COMPUTER ARTISTS BITE INTO FILM INDUSTRY : STUDIO CITY-BASED TEAM'S DIGITAL EFFECTS IN DEMAND.

Byline: P.J. Huffstutter Daily News Staff Writer

The first thing you notice at Hammerhead Productions is - appropriately enough - the sharks.

There's a 6-foot stuffed yellow shark perched menacingly over the fireplace. Tiny plastic ones in green and purple decorate the top of the digital production team's many Silicon Graphics stations. Even the high-tech film company's e-mail address - bitemehammerhead.com - reflects the staff's fondness for the sharp-tooth fiends.

The shark imagery is an appropriate one for this lean and aggressive film production crew that specializes in cutting edge work. The start-up company was created last year by a team of digital artists formerly with Pacific Data Images: producer Dan Chuba, software developer Thad Beier and digital artists Jamie Dixon and Rebecca Marie.

Instead of big-named actors, the crew casts its computer effects as the movie's star.

``This might sound audacious, but digital artists are helping to create huge profits for the film industry,'' said Chuba. ``Instead of just using actors as the focus of a film, we want to use digital effects and digital characters to tell interesting stories.''

Frustrated by the corporate mentality at large digital effects houses like Pacific Data Images - ``You would not believe the lag time in making a simple decision over color,'' laments Chuba - the quartet had long toyed with the idea of starting their own venture.

After all, they reasoned, Hollywood has an insatiable need for digital artists with professional experience and is willing to spend millions of dollars on such specialized work. Studio executives agree that computer effects have become as important as the on-screen talent. And nearly every major motion picture released in the past several years - from ``Twister'' and ``Independence Day'' to ``Forrest Gump'' and ``Batman Forever'' - has incorporated the work of digital artists.

In a field filled with young talent, the Hammerhead team sports some impressive credentials.

All have a minimum of six years' professional film experience. Beier is responsible for creating Hammerhead 2D, an efficient and adaptable rotating, tracking and morphing software package. And Marie has worked on several Oliver Stone films, including ``Natural Born Killers'' and ``Nixon.''

``Traditionally, this is nothing more than a service industry,'' Marie said. ``The director had all the creative input and vision, and you just do what he or she tells you. But we wanted to make movies, not just service them.''

The foursome waited until 1995, when Pacific Data Images closed its Los Angeles offices and relocated much of its talent to the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

``They could have gone north, but it wasn't worth it,'' said Beier, who lives in the Bay Area and commutes to Los Angeles. ``If the four of us were going to do this on our own, now was the time.''

Hammerhead Productions is tiny when compared to established visual effects houses: Digital Domain in Venice Beach and Industrial Light & Magic in San Rafael, Calif., boast more than 700 employees each.

But Chuba insists that each member of Hammerhead's core staff fills a crucial role and eliminates the need for hundreds of employees. Chuba is cast as the crew's producer. Beier serves as their crack software designer who writes and modifies all the computer programs. Dixon is the aspiring film director with a penchant for commercially viable work. Marie, who prefers arty and eclectic films, is one of the few female visual effects supervisors in Hollywood.

So far, the formula of four has been successful, and has worked on film projects small ($200,000) and large ($30 million).

Since its inception 18 months ago, Hammerhead Productions has tackled digital effects work for such movies as ``Dragonheart,'' ``A Vampire in Brooklyn'' and the recently released ``William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.''

For the modern take on a classic tale, director Baz Luhrmann shot the film in Mexico City to capture a sense of urban strife. One logistical problem arose: The film calls for a 130-foot statue of Jesus Christ in the town square, but no statue exists.

Marie traveled to Mexico several times, photographed the area where the director wanted the statue to be situated. She took the film back to Studio City, and merged it with footage the Hammerhead team had already taken of a 3-foot-tall model of the fictitious statue.

``They were perfect for `Romeo and Juliet' because the film had a small, independent feel to it and Hammerhead is really good with creative work,'' said Fred Baron, senior vice president of production at 20th Century Fox. ``For the amount of work we needed them to do - 10 to 12 shots, not hundreds - we needed someone who was creative, fast and local.''

The Hammerhead house is tucked into a cove deep in the Studio City hills, a comfortable abode that serves as headquarters for the studio's digital artists and a playground for their children. Toys and crayons lay next to the computer note pads and keyboards. Oversize bins of tiny jelly beans are stacked on the bar. The refrigerator is well stocked with boxed juices in Very Cherry and Krazy Kranberry. The freezer holds the grown-ups' bounty - chilled Peppermint Patties.

``We're putting in 18-hour days, so we want to keep this a comfortable place,'' Chuba said. ``Right now, our days consist of work, work, work, jump in the Jacuzzi, work, work, work.''

This is not a permanent home for the high-tech crew. Indeed, much of Hammerhead Productions' tactile tools are temporary. Most of the firm's computers are leased. The staff, outside of the company's four partners, consists of local artists hired for a single, task-specific project.

``We're always on the move,'' Chuba said. ``When we're done working on this current project, we'll probably leave here and find a new space in Los Angeles to work in.''

The crew's latest project is ``Bram Stoker's Shadowbuilder,'' a modern take on the little known gothic tale about a spirit that controls the shadows. Directed by Dixon, the 90-minute film marks the first project the fledgling studio will handle from concept to completion.

In the movie, which is scheduled to be completed by January, the Shadowbuilder is a creature of gloomy silhouettes and roiling, oily smoke. Even his face, a slick surreal visage, is more demonic than human.

This character, though lifelike, is a digital creation. An actor was photographed wearing a prosthetic mask. Artists then took the footage and, using a computer, manipulated the mask's contours and colors to further distort the image.

Though the company's philosophy promotes the importance of technology in film, only one-seventh of the modest $3.5 million ``Shadowbuilder'' budget - $500,000 - is devoted to visual effects.

``As digital artists, we've always been very frustrated with people in Hollywood not understanding the power of the machines,'' Dixon said. ``You can be innovative with the tools and, if you work efficiently, you don't have to spend as much.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Hammerhead Productions is Rebecca Marie, left, Daniel Chuba, Jamie Dixon and Thad Beier (on screen).

John McCoy/Daily News

(2--Color) The Shadowbuilder is one of the digital film stars created by Hammerhead Productions, a Studio City special effects house.

Image courtesy of Hammerhead Productions