FILM EXPO SHOWDOWN? CLASH EXPECTED OVER RUNAWAY PRODUCTION.

Byline: Marla Matzer Rose Staff Writer

A yearly trade show for film commissioners, coming to the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend, is shaping up as a showdown between boosters for filming in Canada and other foreign countries and local forces fighting ``runaway production.''

The Studio City-based Film and Television Action Committee (FTAC) vows to rally outside the show and distribute materials over the weekend, while the Los Angeles-based Entertainment Industry Development Corp. will skip the event yet again.

The group's president, Cody Cluff called the event ``a glorified junket for film commissioners.''

Film commissions that attend pay for booth space and the chance to make a pitch to industry executives.

``We don't think it's productive to subsidize a show that encourages filmmakers to leave L.A.,'' said EIDC spokesman Morrie Goldman. He added that the Association of Film Commissioners International, which stages the event, ``trains foreign film offices to lure away film business (from L.A.).''

The EIDC encourages and facilitates filming in the Los Angeles area and has not attended the expo for the last couple of years. It apparently decided to go public with its reasoning this year after being criticized for not participating in the past.

The group has been working with the recently formed national Film U.S. coalition, which includes the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, to develop state and national legislation to stem runaway production.

The Locations Expo, which organizers estimate brings in more than $250,000 in revenue to the city, has always been a colorful event.

In recent years, live bears and Elvis impersonators have been employed to encourage filming in places like Idaho and Memphis. This year - as several Midwestern states hand out free beer and the Austrians don lederhosen - the more serious issue of runaway production may play a more prominent role during the Friday-through-Sunday gathering.

Ward Emling, president of the film commissioners group and also director of the Mississippi Film Office, refuted Cluff's statement.

``This is a trade show where business gets done. Ninety percent of our members attend each year, as do producers, production managers, writers and others who decide where films get made,'' Emling said.

Some other U.S. film commissioners seem to agree with Cluff, though. ``Trade shows are a very antiquated form of marketing; the decision-makers don't come,'' said Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office and chair of Film U.S. Keezer said U.S. film commissioners should focus on keeping business in America.

``We're one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't have a national film office. We're trying to get this industry competitive again in the U.S.''

Goldman said other U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Dallas and Miami, have actually been losing a greater percentage of film and TV production than Los Angeles, which has the advantage of being in the studios' back yard. Still, EIDC figures showed the number of production days in L.A. down 4 percent from 1998 to 1999, and 8 percent from 1997 to 1998, representing substantial lost revenue and jobs.

Goldman cautioned that these figures don't reflect breakdowns of types of work and the reasons behind lost production, such as a shift to game shows. And music video and commercial filming is up in L.A., not down, he said.

Another potential snag for organizers of the expo is the rally planned outside the Convention Center for noon Sunday.

Teamsters in trucks and other film workers endangered by runaway production plan to stage their event outside after being told they could not have a presence inside the building or distribute printed materials there, according to an FTAC spokesman.

Emling denied that FTAC was being singled out in being told it cannot distribute materials in the convention hall. ``That's our policy with any organization: they have to have a booth to hand out materials,'' he said.