focusing on the Jewish studio heads; and a 1994 best selling biography of newspaper columnist, radio host and actor Walter Winchell. Disney has been the subject of prior biographies, but Green said the time was right for a new one that puts Disney in his place in the cultural history in America and his role in the entertainment. Gabler’s premise that Walt Disney and Pablo Picasso are the two great creative geniuses of the 20th century is a great observation, Green said. The author was given free reign of the corporate archives, worked with archivist Dave Smith and his team and painstakingly read the documents Disney left behind following his death in 1966. “There have been an awful lot of books on Walt. Some of them inaccurate and some of them downright scandalous,” Green said. “This book tries to give the true story and the best account yet of Walt’s life.” Post-production awards More than 200 entertainment industry professionals turned out Nov. 1 for the first ever Hollywood Post Alliance Awards at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles. The awards honored creative and technical excellence in post-production work in four categories: color correction, audio, compositing, and editing. During opening remarks, Alliance President and master of ceremonies Leon Silverman said that post-production professionals are too seldom recognized for their work in helping to create the magic of Hollywood. Northridge resident and industry veteran Emery Cohen received the award for Outstanding Contribution to Advancing Post-Production. During his long career, Cohen served in executive positions with Glen Glenn Sound, Compact Video Services, Pacific Video, and Laser Pacific Media Corp. His creation of the Electronic Laboratory while at Pacific Video led it to becoming the preferred post-production workflow system used in television and motion pictures. “At best, I’ve been someone with an idea who could muster a team,” Cohen said. “I’m someone who could almost always muster the resources to make a good idea come true.” Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or at [email protected] .