Keeping focused: Robert Beitcher, new president of troubled camera maker Panavision, has his eye on the bottom line as the company tries to spring back from difficult times.

BRINGING back a struggling decades old Hollywood brand is just one of Robert Beitcher's tasks. The other is making investors and the Hollywood community believe motion picture camera maker Panavision is here to stay.

It was last April that Beitcher was named president of the struggling Woodland Hills company after heading Technicolor's Creative Services unit for three years. After suffering through two consecutive flat years in 1999 and 2000, the company went from revenues of $204 million in 2000 to just $125 million in 2001, due largely to the threatened writers' strike and the commercial actors' strike, both of which ground production to a halt.

Many of the company's famed Panaflex cameras, which were used in 75 percent of all films produced last year, went unused instead of being rented out to studios and producers much of that year. The company doesn't sell its cameras.

By last year, however, the company's revenues improved to $193.2 million, though it lost $11.1 million, slightly less than the $13.5 million it lost in 2001. The company has not been profitable since 1997 when it posted $19.5 million in net income on $176.9 million in sales. That same year, Revlon CEO Ronald O. Perelman acquired 87 percent of the company in a complicated transaction that saddled the company with $340 million in debt.

Beitcher has a slew of new initiatives he hopes will change things and bring the company back, including the rolling out of new high-end digital cameras next year. He also is placing an emphasis on cutting costs and reducing the company's nearly $300 million debt.

Question: Panavision was planning a $275 million bond issue to help bring down its debt, but had to pull back last month. Will it be rescheduled and when?

Answer: We got our plan in place and we sat around waiting for our bank to tell us when the best timing was and lo and behold the timing turned out not to be very good. Interest rates were ratcheting up. Not only were we on the road thinking it was a good time but a lot of other companies were out there also thinking it was a good time so it was more of a buyer's market. In the next 30 to 90 days we'll pull a new financing package and go back out and get it done.

Q: You've had some downsizing this summer. Will there be more cuts?

A: The staffing is relatively stable and we've brought back some of the staff we let go this summer mostly in engineering and manufacturing. But we should be able to increase our staff.

Q: What have been some of your priorities after coming here in June?

A: The R&D spigot has been turned up since I got here and I think we've gotten much better at prioritizing what's going to make a big impact on the customer. We've really streamlined the process from conception to product and that will start showing up very visibly in 2004.

Q: Was there a mandate that you were given when you arrived?

A: The only real mandate was to grow the top line and the bottom line and there really hasn't been a specific direction to grow digital instead of film. The digital business is a tricky thing. It's going to grow at the pace of our customers' desire and obviously having a camera that is a functional equivalent of the film camera is going to make it easier for them to migrate from film to digital. But it isn't our goal to push them in any direction. In the end, we're neutral whether it's digital or film.

Q: Are you satisfied with the progress the company has made since you got here?

A: You're never fully satisfied and if you are you're nuts or getting ready to retire. But I'm happy where the company is going and the response from management and the employees. But we need to focus on our market and keep growing. We know in the end that the technology is critically important and we have to focus on technical innovation. But we have to differentiate ourselves from the competition by offering superior customer service and support.

Q: How is the company transitioning into digital filmmaking?

A: We've made two substantial investments in digital. One is in E-Film which we own 80 percent of and does digital color correction on films and the other is a partnership with Sony which makes the digital hi-definition cameras aimed at the episodic television market. We have roughly 115 cameras in the market that are Sony cameras that have been "Panavized" or adapted by us with lenses and a hard metal casing and have achieved a very substantial market share or 75 percent of the multi-camera episodic TV market. The use of those cameras has been in one hour episodic television. Use in feature films has been much less robust.

Q: Why are those markets so difficult to grow?

A: It's our view that the one-hour episodic market, commercials and features are waiting for the next generation cameras that will have greater dynamic range, better resolution and better depth of field.

Q: What's the breakdown between the film and digital sides of your business?

A: In terms of revenue, the digital business is five percent of our total. A couple of years ago it was zero, so we're doing better. Between the 2002-2003 broadcast season and the 2003-2004 season which just got started, we may have nearly doubled the number of shows shooting digitally. But we don't expect that kind of growth every year.

Q: Why is there still a slow adoption of digital movie cameras?

A: Part of it has to do with the culture of Hollywood and hanging on to traditions. Part of it is going to be driven by economics and the high cost of going digital. But the biggest part of it is driven by the quality of image from the camera. Digital images are still not as good as filmed images.

Q: What's been the biggest impact on the company's business?

A: The biggest impact has been the commercial actors' strike of a couple of years ago which has had a lasting impact. But the biggest on the business today is on advertising production spending. In a weak economy, commercial budgets cut back with fewer commercials and fewer shooting dates.

Q: There is a lot more competition out there than there was 10 years ago. How do you react to that?

A: In the end we feel confident we can deliver a better product and a better level of customer service. Customers are more and more global and with a worldwide rental operation we're in 52 different locations around the world. We can handle that global customer better than the smaller L.A.-based competitor.

Q: What attracted you to the job?

A: For me it was an opportunity to take what I had learned in the past and take them to a new business and take them to a different level. But this job was appealing to me because of Mr. Perelman's backing of the company, because of the brand and because of the opportunity for new growth.

Q: Do you have a "hands-on" approach to the business?

A: In this job and other jobs, I've made an extra effort to get into the business and get to know the employees and spend time with them. Every quarter we have a town hall meeting with the employees where we gather around and talk about what's going on with the company and every month I have what we call Breakfast with Bob where I invite 12 employees and have a 15 minute pep talk and then they can talk about whatever they want.

Snapshot

Robert Beitcher

Title: President, Panavision

Birthplace: Philadelphia

Age: 49

Education: Bachelor's degree in literature from the University of Pennsylvania, master's degree in literature from Stanford University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Career Turning Point: Getting an internship at the CFO's office at Columbia Pictures in New York which led him into a career in the entertainment business.

Most Admired Person: Mother and father, Martin and Sylvia Beitcher.

Personal: Married with four children.