L.A. SIZZLES : THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OF `VOLCANO' GIVE OUR CITY ITS WORST HEAT WAVE EVER.

Byline: Fred Shuster Daily News Staff Writer

``That's great! It starts with an earthquake ...''

The R.E.M. song is used early on in ``Independence Day,'' to tip off viewers, as if they already didn't know, that what's coming is the end of the world as we know it.

Now, the film studio that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars destroying the planet is changing its tune slightly by taking a more local approach. Beginning with an earthquake (what else?), they're making the City of Angels look like a giant lava lamp.

Welcome to 20th Century Fox's ``Volcano,'' the latest of the ``I Love to Hate L.A.'' epics.

Shooting at various locations around town, the filmmakers have re-created a section of the Wilshire Boulevard corridor from Curson to Fairfax on a quarter-mile stretch, all with the idea of turning it into mush.

It seems that quakes, floods, mudslides, riots and O.J. Simpson weren't enough.

What L.A. really needs, film industry thinking goes, is a volcano. Complete with molten lava churning through city streets, incinerating everything and everyone in its path. Hot liquid fire raining down on cars and people, causing entire blocks to burn to a crisp. Steaming geysers erupting out of manholes.

No more Starbucks. No more In-N-Out Burger. But, then again, no more waiting in line at Ralphs.

Starring Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones as L.A.'s emergency procedures chief, ``Volcano'' provides a glimpse of a city's worst nightmare. According to the script, ground zero of the volcano is the La Brea Tar Pits, an active geological location in reality to be sure, but an exceedingly mild one.

However, in the film, the Tar Pits becomes the focal point for nature's final attack on the City of Angels. As if a spewing volcanic incident wasn't bad enough along Wilshire Boulevard, the deadly lava then begins traveling throughout the city by way of the city's newly built subway tunnel system.

Los Angeles residents might want to ask, ``Why us again?''

Mick Jackson, the British director in charge of ``Volcano,'' has an answer.

``Strange things always happen in L.A.,'' he said during a tour the other day of the primary ``Volcano'' set in Torrance. ``I love it here and I hate it. It's a national pastime to see L.A. destroyed.''

Jackson took particular pleasure pointing out a scene in which an Angelyne billboard becomes a lethal weapon as it falls in flames onto a crowded street.

Jack DeGovia, ``Volcano'' production designer, has a theory about why Los Angeles is so often the location for so many awful incidents on film.

``Disaster films are like the old Roman epics, where there's this great big evil city where people are having fun doing things everyone wishes they could do without getting caught,'' DeGovia explained. ``And those movies always ended with the destruction of the city. L.A. is everybody's dream city. It's the world capital of the imagination. And in these movies, it always gets its just deserts.''

Unfortunately for its makers, ``Volcano'' isn't the only lavafest planned for the big screen. Universal has ``Dante's Peak,'' now shooting in Idaho and expected to hit theaters in early March.

Fox 2000 Pictures, the Fox production company making``Volcano,'' refuses to say when it plans to open its disaster epic or how much it is costing. (Some sources estimate the budget at close to $70 million.)

But even though the star of ``Volcano'' is going to be a lifelike lava flow coursing through buildings and boulevards, the main attraction will be the chance for audiences throughout the nation to see L.A. reduced to its usual state - total chaos, Jackson said.

``You can't be too over the top about L.A.,'' said Jackson, who directed ``The Bodyguard,'' one of the biggest hits of 1992. ``And you could view the lava as a metaphor for all that lurks below the surface here.''

The last time lava was portrayed on screen was in ``Congo'' last year. The makers of ``Volcano,'' however, promise their lava will be the lava to die for - even though the hot stuff will be a special effect added by computer. The filmmakers are using rows of lights to tip off computer artists where to put the lava flows.

One thing's almost certain. The use of fire in ``Volcano'' is burning up the record books.

``It's the largest fire permit ever granted in L.A. (County) for one film set,'' said Marty Bresin, the special mechanical effects coordinator who is overseeing the pyrotechnics and fire, smoke and ash effects on the set.

`` `Backdraft' won't hold a candle to us,'' he added.

The re-created stretch of Wilshire Boulevard is on a quarter-mile stretch leased for two months from an aircraft company in Torrance.

There, movie magic is in full swing. Along with very real-seeming buildings, including an 80 percent scale model of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the old May Co. store, autos, city buses, street signs, billboards, curbs, bus benches and newspaper boxes give the impression that Wilshire Boulevard, already one of the world's longest streets, has somehow extended itself to Torrance.

