…Brian McLaughlin, our second deified Deviant. yay, Brian!

Brian has been working tirelessly over the past 8 months cleaning up sound, adding sound design and mixing it down into both 5.1 surround sound and LTRT – which is apparently a major bitch, but a necessary evil for Digi-beta masters, so thanks for taking another one for the team, Man!

But, Brian’s contributions don’t end there.  He’s also been toiling away at redesigning our websites (check out his work for Teenage Bikini Vampire and Confederate Zombie Massacre!), he’s responsible for the eye-catching Death in Charge poster AND he’s contributed to special fx and sound on numerous Deviant shorts, including Meat is Murder and I Spit on Eli Roth.

So without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the newly deified Brian McLaughlin….

Brian: Hey there, my name is Brian Y McLaughlin and I’m the Sound Designer for trippin’.  OK, I’m a bit more than that, as I also did sound mixing and a lot of sound cleanup work for trippin’ as well.  Personally, I’m a late comer to the trippin’ family, as I didn’t come on board the project until post production.  I’ve been doing corporate films and short films for almost twenty years, and in the past five years or so, I’ve started to specialize in the sound arena.  I LOVE sound effects (I have THOUSANDS in my library, and I used to scour the CD racks for sound effects CDs), and one of my heroes would be Ben Burtt, the man behind the Star Wars Sound FX.  (I actually got to meet him once at a convention.  I was a bit giddy)

Anyhow, I came on board in Post Production and I must say this movie was a blast to work on.  The movie was very entertaining to start with, and all the work we’ve done on it has really made it shine, be it sound or visual FX, they’ve all transformed it into a really awesome flick.  For me, this is the second feature I’ve done post sound work on, and I must say I’m really happy with how it came out.  Previously I did post sound work on a feature called “Carnies,” and I’ve done production sound mixing for a couple of other features as well, “Harvey Putter and the Ridiculous Premise” and “Champion of Glory”, both of which are in the post production phase as of this writing.  I’ve also done other sound work on several short films, including “I Spit on Eli Roth” for Devi, which premiered this year at the Dragon Con Film Fest, and is the second short I’ve done post sound work on to premiere at that festival, the other being “Cannibal Lovers.” In conclusion, I’d just like to say, TRIPPIN’ ROCKS!

Deviant God Ian Strandberg

On a triumphant day for trippin’ a few months back, Kenny Dusek, who plays “Joe” in the movie  and is also my roommate in our “armaghetto chic” pad in Los Feliz, quoted this cheesy song in praise of one of our teammates for a job well done.  Since that time we offer our kudos to a particularly valuable member of the team on a regular basis. So this week, if God were one of us he’d be Ian Strandberg. 

You can check his hot shit out at vfx.ianstrandberg.com, but first let me tell you why this man is at “Deviant God” status.   Ian has worked his tail off the past 3 months overseeing our overseas special FX production by our good friends at the Wuhan Animation Studio in Wuhan, China.  (Sorry to be a pest, on your own commemorative post, Ian – but can we add a link to them here?  thanks!)  When all FX were delivered last month, he worked tirelessly for multiple 18-hour days with me to insert them into the footage, overcoming some scary frame rate concerns thanks to our somewhat confused editor, Sylvie D. Vine (we love ya, but learn to edit properly, Babe!) and finessing imperfections my blind eyes even failed to notice.  Among many other awesome touches, he rid some frames of C-stands and created a fun new risque effect we don’t dare mention aloud (oh, but you’ll know it when you see it.)  He also created and shot our first Deviant “muppet” – okay, we’d better call him a “puppet” to avoid copyright issues, but take a look at him and you’ll know what he really is.

If that isn’t enough, Ian also designed our new cover art, created our DVD menu and designed the DVD label.  And bless this man, he’s still on full speed ahead to launch the first stage of our website in the final moments before he takes a much deserved vacation later this evening.

Yes, Folks.  If God were one of us, he’d be Ian Strandberg right now.  Thank you, Ian.  Hallelujah, praise you!