DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENTS\Redford champions small films by showing them on a new network.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Staff Writer

They say revolution begins at home, and right now Robert Redford is trying to get you to change your viewing habits.

Redford's new 24-hour Sundance Channel - which focuses on new American independent and foreign films - is already available in some San Fernando Valley households via cable or Direct TV satellite (see box). But even if your home doesn't get it, Redford's message is likely to reach you at your local Blockbuster video store.

Walk into the Woodland Hills store, for example, and you may see Redford being interviewed on Blockbuster's in-house Entertainment Channel. Even if you're busy browsing among the 48 copies of Universal's "Waterworld" or the 48 copies of Columbia's "The Net," you'll still be subliminally affected as Redford talks about "widening the audience for independent films" and "keeping diversity alive."

The titles Redford is championing - movies like "Hoop Dreams" or "Ruby in Paradise" that premiered at his Sundance Film Festival in Utah - are all available at Blockbuster under the shelf card "Sundance Channel Recommends."

But the shelf itself - one copy each of a mere 16 titles - makes a rather poignant testament to the David vs. Goliath dimensions of Redford's struggle to get people to be more adventurous in their movie choices.

"The lock between the major studios and the distributors is getting tighter and tighter, and because of the high costs involved, the studios tend to supply pictures that are highly entertaining but sometimes downright insulting in terms of content," said Redford.

"That leaves a wide-open space for new filmmakers to make more personal, humanistic cinema. But no matter how good these movies are, they still don't get out there."

Not only is Redford facing indifference from major cable system operators, but he's dealing with competition for scarce channel space from the rival Independent Film Channel, which has been up and running for 18 months.

The Blockbuster tie-in, in place at 2500 stores across the country, is part of an aggressive strategy on the part of the Sundance Channel to not only cultivate a wider audience, but to gather information.

"Blockbuster's data shows that out of their 45 million customers across the country, 20 percent rented at least one independent film within the past year," said Nora Ryan, Sundance Channel president. Ryan said the data proves that indie films can thrive in smaller cities such as Albany, N.Y., and Boise, Idaho.

"This is definitely a niche channel, but at 20 percent, it's a vibrant, growing niche," said Ryan.

The big question is whether Redford's presence as creative director and the prestigious Sundance brand name will hook a sufficient number of viewers on what the channel offers - a mix of new independent American and foreign movies, documentaries, short films and animation - with an emphasis on first-run movies and pictures that premiered at Sundance.

The channel has hired top agencies to create the kind of hip, seductive graphics and interstitial material (the stuff that appears between the movies) that has helped channels like MTV cement an audience.

The look is a combination of the grainy, rough, "personal" style identified with low-budget indie films and a jazzier, more sophisticated, brand-name-heavy approach.

During a recent interview in Beverly Hills, Redford was still fretting over getting the tone right.

"We're walking a fine line here, 'cause we're in a television environment, so there's a certain slickness to it, but on the other hand, we want to stay true to what the festival is about, and bring that atmosphere to television," Redford said. In spite of the Sundance Festival's enormous success, he said, "I don't want the word 'commercial' to become associated with us. I want to stay more experimental, rougher, edgier."

One segment, shot at the 1996 Sundance Festival, which is held in the ski resort town of Park City, Utah, each January, shows Redford walking down the snowy street in an Indian-style coat and beret, being interviewed by a video crew. Crews hired by the channel have roamed the festival for the past two years, taping more than 100 filmmaker interviews and capturing the event's atmosphere. Another segment shows highlights of this year's closing awards ceremony.

"We want to offer the viewer a sense of community, a feeling that they have an intimate connection to this world of independent filmmaking," said Ryan. "This should be an experience of discovery for them, particularly for people who cannot go off to Utah and experience the festival firsthand."

But convincing multicable system operators (MSOs) to make room for the Sundance Channel has been an uphill battle.

"We're so strapped for channel capacity that there are a lot of established services we're not able to carry," said Phil Laxar, vice president of programming for Jones Intercable, a top-10 MSO, told Daily Variety.

In the San Fernando Valley area, the Sundance Channel premiered Feb. 29 on systems available mainly in the West Valley and in Burbank. But Century Cable and other major carriers have yet to sign up.

"We've been talking to Century Cable, and we do expect to get on that service, possibly by this summer," said Ryan. She expects other major cable companies will follow suit.

At stake is the ability of a booming movement of talented independent filmmakers to get their work to an audience. Though the Sundance Festival received a record 700 submissions this year, the number of these movies that are distributed to theaters remains relatively stagnant, averaging only about 30 films per year over the past decade, according to independent film expert and author Jon Pierson.

Of those theatrical titles, few are distributed to theaters in the Valley, or beyond the key art houses in major urban centers.

Adventurous cable viewers have had the option of turning to the Independent Film Channel since Sept. 1, 1994, and the channel now claims more than 3 million subscribers on both satellite and cable systems. Owned by Rainbow Programming, which also runs Bravo and American Movie Classics, it offers a commercial-free mix of movies by filmmakers such as Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch and John Cassavetes, many of which have already shown on the Bravo channel.

Viewers tend to criticize IFC for showing too many older titles and foreign titles, and showing them too often. But IFC's Ed Carroll, senior vice president of marketing, claims the channel has "the largest collection of independent films on the planet."

Moreover, the looming start-up of the Sundance Channel has caused IFC to kick into a competitive mode - recently acquiring an additional 200 titles. Both channels are also offering on-line Web sites to increase viewer involvement.

At present, the Sundance Channel has no lock on whether films that premiere at the Utah festival will then premiere on its own cable channel. Many, in fact, will premiere on IFC this year.

"It's like a separation of church and state," said Sundance's Ryan. "Both the Sundance Institute and the festival are nonprofit organizations, whereas the channel is a separate independent commercial venture." (The channel is managed and operated by Showtime Networks Inc., which is funded by Viacom.)

"There is no requirement for anybody who shows a film at Sundance to have anything to do with the channel, nor is there an obligation for us to pick up any of the films that are shown there," Ryan said.

Regardless of which channel prevails - or whether either can find a lasting foothold in the currently volatile climate of cable television - Redford believes that what's at stake is a crucial element of diversity in the movies and the culture.

"I can't tell you how things are going to go for the Sundance Channel," he said. "But the tension I'm feeling right now is about staying true to the vision of it, keeping it tied to what it is that we're all about at Sundance.

"That's the only way we're going to get attention."

Where to find it

Currently, the new 24-hour, commercial-free Sundance Channel, managed and operated by Showtime Networks Inc., is available to all homes equipped with Direct TV satellite dishes. Also, to customers of Falcon Cable in Woodland Hills, Topanga, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks and Malibu; to customers of Marcus Cable in Burbank; and at UCLA on a closed-circuit system.

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Photo One of the films launching the Sundance Channel will be "Before Sunrise," starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Directed by Richard Linklater ("Slacker"), the film made its debut at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Box Where to find it (See Text)