MPAA BOSS SOUNDS ALERT VS. FILM PIRACY.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

Runaway production, estimated to cost U.S. companies $10 billion a year, remains a major challenge for Hollywood's hometown industry - but not the only one.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, speaking Thursday at the opening of the annual ShowBiz Expo, stressed the danger of Internet pirates doing to movies what Napster did to music - make them widely available for free.

Bootlegging will always be a problem but the studios must stop the illegal swapping of movies before the public sees this as an accepted practice, he said.

``If you cannot protect copyrighted material on the Internet, then most of you are going to be out of a job shortly,'' Valenti told a crowd of about 400 in his keynote address at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

To thwart the hackers, at least three major studios are exploring ways to encrypt the films they plan to rent and sell over the Internet in the next four to six months, Valenti said.

A common fear of piracy has even sparked an unlikely alliance of filmmakers across the globe, allowing the MPAA to reduce illegal sales of low-grade analog video discs to tolerable levels, Valenti said.

The convention, which runs through Saturday, focused on ways digital technology benefits those making films, TV shows, commercials and music videos.

Panavision Inc. of Woodland Hills displayed its 24P high-definition video camera, which George Lucas used instead of film to shoot his next ``Star Wars'' feature.

``Besides lowering costs, it allows greater freedom for performers,'' said Nolan Murdock, Panavision's vice president of product management. ``A producer and director feel less compelled to yell 'cut' every two minutes and you can do pages of dialogue like it's a play, so performers can get on a roll.''

German company Alpha-Omega used computers to create a pristine print of Fritz Lang's ``Metropolis'' from the scratched and torn original print shot in 1925.

``The challenge is to save films from vanishing from age,'' said company owner Thomas Bakels. ``You have to get them into the digital world and make them last another 100 years.''

Hollywood's production community convened its annual convention with the most immediate threat to its business largely behind it. A devastating strike by the Writers Guild of America has been avoided and optimism abounds that the actors union can likewise reach a new contract with the networks and studios before the June 30 deadline.

Some conventioneers even see an upside to the frenzy of production undertaken in case of a strike - even if it means the rest of the year will be slow.

``All that business really energized the industry,'' said Maria Carpenter, whose firm rents crane-mounted lights from Van Nuys.

It was the ``shot in the arm'' that crews and companies, many based in the San Fernando Valley, needed after feeling drained as some TV shows and movies went to Canada, Australia and elsewhere because of tax breaks and lower costs, she said.

Film commissions from other states and countries are well-represented at the expo. From North Carolina to Thailand, from New York to Mexico, they came to tout their locations.

The California Film Commission said that since Jan. 1 its Film California First program has kept several productions from leaving by reimbursing them for the costs of filming on public property.

By covering the $230 per day fee to film on highways, Lancaster has been host to at least 40 productions in recent months, said Pauline East of the Antelope Valley Film Office.

``Not only did that keep it in California but in Los Angeles County as well, so that's the sweetest deal,'' East said.