The Hush challenges its audience to think. In director Vincent Cortez’s vision it's a surreal journey into both the gritty criminal world and the supernatural. His goal is to see The Hush go from film noir to horror to supernatural to action thriller. Cortez wanted to produce this independent film with the quality and caliber that would see his artistic passions come to life. He wanted to challenge the audience to rethink the way they experienced movies. Cortez's own Oakland-based Mitchell Street Pictures produced The Hush which has already received an honorable mention at the LA Reel Film Festival highlighting the world’s best independent films. Telling the story of a hit man dealing with his own ghosts and the dark forces of the criminal world Cortez had to be able to use different lighting color schemes sounds and a host of other production and post production techniques to keep the audience challenged. The main character Freddy “the Hush” Burnett goes through some dynamic changes during the film requiring the production to change at a moment’s notice and all within a budget that wouldn’t even cover the catering charges for a mid-sized film. Even though Cortez is known by his friends as a one-man filmmaking army in order to keep true to his ultra-stylized look for The Hush he required the right film making and production tools to allow him to complete the film under a tight budget while maintaining the highest film making quality. Cortez was drawn to Blackmagics Design's Intensity Pro card as part of his filmmaking arsenal. Every part of the production and post-production of The Hush was done using Blackmagic’s Intensity Pro. “I had a vision for this film and the reality of getting it done was the fact that me and my crew had to be entirely self sufficient. The Intensity Pro allowed that while allowing me to create without compromise. As an independent artist working outside of the big budget system I found that Blackmagic products cater directly to my needs. They are strong flexible and affordable ” says Cortez. The Hush was shot in a variety of different locales around Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area. Cortez’s production had to be mobile and easy to set up in any number of different situations. Whether the shot called for day-for-night interiors or a brisk late night where characters hid in the dark Cortez’s technology had to be ready to work flawlessly at a moments notice because reshoots later were not an option. Cortez pulled together a production system that included Mac Pro towers running Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects a Canon HD camera a CRT monitor all working with the Intensity Pro card. Footage was captured directly from the camera to Final Cut Pro using the Intensity Pro card’s ability to handle HDMI which also allowed real time viewing on the production’s CRT monitor. Shot in ProRes 422HQ for its high quality while requiring much less storage Cortez was able to able to capture more than seventy five percent of the film directly onto the Mac’s hard drive allowing him to avoid extra storage costs. The quality of the footage that the Intensity Pro was capable of capturing was “truly stunning.” Cortez says “We basically carted around a small CRT monitor 25 feet of HDMI cable and the Mac Pro as our own mobile production studio. The glue that tied all of these together was the Intensity Pro which allowed me to use the cost effective HDMI technology of the monitor and Mac tower to capture and monitor in real time. The Intensity Pro was a real production workhorse.” “And my director of photography absolutely loved the Intensity Pro’s ability to allow her to check her shots in real time. The ability to do immediate testing of shots light set up and balance and a dozen other changes made us much more efficient and able to immediately adjust and tweak shots. And for an independent film maker efficiency is golden.” Following production the film moved to the postproduction facility at Mitchell Street Pictures. Here they completed everything from initial edits on Final Cut Pro to color correction/stylization using Adobe After Effects followed by complete sound design and soundtrack development. One of the biggest challenges in post-production was setting the proper moods within each scene. This meant that color stylization and graphics had to play a major role in placing the audience within the various scenes. To accomplish this Cortez relied on Adobe’s After Effects and Intensity Pro. In mastering The Hush Cortez would preview the color effects and graphics within After Effects using the HDMI output capabilities of the Intensity Pro. Final shots were then sent back to Final Cut Pro where the Intensity Pro could easily and efficiently communicate between the tools. “After Effects was our prime tool for setting the right mood for scenes and bringing the audience within the film’s story. Being able to move shots we created within After Effects back to Final Cut Pro and having the same accurate representation was easily done with the Intensity Pro ” says Cortez. To finish The Hush Cortez used the Intensity Pro card for all audio mixing using the card’s audio outputs to give accurate audio signal of all sounds from dialogue to ambiance to his original soundtrack. Cortez was able to handle all ADR and foley recordings using the RCA output on the Intensity Pro card which was connected to fifty feet of AV cable and then transmitting a down converted signal to an NTSC monitor in a home made sound booth. “Blackmagic is a company that really met my needs as an independent film maker and their belief that creativity does not need to be dependent on whether or not you have a high production budget was important in allowing me to get The Hush done ” says Cortez.
