We’ve been selling a lot of tactical gear to production companies and probable get a phone call a couple times a month from wardrobe companies from Universal Studios and MGM but there are several Indie production companies that have come to the Philadelphia asking about technical support like how holsters are worn, Police Badges from City to City, and even an occasional foreign production company that is shooting locally. We pay a lot of attention to production, tactics and gear in movies. As someone who worked in the Music Industry for more than a decade, we saw bands like rock bands purchase their own studio equipment after proving to their record label, that they could produce their own music on their own recording budget . Moving from Analog to digital recording saved a ton of production money and after time, the bands learned to produce things on their own, sometimes they even went on to start their own labels.
It seems that movie production companies many times whore off some of their budgets as long as they get their money back and if not, contracts don’t get fulfilled or actors give up with butting heads and retire. Everyone knows about the bands that left the major labels in the music business and are much happier on their own, but it happens in the Movie industry as well. Many actors get tied to contracts in movies they don’t like and it’s now very common for actors to move on to producing, writing and directing because the ability to make movies has gotten easier and they can produce whatever they want . I’ve always paid attention to “Indie” bands and now with the way movies are ordered right off the TV, but depending on your tastes, not everything is going to be there. It’s always part of my night time venture to see if something new has come out. There are now all types of movies being released on Red Box, which is a movie rental kiosk that you probable see in certain stores.
Action Movies and Criminal Justice movie production aren’t all about big budgets and a bunch of fireworks to make it look cool. The same story is in just about every Love, Action or Drama, but to tell it well, you need good choreography , the costumer designers and Wardrobes have to be accurate, and the fight scenes can look dumb if directed by someone inexperienced with their firearms, firearm accessories or physical stances. I can’t stomach watching movies where the production allowed a S.W.A.T. Team movie through a building with their fingers on the trigger or some fast frame sequence made the actor look like he knows Karate. It looks like Steven Seagal is secure in his home in the direct to TV movies like True Justice – Dark Vengeance from Voltage Pictures. I have to admit I waited for anticipation to see when Elijah Kane ( Steven Seagal) would take someone down with his bare hands and got that artwork in the first 10 minutes of the movie. I can’ t tell you what Japanese Martial Arts he was deploying but when he had to pull his gun out mid-movie to shutdown a gun buy from a bunch of criminals, it was obvious he had his trigger off the trigger until his sights were on target.
In “Dark Justice” Kane’s department is on the hunt for a serial killer that is using date rape drugs to murder women, There’s plenty of eye candy in this film Seattle Police Officers Juliet (Meghan Ory) and Sarah Montgomery (Sarah Lind) (- both had parts in the TV Series “Smallville”) kept my attention from going from Cop to well… you’ll find out in the movie. Also, several well known actors like George Takei have parts in the movie. The story all has hints of Steven Seagal’s Asian Influences in Martial Arts as well as Mysticism , but I’d say they are subtle and not overbearing. With over 50,000 fans on Facebook, which is huge in the marketing world, I’m sure there will be more to come. I thought Dark Vengeance seemed a little rushed in the last 15 minutes of the movie and only picked up 1 part of the production that hinted at the movie budget, but not having to pay for over priced movie theatre tickets I actually and going to check out redbox movies more often. From what I’ve gathered this was completed several years ago and nobody knew if it was going to TV or being sold as a DVD. Entertaining? Yes.
We had our Tru-Spec Rep in our store a few days ago to show us some of the new stuff coming in right now and later this year. Everyone that goes to SHOT Show always talks about how it’s flooded with the same old same old, and rarely am I impressed by more than a half dozen NEW products each year. It’s usually a fad, or some high priced product, that we know we aren’t going to be moving in large volumes, so does it really matter to us or our customers? The problem we’ve had filling within our clothing line, was the customer base that wore the Woolrich Elite Series product line and the Eotac. Finding a company to make a 100% cotton ripstop pant that doesn’t shrink and was durable was a hard task. And since those companies are gone, we get a lot of customers that are looking to replace their old inventory with something new, but since so much of the tactical clothing market is filled with 65%/35% Polyester Cotton, it’s really hard to point people toward other brands.
