{"id":465,"date":"2025-07-23T05:21:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T10:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/howellgibbens.com\/blog\/?p=465"},"modified":"2025-08-10T09:19:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T14:19:02","slug":"improvements-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/howellgibbens.com\/blog\/improvements-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Improvements – part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“The strength of a community is in the character of its people, not the size of its buildings.”<\/em> Calvin Coolidge<\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From 2006 to 2009 I oversaw the design and construction of Celtic Studios<\/a> in Baton Rouge. It is a 29 acre, $56M facility containing offices, post-production facilities, support services, and some of the largest sound stages<\/a> in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my capacity as Project Manager, I recruited, hired, and oversaw dozens of design and build professionals, including some wonderfully talented architects, engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical, structural, acoustic) and contractors. My electrical engineer, Kent Gasperecz<\/a>, of AST Engineering, stands out in my memory for his good taste (Kent suggested Louis Poulsen’s HW Patina<\/a> lamp posts for the site lighting), his devotion to quality and safety, and his patience and ability to put up with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We coordinated with the local utility (Entergy) to install primary metering for the facility. This setup allowed us to receive high-voltage power directly, with metering on the primary side, giving us control over the selection of every switch and transformer. Because a film studio’s productions demand clean, reliable power, Kent spec’d equipment that was to a higher standard than that of the city. Pictured below are a switch and two transformers, one 750 KVA and one 1000 KVA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In addition to our own electrical distribution system, we built a chilled water system with hundreds of tons of coolers for multiple buildings. I coordinated subsurface drainage with the city…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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…and fire protection with the fire department (we installed our own hydrants).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two local kids had just started a special effects company, and they were kind enough to help me out. I hired them to cut stencils and paint the names and numbers on our first buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m very happy to see that their company is still going strong<\/a>, and that they got out of the movie studio lettering business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back on this project, building a movie studio is like having the world\u2019s largest train set, and I’m very proud of what we built in Baton Rouge. I also just wanted to show that I know more than a little about infrastructure, or as they used to call it, improvements<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building a movie studio is like having the world\u2019s largest train set, and I\u2019m very proud of what we built in Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t