MOVIE MAGIC MASTER.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

SYLMAR - Whether blowing things up for the film world or saving the stock it's printed on, Pete Kuran knows an awful lot about the movies.

What started as a 7-year-old kid fooling around with clay dinosaurs in his living room has turned into a rewarding career for the local entrepreneur, founder of Visual Concept Entertainment. After nearly 25 years in the business, Kuran has seen it all, from illuminating light sabers as a rookie animator on ``Star Wars'' to pioneering a film restoration technique that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is considering for its prestigious technical achievement Academy Award early next year.

``Here, you have to either know a lot about art, business or technology, and Pete knows all three,'' says John Van Vliet, a Tujunga-based effects supervisor who first palled around with Kuran in their high school audiovisual club. ``If something doesn't work out, he'll just go out and find something new. They always want you to think outside the box, but while you're doing that, he's building a new box.''

In the ultracompetitive Hollywood landscape, Kuran combines a broad spectrum of talents.

Such was the case with his award-nominated restored color image process, which Kuran employed to brush up the color of high-profile films like ``Picnic'' and ``The Seven Year Itch.'' In a simple yet ingenious formula, he figured how to return deteriorated film to its original quality, prolonging the lifespan of classic films.

Kuran and his colleagues at VCE devised the process as a means to an end, not suspecting it would go on to prove useful on other projects. Following a boyhood trip to Japan, Kuran developed an interest in the effects of nuclear explosions. Years later, after he'd already established himself as a visual-effects whiz, he decided to put together a documentary on the first atomic tests. As he scoured through decades of declassified Department of Defense footage, he found the archival film had deteriorated after years of storage.

``When I got to the mid-'50s, I saw there were some problems,'' he said.

Black shadows had changed into fuzzy blues. White highlights were marred with yellow, and the images had faded, making the documentary's quality suffer. Thus, he went to work, looking for a way to clean up the colors without fuzzing out the images, a daunting task with conventional processes. The resulting concept was so easy he hesitates to discuss it, lest competitors bootleg his technique.

``It's very simple,'' he said, showing off the sparkling quality of a finished print. ``This could have been devised back in 1969, but no one came up with the method.''

Finding that the process worked beautifully for his own documentary, 1995's ``Trinity and Beyond,'' he approached Cinetech, a Valencia firm that specializes in restoration of old prints. The Valencia-based company shopped it to potential customers and saw strong response.

``When we show it to clients, they said gee, now we can bring out titles we'd stored away for 10 years,'' said David Cites, director of sales. ``It lets them do things they couldn't do before.''

Though digital has been a buzzword for the last few years, its high costs and lack of reliable storage media make it less attractive than film, Cites said.

``We can do it cheaper than digital, and you end up with a real product,'' he said. ``With digital files, if you can't recover them in a few years, it's no good. A hundred years from now, you can still look at a piece of film.''

Response has been so enthusiastic, Kuran said, his six-person staff has been swamped with work orders.

``There's more work to do than can be handled at this point,'' he said. ``Now that they see it can be done, there's a lot of positive excitement.''

This provides him with a strong edge in the tough entertainment field. Though he plans on sticking with visual effects, his calling card for more than 200 films, restoration adds another leg for the small firm to stand on.

And in a twist, the man who cut his teeth making some of the biggest Hollywood movies splashier in the last few decades, now prefers straighter fare.

``I loved big-action movies as a kid,'' Kuran smiled. ``But now I like documentaries. I like to see things that are more real. After seeing all the things you can make with a computer these days, it's more interesting to see the real thing.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Peter Kuran of Visual Concept Entertainment, a company specializing in special effects and film restoration, works on restoring a piece of old film.

(2 -- color) no caption (Peter Kuran)

(3) Peter Kuran lent his youthful talents to illuminating light sabers in ``Star Wars.''

John Lazar/Staff Photographer