articles
jwsound.net © 2009 All Rights Reserved
HISTORY of Jeff Wexler’s Sound Carts - 1970 to 2009
First cart, Cart No. 1, was built from a steel produce cart purchased from a company called Bonus Built. I changed the wheels, mounted a different top work surface which I covered with ribbed rubber matting and used oak wood trim as a surround. I also added some hooks for cables and one drawer under the top work surface. This cart was built around 1970 and I did most of the construction at my father’s commercial company, Dove Films on Seward Street in Hollywood.
Second cart, Cart No. 2, was customized by me from a cart which Ivan Kruglak designed, built and marketed from his company, Coherent Communications. Ivan designed the cart around a Sears built folding hand truck. This was actually a cart which could break down and travel flat if it had to. Once I was done with all the modifications I did to it, it really could not be collapsed. I used this cart starting in 1972 I believe. I know I used it on “Bound For Glory”, “Coming Home”, “The Brinks Job”, “Being There” and others.
The third cart, Cart No. 3, was the first that I built based on the design that Michael Evje had used for his sound cart. This was the first that I know of that adopted a vertical approach for a cart --- small and square footprint, series of vertical shelves (sliding to accommodate access to equipment), large rear fixed wheels and small front casters. The cart was generally moved by hiking it back on the rear wheels and pushing it around that way. The upright design proved to be a real advantage for me and I continued with that sort of design to the present day.
Building CART NO. 4, 1985 in my garage, Las Flores Canyon, Malibu, California. My father used to keep some of his cars (he had about 15) at my house. During the time I was building this cart, he had his V8 Porsche there. The reason for the two frames you see is that one of them was built with the wrong aluminum alloy --- when I had it Heli-Arc welding done it got so seriously tweaked I had to do another one.
The essential advantages for me were:
1. small footprint for the cart which was good for me
because I still liked to be close to the set, sometimes even on the set as we always were in the old days
-
2. easy to move around on the back wheels
3. could be carried upstairs easily with a large handle in back and small handles in front, carried at an angle by two people
4. equipment could all be mounted and wired up ready to work --- as soon as the cart was off the truck we were ready to work. The wrap was just as easy and fast --- not need to disconnect everything and put back in cases at wrap. The cart was designed to travel on a truck with the equipment mounted. The natural design shape of the cart provided excellent protection vs. the basic Magliner-style cart with all the equipment spread out on one surface exposed to the world.
I know I used this cart on “An Officer and a Gentleman” but I’m not sure when it was first built or on what picture it was first used.
Cart No. 3 was essentially destroyed, seriously damaged, on “Table For Five.”
We were shooting in Cairo and the Egyptian camera truck driver crashed the truck one day --- most all of the makeshift shelves holding all the camera gear collapsed and were being partially supported by the sound cart at the far end of the truck. We tried our best to bend the aluminum back into some recognizable shape but the cart was never the same. I did continue to use it up until "8 Million Ways To Die."
Jon Voight, Don Coufal and me at the Sphinx in Egypt. Stefano, to the left, was our Utility person from Italy CART NO. 3
I think I built Cart No. 4 during “8 Million Ways to Die” which was again an upright-style cart. For this cart I put the large rear wheels inboard again which made for a narrower footprint, since the cart was more narrow to begin with, but I was never too happy with the stability of the cart when moving it. Once completed, I used this cart first on “Tin Men” in 1986. The previous cart had been anodized, but for this one I decided to go with powder coating (paint process) which was less expensive and also did not require as much dis-assembly as anodizing. I used Pyramid Powder coating and they did a great job with a light gray color for the whole cart.
This cart was used from 1986 to 1994, 17 movies, and then during the making of “Strange Days” I built Cart No. 5.
“The Slugger’s Wife” in Atlanta, 1984. Don is booming Michael O’Keefe to create a playback track for a scene where he sings “Singin’ In The Rain” CART NO. 3
working on “The Natural” you can see the two fishpoles on the cart. The one with the Electro-Voice style windscreen (called the “football”) housed a Schoeps M-S setup for recording baseball stadium ambiences NO. 3
Moab, Utah in 1993, working on “City Slickers II”. Michael Anderson, the Key Grip on the movie, fashioned a custom canvas cover for the cart.
CART NO. 4
a cold day in Danbury, Connecticut on “Other People’s Money”, 1990 NO. 4
my daughter Vanessa, age 9, visits me on the set of “Memories of Me”. Vanessa is now 29 and the proud new mother of Abigail Withers born October 11, 2008
CART NO. 4
Cart No. 5: This was a "Case-based" cart built using a large SKB shockmounted rack case. I worked on it over the 30 nights we shot on stage (“Strange Days” was 70 nights of shooting and much of that on stage) and once completed I transferred all the equipment from the old cart to the new one. I used it for one day and hated it. Later, I gave it to Brian McCarty who used it for several years as a PLAYBACK cart. I have considered many times building another cart built around some sort of case, I know many others have done so with good results. I am just a little hesitant since I did such a bad job on my first attempt.
this is the sort of cases, this one from SKB, that people have been using to build the so-called “Case-based” carts.
I went back to Cart No. 4 for awhile, then built Cart No. 6.
The new cart shared essentially the same design as all the other upright carts, but this time I made it taller, allowing for more shelves. This was to accommodate the additional equipment being used. Since having to run backup the DAT machine, I had been running out of space on the old cart. Unfortunately, by making the cart just 5 inches taller, I found out (the hard way) that the cart would not fit upright in my Chevy Astro Van. I got a call to do a commercial in March, 2000 with Caleb Deschanel and when I started to load the equipment for the job I had to have the cart ride on its back --- it would not sit upright. Rather than change the cart, I sold the van, and I have been without a proper vehicle all these years. The first movie this new, larger cart worked on, was Billy Crystal's "*61". I have done 12 movies with this cart, from "Vanilla Sky" in 2000 to "Four Christmases" in 2008.
We put the whole cart and the follow cart in the Kawasaki Mule while working in New Zealand on “The Last Samurai”. We would load up in the morning from the sound truck and then drive to the set. It would have been impossible to move the cart around in the terrain we were shooting; the use of the Mule made it all possible. CART NO. 6
I have just completed Cart No. 7, January 9th, 2009. What prompted me to build a new cart was the need for a project --- the threat of an SAG strike had stopped any and all feature films I might have been working on, so I thought I would build a new cart.
I wanted to get back to a smaller, lighter cart, and of course something that wasn’t so tall to require a large vehicle. Also, now that I do not need or use all the backup stuff I used to, there was less need for such a big cart with so many shelves. I was originally going to build a really small cart for a simple setup of the Deva and the MIX-8 interface. Since I wasn’t sure I would be using this type of setup all the time, I did design the new cart to hold the Cooper 208 mixer. Accommodating the Cooper caused the cart to be larger (and heavier) than it would be with the Deva - MIX-8 setup, but I still managed to make the overall cart smaller and lighter.
I incorporated one design feature I had never done before, something I had learned from Rob Stalder of the Australian company, RastOrder. Rob builds most of his carts as two-piece carts so they can be broken down into two modules --- this helps with vehicle choices and also offers the possibility of using just the upper main half of the cart for camera car work.
typical produce cart
sound asleep on “Coming Home”, Rancho Los Amigos Hospital, 1976 CART NO. 2
CART NO. 6 - the tall one
in Paris on “Forget Paris”with Billy Crystal, 1994 CART NO. 4
