Bad Vibes in the Studio
S2S Post have been having a macabre time with Reverb, a horror movie set in the claustrophobic confines of a recording studio. The Film is the debut feature of Writer/Director Eitan Arusi.
Alex and Maddy, two guerilla musicians, set about laying down one last track, far into the night,
but they find an unusual noise buried in the session. As they strip it of its various elements they suddenly find they are listening to a chilling , hidden cry for help...
Says Chris Atkins of S2S, who was also executive producer of the feature: “In the Grade the production was after a unique & intensive look. On this budget it could only be obtained using High Definition processed by our newly installed Final Touch DI Grading Suite.”
“This has all the grading features of a Lustre or Baselight system, but at a fraction of the cost - a saving passed on to low-budget producers. So on Reverb they could afford two weeks grading on our Final Touch system - to experiment with different grading styles to get the right look - at a cost which would only have bought perhaps 3 days on the other systems.”
“This is film where the aesthetic is crucial and it is a very ‘cutty’ film – so they needed as much time as possible. Shooting HD gave them a head start as we bypassed the film scanning stage.”
The film was shot on both HDCam and HDV from VMI. As there was a “film within a film” - a documentary – the production wanted this to have the raw feel you associate with documentaries. Therefore the “film within a film” was shot on HDV Z1s.
Eitan Arusi and Producer Frank Manion are both delighted with the end result. “We couldn’t have wished for a better-looking and sounding finished film. The Grade has delivered a visceral and dynamic look that has lifted the film to another level. And having the audio mixing in the same facility was massively useful. Vince Watts’ brilliant sound design – which is arguably the most important element of a horror film – has made the film truly terrifying in all the right places.”
