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SECOND STAGE: Site formerly home to semiconductor plant finds new life as a studio
(Albuquerque Journal (NM) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 5--Gone are the clean rooms with their elaborate and heavy duty air-handling systems, replaced by sound stages. The change room where workers donned "bunny suits" before entering clean rooms is now a millwork shop for movie and television sets.
A 16,000-square-foot room, once crammed with deionization equipment to purify water, is empty. The "Safety Shower," where workers exposed to toxins could jump in for an emergency dousing, is gone but the sign remains in the corridor outside.
"There are still a lot of remnants of the semiconductor business," said Bob Sanders, site manager of the former Philips Semiconductor plant at 9201 Pan American NE.
But now it's a bit of Hollywood Southwest.
Seven movies and TV shows have used the former plant for filming since August 2006, just after Albuquerque-based Titan Industrial Development purchased the building and surrounding 60 acres. An eighth TV series, the USA Network's "In Plain Sight," is currently filming there.
Thus the mothballed manu- facturing plant has found a second life as Philips Studio, a low-rent alternative to the state-of-the-art Albuquerque Studios at the Mesa del Sol master-planned community.
"When a production comes into town and needs Class A space, we can't compete with Albuquerque Studios," said Titan's Drew Dolan, who works with film productions interested in leasing space. "We create a depth of availability for others who don't need a lot of ceiling height. We're priced right and easy to work with."
The four sound stages at Philips have 24-foot-high ceilings, compared to 35- to 55-foot-high ceilings in the eight sound stages at Albuquerque Studios. Most of what's shot at Philips are interior scenes.
And there probably won't be a third life for the Philips building. When its reincarnation as a film studio plays out, the building is destined for a date with the wrecking ball.
High-tech history
The 502,000-square-foot facility opened in 1981 and was once a mainstay in Albuquerque's economy, producing high-tech chips for a variety of electronic gadgets. As many as 1,700 people worked there at one time.
After parent company Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands closed it in October 2003, the facility sat unused as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt was made to resurrect it as a chip-making plant.
Sanders, who had worked in various middle management positions at the plant since 1986, stayed on as site manager to oversee its eventual decommissioning.
"Seeing 121,000 square feet of clean room gutted was a strange feeling," he said. "It was strange to watch it go from 24/7 with the activity of 1,700 people to an empty shell."
The decommissioning was still under way when Titan landed its first production, the miniseries "The Lost Room" that aired on the SciFi Channel in December 2006. Noise from the interior demolition collided with the need for silence in shooting scenes, creating conflict between contractors and film crew.
"They had people walking through the building with walkie-talkies asking the contractors, 'Could you please stop sawing that pipe?' " Dolan said. "There were a lot of little issues."
Use of the building as a film studio just sort of happened through word of mouth. With its combination of ready-to-go offices and warehouselike former clean rooms, the Philips building was a natural for film production.
Titan likely lost money on leasing to "The Lost Room," Dolan said. "There were some major modifications we had to do to the building," he said. "We put in a ramp on the east side of the building with a rollup door to bring in film sets pretty much intact."
Subsequent productions went more smoothly and profitably, Dolan said. "We've gotten a little more sophisticated at this," he added.
Exacting needs for filming
As more film productions rolled through -- "The Eye" starring Jessica Alba between November 2006 and March 2007, Kevin Costner's "Swing Vote" between May and October 2007 -- Sanders gained a healthy respect for the planning, preparation and attention to detail that's involved.
"They're as exacting as we were in the semiconductor business," he said.
While "Swing Vote" was filming, Dolan walked through a set depicting the presidential airplane, Air Force One. "I remember thinking, 'This is pretty incredible,' " he said. "When you see it in person, the quality and effort is crazy."
The productions have also given them a chance to rub elbows with Hollywood types and, in the case of Sanders' wife, appear in a bit role in "Swing Vote" as a member of the press corps. "If you look real hard and knew where she was seated, you may think you see her," Sanders joked.
Dolan had dinner twice with Taylor Hackford, an Oscar winner who is directing the movie "Love Ranch" due for release in 2009. A drama about the married couple who opened the first legal brothel in Nevada, interior scenes in the brothel were filmed at Philips.
"Of all the people we've worked with at Philips in the film industry, he (Hackford) was by far the most personable -- down to earth and easy to talk to," Dolan said.
"Terminator Salvation," the bigbudget movie starring Christian Bale due out later this year, filmed one scene at Philips in the basement room where all the boilers, chillers and water pumps are located.
"They came in and took what was a pristine mechanical room and in two months turned it into a gloomy, dingy dungeon," Sanders said. "They shot for a day and an evening, then spent a month cleaning it up."
If the scene makes the final cut, it's the one where Bale's John Connor character saves several imprisoned people from medical experiments conducted by The Machines -- or something like that. Dolan admitted, "I really didn't understand the scene."
Two at once
For the first time last fall, Philips had two productions filming at the same time, although one of them, "Easy Money" on the CW Network, was canceled after four episodes aired in October.
"In Plain Sight," a drama set in Albuquerque about the witness protection program, will continue shooting episodes through May for its second season. The production provides about 175 jobs filled locally, according to state officials.
Parts of the Philips building have been turned into sets depicting an Albuquerque Police Department station, Mesa Regional Hospital and a federal marshals office, among others. The marshals office has a scenic view of the Sandia Mountains that's really a giant photograph hanging outside the windows of the set.
The short-term future of film productions is uncertain not only at Philips Studio, but everywhere else, in light of the Screen Actors Guild's controversial call for a strike vote in January. If a strike is held, the film industry will likely shut down until it is over.
In the meantime, Dolan said, "We see demand building for more productions coming (to Albuquerque) this spring. If that happens, we hope to get two productions going here at a time."
The building is considered obsolete for any kind of manufacturing, plus the location near Balloon Fiesta Park has evolved into prime real estate. Titan had originally hoped to convert the plant into a mixed-use commercial project housing a data center and possibly a customer service center. But demand never materialized.
"Now it looks like the entire site is better suited to taking it down," Dolan said. "The cost to rebuild and remodel it to a condition to be reused is about the same as the cost to tear it down and build new."
Just west of the former plant, work is under way to prepare about 30 adjacent acres for future development. The plan is for a buildto-suit office for a major employer on the site, he said. With the national economy in a deepening recession, it could take years to land that major employer, he added.
When construction of the build-to-suit office happens, the Philips building will likely come down. Until then, it'll be "Roll the cameras. Action !"
Movie and TV productions at least partially filmed at Philips Studio:
--"The Lost Room," a television movie mini-series, from August to November 2006.
--"The Eye," a motion picture, from November 2006 to March 2007.
--"Swing Vote," a motion picture, from May to October 2007.
--"Love Ranch," a motion picture due out in 2009, from November 2007 to March 2008.
--"Terminator Salvation," a motion picture due out in 2009, from May to July 2008.
--"My One and Only," a motion picture due out in 2009, from July to August 2008.
--"Easy Money," a television series, from July to December 2008.
--"In Plain Sight," a television series, from September 2008 to May 2009.
To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.abqjournal.com.
Copyright (c) 2009, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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