Valley Commentary : The Talk of the Town : A South Bay resident moves to the Valley and has to learn a whole new language--Filmeze. All discussions are centered on show business.

“Are you in The Industry?” I was asked at a party one night soon after I moved to the San Fernando Valley.

“Industry?” I repeated, blankly.

“Yes. Aren’t you in The Business?”

“What business?” I asked innocently. The hostess interrupted almost apologetically. “John’s a writer . . . for magazines.”

There was an awkward pause as my companions looked into their drinks before moving toward a group discussing the character development pertinent to the thematic structure of Martin Scorsese’s latest film.

When I moved to the Valley from the South Bay beach area, I knew there would be a lot of changes. Hotter summers, bigger traffic jams, better bagels. What I didn’t expect was a language barrier. I don’t speak Filmeze.

Oh, they treat you fine here at first, until they find out you’re not “at” one of the studios. (Proper declension: “I’m at Fox, you’re at Universal, he, she, it’s at Disney.”) If the initials MCI, DGA or at the very least SAG do not follow your name, you may as well move to Pomona. Ph.D. or DDS doesn’t cut it in this part of town.

With most of the major studios located in the Valley, everyone is in the know and all discussions are centered on show business. Just eavesdrop at any watering hole in town.

If it’s not studio executive wanna-bes discussing the points in Sly’s latest three-picture play-or-pay mega-deal, it’s screenwriters whose high conceptual imagery spec script is just this far from Spielberg’s desk.

Ask the waitress how she is and she’ll tell you she is up for something, as in “I am up for a ‘Family Matters.’ ” This is actor’s lingo for auditioning. To further translate, it means they’re unemployed at the time. And I thought high school Latin was difficult.

As someone not associated with the film business (although I was a movie usher in high school), I felt like an outsider from the moment I passed LAX and mounted Sepulveda Pass. While looking at houses, the real estate agent (who was up for a “Murder She Wrote”) would swear the house once belonged to a celebrity--as if living in a house that Norma Desmond once owned could make up for hideous bathroom tile.

I soon learned there are five seasons in the Valley--winter, spring, summer, fall and pilot.

It was truly a one-industry town. Almost every store I walked into had walls bedecked with autographed celebrity photos, all but promising that Cher would be wandering back to the carwash that very afternoon.

*

At newsstands, Time magazine is buried beneath Dramaloge, the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, and everyone is always discussing a meeting they took about their production company’s syndication package which has just been given the green light if everyone involved can agree to something called “the points.” Doesn’t anyone talk about football here?

It’s not that we weren’t show biz savvy in the South Bay. After all, the lady who played Marlo’s mother on “That Girl” lives in Palos Verdes. And didn’t Chuck Norris once have a Karate Studio in Torrance? But down south, you could talk to someone without the phrase “studio shake-up” occurring.

People actually spoke of politics and world situations and family concerns that were not fodder for a movie of the week.

Here, my neighbors all go to work at the high-walled studios, and although they tell me they are gaffers or best boys or grips, I’ve decided not to ask exactly what that entails.

They all wear those trendy studio jackets and baseball caps emblazoned with the logos of popular television or films (available only to cast and crews of shows, they will point out proudly) and are always ending stories with “Well, you know how Eisner is . . .” while everyone nods in agreement.

Is there a secret handshake as well? I haven’t felt this left out since I didn’t letter in high school.

But one adapts. After a few weeks of living here, I listened and learned (I’ve always had an ear for languages). Now, at parties when introduced to strangers, I find myself smiling and saying “I’m a free-lance writer. . . . But what I really want to do is direct.”