Foley Work - Gary Hecker

I've been slowly putting together loads of things for The Hush special features. A big part of the post process for us, was the foley and sound designing stages. They were fun and challenging; and there was always a need for time and patience. Layers must be built one at a time and then combined or filtered to get the right final sound.

In the meantime, while I put our The Hush version together, check out this video about Gary Hecker by Michael Coleman. Besides being insightful, it gives you a look into something that most movie goers take for granted, but this something brings the world movies take place in to life. Hecker is a seasoned professional who's worked on numerous high budget films, but it is an art form which he enjoys very much.



The funny thing is, when we did our foley passes on The Hush, we approached it in the same fashion (we had the same mindset and ideas for organizing ourselves and the executing the process). It seemed to come almost naturally. Granted our space was not as big, our equipment not as high-end and we don't nearly have as large a collection of sound making objects, we did spend the time and expelled our creativity in building our world with sound.

HomeMade Gear: The Cortez SoftKick

 I was actually tweaking with a really old small light housing and harness for a few years now; the light itself seemed to be a 100W flood light that was for news studio production. For the longest time I could not get "News Light" to work properly. When we finally sliced and diced its power supply and got it up and running, we realized three things: (1) The light itself needed to be plugged in to some type of power grid, that (A) I wasn't willing to buy and (B) why the hell would I buy it. (2) The lamp is this thin 100W lamp that is not even made anymore nor is there a manufactured equivalent. (3) The only thing of real value in the "News Light" was the light housing assembly itself (shape of the housing, the reflective - textured aluminum inner housing, bracket for mounting to stands).

Fast forward a few years later, and here I am looking to add another light that I can have some decent control over to my collection. On a few projects recently I have been using standard clamp on lighting (can be found at Home Depot; uses standard screw-in bulbs of varying wattage) to add variation or 'kick' here or there on an object or person. I won't go into to much technical detail because I think Scott explains it really well HERE.

Store bought CLAMP ON LIGHT (socket, clamp and housing) reference:

The lights themselves are handy. But the drawbacks for me have been: the inner reflector, I feel is very harsh and the clamp mount assembly can occasionally be annoying and flimsy.

I basically took apart the clamp housing and reflector, took the bare socket and cable, did some very minor drilling and cutting on the New Light housing, then transferred the clamp-on harness and secured it into the News Light housing.

NEWS LIGHT HOUSING with high rated internal socket and cable from the CLAMP LIGHT referenced above:

I put in a Reveal 60W G&E bulb (fairly inexpensive with a 'cooler' color temperature) and I am very happy with the results. The aluminum textured inner coating creates a softened yet even light. It is perfect for a slightly off camera rim light or kicker and it can mount to my light stands and adjusts easily. It is secured and functions like I hoped; I'll use it in whatever I work on next. Stay tuned!

UPDATE:
I've been using the 60W CFL light bulbs with a 5.5K color temperature and it works great as rim light and even a soft fill light.

The Hush - Official Poster

Here is the final design for "The Hush" movie poster. As much as I enjoy the teaser poster, I wanted a solid and conventional movie poster that conveyed the atmosphere of the film, yet maintained the graphic novel feel of the teaser. Enjoy.

Roamer - halfway through shooting

 Vincent Cortez working with Chuck Phelps and Zachary Gossett

I am happy to say that we finished about 60% of the filming for the project.

We ended up focusing on shooting all of the INT. scenes our first weekend of production. The shoot went well, though I was a little over zealous with the scheduling. So we will finish off the rest of the film in two coming shoot days.

I am working with a really solid team of people and I want to make sure that we give everything it's due time. From our cast to our sound team, through FX and Camera/Lighting, everyone brought so much creativity and energy to the project. I thank them for their commitment and time.

Here is some behind the scenes imagery from the film. Thanks to Jesse Dana (Director of Photography), Anthony Lucero (2nd Camera Op) and Phil Velasquez (Special FX Designer and Artist) for taking the photos.

Zachary Gossett is Soldier 072. 

Chuck Phelps is Oz (with FX Makeup by Phil Velasquez).

Stay tuned as there will be plenty to come.