Case Study: Moxion delivers on Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged

Unhinged, written by Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia) and directed by Derrick Borte (American Dreamer), stars Oscar winner Crowe alongside Caren Pistorius & Gabriel Bateman. It follows an ordinary, everyday incident to its most terrifying conclusion when a mother leans on her horn at the wrong time, to the wrong guy.

James Portolese, VP of Physical Production at Solstice Studios says the benefits of Moxion stacked up pretty fast on Unhinged, a project that presented unique challenges as a highly mobile shoot.

“The production was on the road every day with huge amounts of action, car crashes, freeway chases and lots of tension. But the team were thrilled with how well Moxion Immediates worked in that environment,” he says.

"From reviewing a take in a command van while you’re driving to the re-set position and not have having to run to the director to check the footage from several blocks away, it is an amazing tool. 

“Also, being on second unit and pulling references for an insert shoot and reviewing footage on the fly to determining how much more time you need at a location, Moxion, and specifically Immediates, saved our production time every day during the shoot,” says James.

James reports that once people saw Moxion in action they were sold.

“Our director, Derrick Borte, was initially skeptical when he first heard about it. Everything changed when he was setting up a shot on the main unit and I walked over to him to show him an exciting element of a car chase which 2nd Unit was shooting around the corner. He was truly impressed by the immediacy of Moxion. The next day he was able to approve and tweak the second unit from four blocks away without having to physically go back and forth between units.”

Moxion helped James and the Unhinged team nail their schedule - and even get ahead of it.

"The best example of saving time happened on a freeway location that we had scheduled for four days. We were so spread out on the freeway (so many splinter units) at times it was difficult to see who was getting what footage. In order to give us an idea of where we were at, we had our assistant editor put all of the footage together after a day and a half of shooting. We ended up deciding we had all the footage necessary for the exits and entrances onto the freeway and we moved on, a day ahead of schedule!"

Edward Churchward, CTO of Solstice Studios was equally impressed. ”Moxion is a fantastic platform and has changed the way we function both in production and in post. The Moxion team provided first class customer support from start to finish and we look forward to further integrating with them on future productions.”