Posted on 05/22/2005 9:25:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
PALMDALE - On a quiet little side street in old suburban Palmdale, the non-descript storefront of Advanced Aquatic Technologies is hiding a business that makes possible almost all of the special effects related to water that Hollywood produces. In productions starring names from Janet Jackson to the Stone Temple Pilots, AAT Fabrication, Inc. and its 27 employees create the tanks that produce "80% of the water shots you see on TV" owner Lloyd Paddock said.
Previously a banker from Northern California, Paddock said he started out simply keeping aquariums at home as a hobby. Later, he said, Pep Engineering, an aquarium fabricator, offered Paddock its business and entire collection of store fixtures and furniture for only $1,000.
"I found that a lot of people wanted a lot more than off-the-shelf aquariums. But the only manufacturers in the area wouldn't make them, and if they did, they were astronomically expensive," Paddock said, describing the creative inspiration that led him to accept the aquarium fabricating business.
After he opened offices in Burbank and Glendale in 1979, he said, "About 10 years later I became one of the largest acrylic tank manufacturers in the country."
Paddock and AAT arrived in the Antelope Valley in 1993, following housing prices. AAT also runs extensions in Van Nuys and West Los Angeles.
The business is separated into three divisions: aquariums - the lion's share of their work - tank rentals for entertainment productions and other specialty fabrications.
AAT's production process makes it possible to fabricate almost anything out of plastics, from entire staircases to aquarium toilet tanks, Paddock explained. AAT also creates pedestals, mounted frames, archive boxes and shelving for museums like the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art - where AAT fabricated several pieces for the upcoming Tutankamun exhibit.
Past entertainment productions for which their tanks have been commissioned include "Fear Factor," "Alien: Resurrection," "Stargate SGI," "Power Rangers," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Babylon 5" and "Star Trek V," as well as numerous commercials and music videos.
"Ironically, on 'The Sixth Day' with our governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the only shots done outside of Canada were the ones done with his 'clone' in our tank," Paddock said, recalling a recent production.
The miscellaneous fabrications AAT completes have included projects such as the manufacture of 20,000 metal signs for the Texas state lottery.
"That was one of the wild ones," he said. "It took nine months to complete and 50 truck loads to ship - a phenomenally large job," Paddock said.
He is also proud of the work he's done with an efficiency expert for Annhauser-Busch bottling plants, working to re-designing manufacturing parts out of, "cheaper, more durable" plastics.
AAT's success story is sure to continue, he said, despite a 30% rise in the costs of materials last year alone.
"Plastics are here to stay," he said, because there is a demand for them. AAT has taken on numerous unique projects such as preserving the last cigarette a person smoked and even dirt from the pitcher's mound at the last world series.
"People bring us everything under the sun to make enclosures for. We do a lot of very tricky custom stuff, but it'll last forever," Paddock said
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