VALLEY TOPS IN FILM JOBS CSUN STUDY CONFIRMS AREA'S PRIME ROLE IN ENTERTAINMENT.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

NORTHRIDGE - Time to light up the marquee: the San Fernando Valley has officially become the real Hollywood, the nation's film capital.

Researchers at California State University, Northridge, for the first time tabulated all entertainment industry production and distribution jobs in California and found the Valley region now has 58 percent of industry jobs in Los Angeles County and 44 percent in the state.

The Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. and Universal film studios, the largest industry employers, are all located in the Valley area including Burbank and Glendale.

``It's been a real engine of the Valley,'' said Daniel Blake, director of CSUN's San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center, which compiled the study. ``One out of six private-sector employees in the Valley is directly related to production and distribution.''

The Valley tripled its employment base in the entertainment sector from a mere 35,000 jobs in 1992 to 105,383 jobs last year out of 180,900 industry jobs countywide and 238,000 statewide. The findings were contained in the center's annual report on the state of the Valley's economy. About 98,000 jobs in the Valley are directly related to the motion picture industry and television programs produced at the three major studios, according to the CSUN study.

CSUN researchers used data from the California Economic Development Dept. to come up with their findings. The figures include jobs in the pornographic film industry, which is largely based in the Valley.

The entertainment industry's impact on the Valley's economy is even greater when nonproduction and distribution entertainment jobs are figured in, upping the figures to 18.8 percent of all Valley private-sector jobs, Blake said. And that figure still does not reflect ancillary businesses such as catering and legal services.

Mayor James Hahn said in an interview Friday that these entertainment jobs are key to the city's economy during these troubled economic times.

``It's a huge part of Southern California and what the rest of the world knows us for and the Valley is the home of that,'' Hahn said. ``We need to do everything we can to keep those jobs here and productions here.''

With so-called ``runaway production'' - projects being filmed outside the U.S. for tax advantages - plaguing the industry, Blake said local entertainment production might be helped by a growing reluctance of actors and crews to travel outside the state after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States and the continued global unrest.

That feeling was shared by several industry leaders Thursday night at a forum called Hollywood After September 11.

``I think the fear factor is going to have an impact,'' said producer Stephen Nemeth, whose films include ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.''

Veteran producer Debra Hill (``The Fisher King,'' ``Escape from New York'') has changed her plans to shoot her feature film directorial debut, ``Tales Not Told,'' in Canada and is now scouting Southern California locations.

``It would be great to not have to leave,'' Hill said. ``I want to be able to say at the end of my movie, Made in America. I think every one of us should take responsibility and see how we can make that work.''

Bruce D. Ackerman, president and chief executive of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said Friday that he thinks runaway production ``is going to become as much an emotional as it is financial issue. I think it will play on everyone from the executives to the production crews who will be asking, Do we really need to travel? Can we pull this off locally?''

Ackerman said the answer to both those questions is ``obviously yes.''

``It was here before it became cheaper to go to other locations and I think we can return to that,'' he said.

The CSUN study, Ackerman said, puts further emphasis on how critical the entertainment industry has become to the region in the past decade.

``It absolutely is the largest employer in the Valley and has been for a long time since aerospace took a big downturn and entertainment continued to grow and expand,'' he said. ``Anything that would impact that industry is obviously a great concern to us.''

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THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

SOURCE: California State University, Northridge