Changing the FACE of HOLLYWOOD.

New technology is revolutionizing the industry, making it possible for creative teams around the globe to simultaneously work on film dailies

In a sterile booth of spotless, polished surfaces in Marina del Rey, film editing is being revolutionized.

Pat Block, chief technology officer of NeTune Communications, has just uploaded the film "dailies" (the raw footage shot that day) from Leavestown, England, where film director Chris Columbus is shooting the first installment of the "Harry Potter" series. An assistant director waves hello on the videoconference to acknowledge the transmission.

"Now this is intelligent communication," says Block, as a "better than DVD quality" image from London comes up on one of the four televisions in the room.

The film, heavy on medieval castles and simulated magic, requires lots of special effects and animation layered on top of live action. Columbus has brought on Rob Legato, an Oscar winner for his work on "Titanic," as visual effects supervisor. Instead of trading a flurry of FedEx packages back and forth across the ocean -- wasting days at a time -- the "Harry Potter" crew is getting to work on film shot in Leavestown that day, edited in Legato's London flat that evening, and ready to be worked on by Sony Imageworks the morning of the same day in Los Angeles. (It helps that the time zones are to their advantage.)

Martin Evans of the British Broadcasting Channel, whose studios NeTune uses as its European hub, monitors the feed, and Eric Scott at Sony Imageworks stands by to add and touch up the effects that Legato wants.

NeTune's commercial application, one of two new products coming to market and poised to create vast efficiencies in the film production process, is called ShowRunner. It's cool, it's quick and it's coming soon to an editing booth near you.

ShowRunner incorporates Kodak PreView software, which allows Scott or Legato to freeze individual frames of the feed, circle problematic sections and type clarifying comments.

"This is Out of focus," Scott writes, circling a small section of the frame.

Over the next few hours, similar comments fly back and forth between Marina del Rey and London, the video conferencing aiding the clarification of the onscreen-editorial comments.

ShowRunner and a competing service, Picture Pipeline, are capitalizing on the benefits of broadband technology, using it to deliver massive packets of information conveniently from anywhere in the world.

ShowRunner and Picture Pipeline are the latest and most advanced examples of an expanding nexus between Hollywood and the aerospace industry, with the result being broadband delivery of dailies to editors of TV shows, commercials and movies being shot in far-off comers of the globe. The technology promises to transform communication within the entertainment industry.

"For the first time, production personnel at any shooting location can instantaneously exchange time-critical production data and digital film images with those of us who need to be connected to the film-making process," said Joe Hartwick executive vice president, feature production, at 20th Century Fox.

"We're helping shape the destiny of sharing information," said Curtis Clark, president and CEO of Culver City-based NeTune. "Imagine working from the Mojave -- or Malaysia -- as if you were on a lot in Studio City."

Cinematographer Clark and three former Hughes employees began developing the patent for ShowRunner around Clark's dinner table in 1996. Industry knowledge and connections have helped pave the way. Hughes Electronics, Creative Artists Agency, panAmSat, DirecTV, IBM and Lucent have since jumped on board to help deliver NeTune's technology.

"We're always looking to improve the creative experience for our clients," said Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency. "NeTune has developed an innovative system and we're excited to showcase it to our filmmakers."

Although ShowRunner employs a standard Web browser format, it's powered by PanAmSat's fleet of global satellites that allow the transmission of data at up to 45 megabytes per second. Compare that to a well-above-average 2 mbps required to play DVD-quality movies on today's PC.

"We're very pleased with the service," said Scott of Sony Imageworks. "We use ShowRunner as much as possible."

In addition, a studio executive or a cast or crew member on location can, with proper security access, log on anytime and review the dailies. ShowRunner also supports lower-bandwidth data for users to drill down to details on props, storyboards, script rewrites, shooting schedules, call sheets, budgets and financial reports.

"The main goal is to significantly improve communications, so better decisions can be made more effectively," said Clark. "I believe that ShowRunner will save time and money and, perhaps more importantly, it will lead to better films."

To that end, NeTune uses a tiered system of billing, arranging packages for its clients, tailored to specific budget constraints. While the company is still "tuning" its pricing model, the range of services can run from hundreds to thousands of dollars per day, depending on the services selected.

Picture PipeLine compares favorably in pricing and technology. Spun off from TRW in early January, the Carson-based startup came to fruition, in part, because of TRW's involvement with USC's Entertainment Technology Center, where executives from TRW and other hightech firms have been meeting quarterly with studio executives to plan convergence efforts.

Like NeTune, Picture PipeLine's technology uses videoconferencing through which directors, editors and producers can simultaneously review and manipulate the same scenes and footage.

"It's terribly impressive, and this is just the beginning," said Brooke Kennedy, co-executive producer of the Warner Bros. TV drama "Third Watch," the first television show to use Picture PipeLine technology. "I assure you that this is the way everyone will be doing it. It might just replace FedEx."

"Third Watch" is a perfect candidate for the technology. The paramedic drama is conceived and written in L.A., shot throughout Manhattan's five boroughs and then edited back in L.A.

The efficiencies that Picture PipeLine brings to a show like "Third Watch" go beyond just savings on shipping and have proven tantalizing to Kennedy.

"Our editors and writers are 3,000 miles away from one third of the filmmaking," she said. "That's what you're bridging. By the time the film gets out to California and gets back, you lose 48 hours."

There's also no need to fly directors from coast to coast when broadband comes into play.

"We're hooked up with the editing room and seeing instantly what the editor is doing," Kennedy said. "The director has visual contact with the editor, which makes for an intimate experience.

As dazzling -- and romantic -- as it sounds, it looks pretty mundane. A Picture PipeLine-outfitted office has just a computer tower, a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and maybe a video monitor.

The cost for the service runs about $3,000 to $4,000 per month, not including the cost from the telecommunications carrier, which varies depending on the kind of bandwidth needed. Picture PipeLine seeks up to five bids from telecommunications carriers and transmits data via any broadband medium.

While Verizon Communications, the carrier for "Third Watch," has been occasionally problematic, Kennedy said that the Picture PipeLine technology has saved time for all of the producers, including Executive Producer John Wells.

"When John Wells comes in, the work comes to him, so he can check out a show like "West Wing" and essentially get work done on both coasts," she said. "I can catch up on dailies on my laptop while I'm in the van scouting for locations."

Picture PipeLine uses the same digital video and networking technology that the Pentagon uses to monitor classified missile tests. The pipelines are encrypted three times, enough to deter the most insistent hacker.

As Pat Block, NeTune's chief technology officer, stressed "our clients have three top priorities: security, security and security."

But, as with ShowRunner, the key selling point for Picture PipeLine is service.

"Our vision is to make the whole process more time efficient for our clients, decrease the costs of production and add applications," said Picture PipeLine President Tom Gritzmacher.

Warner Bros., a unit of AOL Time Warner, holds a small minority stake in Picture PipeLine. It's currently Picture PipeLine's only client, but Gritzmacher said there is a "good volume of people wanting quotes and information."

ShowRunner, too, is in the process of adding clients, including Steven Spielberg.

The costs of broadband delivery remain far above the use of FedEx, but some say the savings in time and convenience are sure to make ShowRunner and Picture PipeLine the methods for delivering the dailies of the future.