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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Box-Office News Deals Blow to Entertainment Firms

Box-Office News Deals Blow to Entertainment Firms By SLAV KANDYBA Staff Reporter If family members leave a family-owned business, it can’t be doing too well. That is perhaps the best sign of how bad things have gotten for Atlantic West Effects, a firm that simulates rain, body wounds and does other special effects for Hollywood studios. It has lost four of its six employees in the last few years most of them relatives of the owner. “They gave up the ghost and decided not to do this anymore,” said Jim Staples, owner and one of the two people left. Atlantic West may be an extreme case, but many Valley entertainment-related businesses, from post-production to catering, have been and are continuing to be hit hard by a decline in business from Hollywood. The firms, already hit by studios exporting work to other states, were dealt another blow recently with reports of a drop in overall box office receipts last year for the first time in a decade. Nielsen EDI reported that receipts dropped 1 percent from $9.27 billion in 2002, to $9.17 billion in 2003. This comes on the heels of a decline in movie filming days in Los Angeles County in 2003, reportedly the lowest number since the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. has tracked such figures. It released a report Jan. 7 that presents a shrinking number of film productions in the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, and in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, from 8,024 days in 2002 to 7,329 in 2003. And Thaine Morris, owner of Sylmar-based Roger George Rentals, which rents out special effects equipment. said he saw his business steadily dwindle last year, continuing a slide that has been happening for several years. “Business now is 50 percent of what it was 10 years ago,” said Morris, who has been working for Hollywood studios since 1963. “It’s now starting to come back. Will it get to where it was no.” As to the box office drop, he said: “A producer went off the wrong foot and put out the wrong movies, and that happens,” Morris said. Atlantic West is bracing for more problems because of the box office news. It had an 80 percent decrease in business the last five years. Staples said his revenues had been in the $200,000 to $600,000 range. The reasons, he said, are studios’ filming overseas, where it’s cheaper; as well as more special effects being done by computer-generated imaging, or CGI. “If all this continues I don’t think it’s going to be able to rebound,” Staples said. ‘Cascade’ predicted Further, he said he believes that the box office news will trigger a “cascade,” affecting everyone from the studios and movie producers to moviegoers. Staples said he believes since less people are apparently going to the movies, companies will do fewer productions and trim their budgets. A good way to judge the condition of movie production in the Valley is to look out on the street for StarWagons, trucks which transport movie equipment, said Peter Kuran, owner of Sylmar-based VisualConcept Entertainment Inc. “When things are slow, not only do (idle trucks) fill up the parking lot, they are (parked) in the streets,” he said, adding that he has been in the business 27 years developing techniques for digital and photo chemical imaging in movies. He worked on last year’s “X-Men 2” and the “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” But there is some optimism. Morris is optimistic on the runaway production front. He said although Canada still has an edge due to government incentives for filming, “the level of experience here is extremely deep.” Further, he has seen business go to Canada twice in the past. Gourmet Chabar Inc. of Chatsworth, which caters to movie sets, has seen its revenue fall 40 percent over the past five years, from $1 million to $600,000, and went from 16 employees to six, said owner Barbara Peltola. Although Peltola said it has been an “extremely difficult” and “humbling” experience, she doubted the box office news will affect her, because she caters to smaller-budget films and not the blockbusters that are catered to by unionized caterers. Kuran said many productions are going forward because they are already in the pipeline. Further, he has reason to hope that the bad news coming from the box office may not impact his business. “It’s so irregular, from a global standpoint I can’t say that it affects me too much,” he said of movie production. “I’ve been in the business since 1977, and it goes in cycles.” Lisa Rawlins, Warner Bros. Pictures vice president for production and chairwoman of the board at the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., said despite the box-office drop, post-production businesses based in L.A. will get business, at least through the end of this spring. She pointed to “Constantine,” a feature film about the ancient emperor to be played by actor Colin Farrell that is being shot in Los Angeles. She also said that although some films are produced overseas, often in Canada, studios have post-production work completed in the Los Angeles area, and many firms in the Valley, especially Burbank and Glendale, do the work. “The whole budget doesn’t go with (studios going overseas), there’s still a lot of cost right here,” Rawlins said. Rawlins said the success of films is hard to predict, and is essentially “hedging bets on bankable stars and concepts.”

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