TROPHY MAKERS GET SET FOR OSCARS, EMMYS AWARD MAKERS READY FOR GOLDEN GLOBES.

Byline: Dereck Andrade Staff Writer

While Hollywood's entertainment industry is nearing the famestretch for glittering award shows, the companies that manufacture the Oscars, Emmys and the Golden Globes are working at a fever pitch to satisfy their star-studded clientele's deadlines.

Firms such as Encore Awards in Glendora, which makes the Emmy Awards for the North Hollywood-based Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in addition to the Golden Globes, and R.S. Owens & Co. in Chicago, maker of the Academy Award, or Oscar, have been working overtime to fill their orders.

On Thursday, Encore Awards hand-delivered 60 of the 11-inch-tall, marble-base Golden Globes to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for its 57th annual Golden Globe Awards tonight.

The Golden Globes, which will take place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, is considered the precursor to the annual Academy Awards in March.

The awards event is a lucrative contract Encore Awards has held for more than 20 years.

"It depends the way you define lucrative," joked Tom Selinske, Encore Award's president, whose business generates about $500,000 a year. "But it does give us a lot of credibility that we do the Golden Globes," he said.

A single Golden Globe costs about $100 to make, according to Selinske, who declined to say just how much Encore Awards charges its client for the finished project.

The company with just six workers, also makes the Country Music Awards for the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music and the Student Academy Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.

Rich Miller, the Academy's awards administration director, has managed the student Oscars since 1988 and has been pleased with Encore Award's work during that period.

"I just really have a good relationship with Tom (Selinske)," said Miller, who orders "about 25" of the student Academy Awards each year, a marble cube with a die-struck medallion in gold, silver or bronze. The Academy pays $100 per award, Miller said.

Miller said the Academy doesn't always give out th full 25 awards every year because of changes in certain categories.

"The work Encore does is good, and if there are any problems, they take it back and fix it," Miller said.

Surprisingly, it's not the finished project that has been the problem. It's after the award has made it into the hands of the recipient where the touch-ups occur.

"We've had trophies that have had chips out of them when the student (has) probably dropped them," he said. "Little things happen, even in the Oscars."

But landing a major awards contract can mean a bonanza, industry experts admit, for the few select award manufacturing companies that create some of the entertainment industry's most coveted prizes.

For the Oscars in March, the Academy expects to send its order for 55 Oscars to R.S. Owens and Co. in late February.

Their early arrival will be in plenty of time for the 72nd annual Academy Awards show on March 26 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

R.S. Owens & Co. has manufactured the 18-inch tall Academy Award statuette since 1983, replacing the Dodge Trophy Co. in Los Angeles, which went out of business.

"There's definitely some hidden advantages. There's a cache of being the manufacturer of the Oscars," said Scott Siegel, the firm's president.

Bruce Davis, the Academy's executive director, said there is only one company in the United States that is good enough to create an Oscar.

"This is not an award that you can just get from some trophy manufacturing company," said Davis, who confirmed that the Academy pays "about $400" for an individual Oscar. "But the value of an Oscar depends on a lot more than what it literally costs to manufacture."

Siegel's company also makes the Emmy Award for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Lankershim Boulevard.

"The Oscar probably lends prestige to our entire line of products," he said. "We think we're the best, so we're happy to be the ones who manufacture the best-known award in the world."

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Photo: no caption (Golden Globes statuette)