SEX, VIOLENCE HAVE NO PLACE IN FILMMAKER'S ART.

Byline: Victoria Giraud People and Places

Producer and filmmaker Mitchel Matovich believes good films can be made without all the sex and violence.

``The type of pictures I make, you can tell a good story and have it well-acted. You don't need exploitation,'' Matovich declared. ``People at the studios disagree; they want sex and violence.''

Although he claims he is ``dead set against censorship,'' he feels movie rating systems are too lenient and should be improved. He points out that when he was growing up, and the Hays Office kept movies cleaner, he didn't see bad language and explicit sex.

``When the Hays Office went out, the crime rate went up. Monkey see, monkey do. Little kids get exposed, they want to do it. People get hardened to it,'' Matovich said with conviction. ``I have a problem with a lot of products made today. I think it's detrimental to children.''

To emphasize these values, he and his wife, Pattie Dee, along with Chris and Suzanne Shoemaker, founded the annual Santa Clarita International Film Festival. The family-oriented festival - which shows films with no obscenities, profanities or gratuitous nudity, sex or violence - is scheduled for February.

A fifth-generation Californian, Matovich had a long career in research and development in the electronics and aerospace industries before he decided in 1985 to make films. He finds that making movies is not too different from what he used to do.

``I was working on large projects with multifaceted elements. Most pictures are not different, probably easier in a lot of ways,'' he observed. ``Budgeting and scheduling is easier in film; it's been done before.''

Years ago, while he was working at the Stanford Research Institute, the ``cutting edge of technology'' at that time, he helped develop the ``very first special-purpose computer, the size of a wing of a hospital,'' for Bank of America.

Among other projects, Matovich worked on the Polaris and Poseidon missile systems and on spy satellites in the days when special cameras, which ``could read license plates from 100 miles up,'' would be sent into space. Once the photos were taken, the photo canisters would float back to Earth by parachute and be retrieved by planes, such as the C-119 or C-130, before they plunged into the Pacific Ocean.

While running his own company - that was designing and developing technology for the space shuttle - Matovich came up with an idea for a book. ``My home was across San Francisco Bay from the plant. It was a long drive, an hour, an hour and a half each way. An awful waste of time.''

He dictated his idea for the science fiction novel, ``The Image Machine'' into a tape machine on the way to work and then his secretary transcribed it. Friends who read the completed book commented that it would make a good film or TV series, so he took a course in screenwriting and wrote a script for it. He gave his finished script to the teacher and was told it would sell.

When the script was shopped in Los Angeles, he was told that since he had no previous screenwriting credits, another writer's name would have to be used. But Matovich refused to compromise and decided to raise the money himself. Even though he raised half the money, he was persuaded to co-produce a less expensive film - ``Social Suicides.'' He still hopes someday to make his first script into a film.

Since then he's been very busy producing and writing. ``I Don't Buy Kisses Anymore,'' a romantic comedy starring Jason Alexander and Nia Peeples, which took several awards, including Best Independent Feature at the Houston International Film Festival, currently plays on Lifetime TV.

``Lightning In a Bottle,'' another Matovich production with Lynda Carter and also a film that plays on Lifetime, was given a Gold Special Jury Award at Houston.

Although Matovich says he's not overly ambitious, he's completed eight original screenplays, three novels and three children's books. ``Writing is my escape when things get overwhelming,'' he reflected.

The children's books, which he has also illustrated, are ``environmentally angled'' and nonviolent. The books' heroes are Super Penguins that save the world through their strength. Matovich would like to see the books developed into positive Saturday morning TV for children.

Not averse to a little controversy, he also likes to tackle diverse subjects (religion, Noah's Ark and Louis Farrakhan, for instance), in short articles for newspapers that he calls ``Politically Improper.''

Mitch sees his future continuing on his present path. ``I'd like to make more good pictures and write some more.''