THREE VALLEY FIRMS AMONG EMMY WINNERS.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Three San Fernando Valley companies, a Valencia resident and Apple Computer Inc. were among nine winners of Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards for technical achievement handed out Wednesday night.

The ceremony at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theater at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences headquarters in North Hollywood kicks off the Emmy season, which will conclude Sept. 16 with a nationally televised show.

Wednesday night's event honored Valencia resident Gilbert P. Wyland, who received the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wyland's career spanned 45 years at CBS.

He oversaw the building of Television City in Hollywood, was behind the first Olympic Games telecast, and played a major role in the advent of electronic news gathering and laser disc editing.

In this particular category Emmy statuettes are given to an individual, company or an organization for developments in engineering that are either such an improvement on existing technology or so innovative that they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television.

The Engineering Plaque is awarded for achievements that exhibit a high level of engineering and are important to the progress of the industry.

Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm, said this kind of work does not get a lot of public attention so the awards are especially important to the people who receive them.

And they can help boost the companies' bottom lines.

``There is definitely an uptick in the companies' value to their customers,'' he said.

Other Emmy winners were:

--Clairmont Camera of North Hollywood for a series of specialized lenses.

The company, founded in 1976 by Denny Clairmont, makes lenses that impart special effects. For example, the company's squishy lens, developed by technician Michael Keesling, is made of a silicon gel and can smear an image. The company also developed an image shaker that makes the picture vibrate. Two of them were used in the movie ``Saving Private Ryan'' to make it appear the ground was shaking when a shell exploded.

``It makes you proud of your work. I consider this a joining effort,'' Clairmont said of the award. His company has 110 employees.

--Woodland Hills-based Panavision Inc. for its Primo Lens Series. This is a collection of 42 lenses made over an 18-year period.

It will be the second consecutive Emmy for optical designer Iain Neal, who has worked at the company since 1986.

He received the award last year for his work in a camera system.

``It's always nice to get an award,'' he said.

--Dallas-based Vari*Lite Inc. for its Virtuoso Console, a state-of-the-art lighting board.

--Toronto-based Cast Lighting Ltd. for WYSIWYG, a software program that allows for the preplanning and visualization of all entertainment-type lighting.

--daVinci Systems Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for its color enhancement system. This is the first unified color corrector to provide color enhancement to film-originated images in standard definition and high definition for television broadcast as well as high image resolution data images for compositing back to film for theatrical release.

--Pandora International of Kent, England, for Pogle Platinum with MegaDef. This enables colorists to work at any stage of the post-production process.

--Apple Computer Inc.'s Firewire, an advanced data-transport technology for connecting peripheral devices to computers. In television production it is used to connect digital cameras and video-editing equipment to a computer, and then move them quickly and flawlessly back and forth.

--North Hollywood-based Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment Inc. won the Engineering Plaque for LenCin Pedestal, which allows wider range of vertical camera movement plus greater rigidity and precision.

The unit has been on the market for about six years.