Filmmakers Offered a Home on the Range : Santa Clarita Valley: Area residents increase their efforts to lure production companies, offering ranches and houses as movie and TV locations.

The people of Santa Clarita Valley want a reel life.

That goes for the owners of large ranches and small suburban homes. Hollywood, they have something to sell.

“ ‘Can you use our home? Let me take you there,’ was all I heard” from local property owners, said Jeff Morton, who as a production location liaison in the valley helped find shooting sites for “Sweet Poison,” an upcoming USA Network movie. “I told them we were just scouting.”

In the past six months, about two dozen valley residents have offered their homes or ranches as locations for films, television shows, music videos, or commercials, said Morton, president of Santa Clarita Valley Production Services. He attributes the growing interest to a more active local film committee and to the spring closing of Indian Dunes, the 200-acre location used for such TV and film projects as “China Beach,” “Call to Glory,” “The Color Purple,” and “The Two Jakes.” One valley resident, John Polcyn, has already committed $300,000 to construct a Western town on his farmland, hoping to draw more film bookings.

Cheryl Adams, who also acts as a liaison between Hollywood and the Santa Clarita community, said there is another reason for the increased local interest in filmmaking.

“There are a lot of people in the industry who have moved out here,” Adams said. “They would rather not commute.”

Adams is paid by the Santa Clarita Chamber of Commerce which, by establishing a film committee in 1989, demonstrated its desire to pump up the local economy with a stronger tie to Hollywood. Morton, who helped found the committee, turned it over last year to Ze Gonzales. Interested homeowners list their properties with Adams, Gonzales or Morton.

“We all network,” said Morton, “and pass names between each other.”

Polcyn, 60, owner of the 720-acre Polsa Rosa Ranch west of Acton, is, so far, one of the most successful at attracting filmmakers to his property. He said he sensed a “great opportunity” to replace Indian Dunes, whose owners say they are converting the property to farmland. His ranch has hosted makers of a European feature film and a Rod Stewart video.

Tony Salome, location manager for the 1990 offbeat thriller “Tremors,” which was partially shot at Polcyn’s ranch, said Polsa Rosa is an ideal example of the benefits available at Santa Clarita Valley sites.

“The appeal of John’s place is its wide open spaces,” Salome said. “So many of the wide open spaces these days are getting developed.”

Homes in Santa Clarita generally offer another advantage over properties in Los Angeles: They cost less to use.

Fred Brost, production manager for “Sweet Poison,” said it can be a lot cheaper to shoot in the Santa Clarita Valley. “Rates are so high on the other side of the hill,” said Brost, adding that it might cost $350 a day for a house in Santa Clarita, compared to $700 a day for a similar spot in Los Angeles.

“There’s a growing awareness by people in L.A. that you can get more money, and agents have jacked up the prices there, but people in Santa Clarita aren’t generally aware of what the prices are in L.A,” he said.

Furthermore, in Santa Clarita, according to Salome, people display more fascination with the movie business. It’s about more than just earning a little extra income.

“You love to go to an area where people are willing,” Salome said. “They are less spoiled than people in the city. The Santa Clarita Valley, even though it’s close, is far enough removed that people are in awe of the business, as opposed to the attitude of ‘I don’t want it in my back yard.’ ”

But, for some in the valley, the back yard may be too far away. Their homes aren’t located in the studio zone, the imaginary circle within a 30-mile radius from the intersection of Beverly and La Cienega, location of the former headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates labor contracts with the studios. If film locations are more than 30 miles from that intersection, companies must pay union cast and crew transportation costs, which can inflate a production’s budget. Film company executives do everything possible to shoot their movies within the zone.

Jim Knight, who manages Lannan’s Flying Eagle Ranch in Agua Dulce, has committed $50,000 of the ranch’s money to convert the property for film use. He has plans to construct a Western set. But the land is outside the 30-mile zone.

“All of the executives I talk to tell me they can’t take their shows there because it’s not in the zone,” said Morton, former chairman of the Santa Clarita Valley Film Committee. “He’s got to come up with something unique to overcome that.”

Knight isn’t discouraged. “You just can’t make any money on cattle ranching anymore,” said Knight, a fireman for 23 years who two years ago became manager of Belva Lannan’s property. He hopes that by investing money in getting films to shoot there, he’ll have enough revenue to make long-overdue improvements in the ranch.

Distance isn’t the only obstacle. Many homes in the Santa Clarita Valley don’t have that Middle America look so popular in television series and commercials.

“What you don’t have in Santa Clarita,” Salome said, “are the older established homes. You either have the new tract homes or the ranches. You’re not going to get a show like ‘The Wonder Years’ to shoot up there.” The ABC-TV sitcom is set in the early 1970s in Middle America.

Morton, who is constantly contacted by residents interested in cashing in on the entertainment business, said some aren’t always prepared for the intrusions of a film or television crew.

“They just don’t have a sense of how much their lives would be disrupted,” Morton said. “You’ll see so many people milling about, cars everywhere, a caterer’s truck. I try to find out if they are really ready for that.”

Polcyn, who purchased his ranch in 1978, said he is building a small office away from his living quarters to keep his family life as private as possible. Currently, he conducts business in his home, and seeks to change that.

“As long as people are away from the house, there’s no distraction,” Polcyn said. “In the beginning, people parked on my lawn, and so we came up with a

precise area where people can park.”

The availability of parking is among the first topics Morton discusses with homeowners when he scopes out potential location sites. And, because of the Santa Clarita Valley’s more wide open nature, parking is usually less of a problem than in Los Angeles.

“And we also look for houses that have a high ceiling” to allow for the movable camera platform or lighting equipment, Morton said. “Wide hallways are good, too. We want homes that have different angles, so it has a variety of different looks.”

Gonzales, who moved into a one-story Saugus home in 1987, owns AV Equipment Rentals, which frequently lends heavy equipment to production companies to use for filming. Recently, though, he’s begun to consider that his role in the entertainment world doesn’t have to be limited to his job.

“I know it would be a lot of work,” Gonzales said, “but I think it would be neat to see your house in a movie.” Morton brought a location manager for a feature film to look at Gonzales’ house, but the manager declined to use it.

Cynthia Harris was more fortunate. Last year, her Newhall property was used for two days for a commercial by a food chain back East. She was immediately hooked. She was paid $500 for the shoot.

“I got to watch them making a commercial,” Harris said, “and I just sat there eating my lunch and getting paid for it. It was so much fun.”

But fun can be costly, as Polcyn is finding out. And there’s no guarantee the investment will pay off.

He hired Morton to help develop his ranch, and pays him a percentage of whatever income he makes from filming. Together, they have sent literature to location and production managers in Hollywood and have listed the ranch with the California Film Commission.

Besides the Western town, Polcyn is planning to set up military-style barracks and a few shacks in the woods. He is also considering building a runway--that was one of Indian Dunes’ main attractions. Already, a stream runs through his property, which is likely to interest filmmakers. On one side, the snow-covered mountains in the distance, with unobstructed views, give the flavor of Washington or Oregon. On the other side, with sandy, brown mountains, it could be Arizona.

Polcyn, who owns Reliable Paving in Van Nuys, hopes that Hollywood will help keep his ranch in the family. He charges production companies $500 a day to prepare sets, and about $1,500 a day for actual shooting--but he said the prices are negotiable.

“I don’t want to subdivide it or develop it,” he said. “I want to leave this as an inheritance for my family. I want this to be my mark.”

Still, his pocketbook isn’t bottomless.

“I don’t see this as a huge risk,” he said, “but after we finish the sets we’re working on, I will have depleted my capital. We’ll have to see what happens.”