``We contemplated for about two seconds actually shooting on the real Wilshire,'' said Laura Ziskin, president of Fox 2000 Pictures. ``Then, we realized we had to burn it down.''

And burn it they do. Most of the faux-Wilshire buildings are rigged with propane, so they can be lit up at will. During the recent tour, the filmmakers set a city block on fire, rigged a very loud explosion, then extinguished the entire blaze in the space of about 10 minutes.

``The lava was the toughest challenge,'' Jackson said. ``You can't send out for a truckload of lava and have it delivered to the set.''

But with computer technology and advances in animation and other fields, the deadly lava in ``Volcano'' will be more than lifelike, Jackson said.

``It would have been impossible to do this movie several years ago,'' he said.

Co-starring with Jones in ``Volcano'' are Anne Heche, Don Cheadle, John Corbett, John Carroll Lynch, Jacqueline Kim and young Gaby Hoffmann.

Jackson, who refused to disclose his working budget, said the film has a moral core.

``Because of this nightmare the city faces, people of all types must pull together to survive,'' he said. ``There are different ethnic groups, petty bureaucracies, personalities. The lesson is: We must learn to help each other and coexist.''

The La Brea Lava Pits?

Could a volcano really bubble up out of the La Brea Tar Pits, with lava surging through the city's sewer and subway system to cause fiery destruction in all corners of Los Angeles?

It's all just wishful thinking, an expert said.

``The answer is so close to zero, it's next to impossible,'' said volcanologist Rick Hazlett, a professor of geology at Pomona College. ``There are some metropolitan areas - Naples, Italy, and Auckland, New Zealand - that really are threatened by potential volcanic eruptions. But the La Brea Tar Pits is merely a mild oil seep caused by a fault that runs through that part of the city. It's a harmless mix of oil and water.''

Hazlett, who is working with the ``Volcano'' production to ensure a degree of credibility, said he's sure the lava effects in the film will be realistic.

``Lava behaves very much like an animal,'' he said. ``There are surprises. You can't ever predict how it's going to break out or where it's going to go next.''

Ultimately, all's well that ends well in ``Volcano.''

The fatal lava stream is eventually herded out to sea by way of Ballona Creek. And life goes on.

For now.

SOURCE: - Fred Shuster

Build it, blow it up

At the ``Volcano'' set in Torrance, some 400 builders and craftspeople worked long days to duplicate a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard at the quarter-mile-long employee parking lot of an aircraft plant.

Armed with what they say is the biggest fire permit ever issued in Los Angeles County, the next step was to methodically destroy the city.

``I love blowing stuff up,'' said Lauren Shuler Donner, executive producer of the disaster epic. ``It's great fun. I get such a kick out of it.''

Here are some ``Volcano'' facts:

All of the buildings were built close to scale, with the tallest being the May Co. building at 75 feet high.

The fake La Brea Tar Pits area covers 20,000 square feet. It used 550,000 gallons of water.

About 80 large date palm trees weighing 1,000 pounds per foot - or 40 tons each - were brought in.

Light poles, street lamps and traffic signals were built to match the ones on the real Wilshire Boulevard.

The set uses a nightly average of 1,700 gallons of propane, 300 cans of Sterno, 8 gallons of rubber cement and 25,000 feet of 1-1/4-inch pipe.

About 37 palm trees are rigged to burn. All are set up with pressurized kerosene tanks, propane, ignition systems and a half-mile of trenches for feeders.

More than 11,500 gallons of fireproofing was used to treat the set, with extra water trucks standing by. The immediate area does not have working fire hydrants, but the 750,000-foot set complies with fire safety regulations with additional stairwells, ladders, hoses and emergency hose reels.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) THE BIG-BANG THEORY

We're having a hot time in the old town tonight as L.A. becomes a giant lava lamp in `Volcano'

(2) On the ``Volcano'' set, a re-created building along a fake Wilshire Boulevard is rigged to explode into flames.

(3) Smoke billows over the fiery ``Volcano'' set in Torrance.

(4) Extras move into place for a scene along the ``Volcano'' set's eerily realistic-looking Wilshire Boulevard.

(5) ``I love blowing stuff up,'' says Lauren Shuler Donner, ``Volcano's'' executive producer, standing in front of an overturned RTD bus and a re-creation of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

John McCoy/Daily News

Box: (1) The La Brea Lava Pits (See Text)

(2) Build it, blow it up (See Text)