A modern-day Renaissance man sat with DX this week to discuss how he used a film education as a springboard into a successful career in video, audio, and lighting design.
Payman Pahlavan joined the host of The Dallas Express Podcast, Sarah Zubiate Bennett, in the studio recently. A master of leveraging cutting-edge technology to create bespoke atmospheric and environment designs for his clients, Iranian-born Pahlavan explained how his unique aesthetic came to be over the course of a blossoming career that took him from France to the United States.
“People always ask me where [I] learned lighting: It was from [my] theatrical background. And design was from [my] theatrical background,” Pahlavan said. “So everything I gathered from film school and working in the film industry kind of help[ed in] these ventures that I’ve done.”
As the CEO and president of CHT Systems, Pahlavan creates designs for an array of spaces, from private yachts to chic restaurants.
“A good lighting design shouldn’t be seen. A good audio-video design should complement the interior design,” he said.
While video, audio, and lighting design has been Pahlavan’s main business for over 30 years, his creative touch has recently extended into the realms of tailored menswear and antique cars.
He explained to Bennett how his relationships helped to inspire him to dabble in these new avenues.
“Eight or nine years ago, I dated this lady and I was just wearing t-shirts and jeans mostly,” he said. “She [asked] my assistant once how come I never dress up in suits and white collared shirts, so that kind of triggered it.”
With help from his friends in the fashion industry, he began to learn more about the structure of fabrics in order to better design clothes for bodies that aren’t as well-suited by the mass-produced clothes on store shelves. He now dresses high-profile private clients, most of whom he met through his audio-video business.
Similarly, Pahlavan’s interest in restoring automobiles began when a friend invited him to Indiana to help design a display setup for a private museum of roughly 300 antique cars.
“At the very beginning of the museum, there was a 1962 Red Corvette that just caught my attention,” he told Bennett. “I thought it was very unique and so on, and that kind of triggered me.”
However, he was sad that these antique cars were mainly for display nowadays. This is why he jumped at the opportunity to dive into restoration when he learned from another friend about efforts to tweak vintage cars for greater drivability — a new engine, new brakes, and so on — while still maintaining their original look.
“It’s like an artist that gets to restore an old house,” Pahlavan explained. “They make it look the way it was built, it still has that charm. So it becomes artwork.”
As a veteran business owner in Dallas, Pahlavan has had his fair share of experience with City restrictions. For instance, he was involved in the restructuring of the AT&T headquarters in Downtown Dallas. As a commercial project, it involved more municipal red tape and rules than the typical project.
“The City actually loved to have AT&T downtown, so they were very accommodating … because they put so much money in that score, with the video walls and everything. But that was the toughest building I’ve done downtown,” he recalled.
After the interview, Bennett toured Pahlavan’s private warehouse in the Design District. He meticulously designed the lighting in the space as he would have a movie set.
“Everything was done with a lot of love and a lot of special finishes [were] done to this place to make it look very authentic,” he told Bennett.