Page 40 - CNC West Web August - September

Justin Sofio spent his youth racing cars, but today he is an expert fabricator who does everything from modding out off world speeders to driving the double decker car rigs known as pod cars. “We build and rent a lot of pod cars,” tells Justin, one of J.E.M. F/X’s long time fabricators. “The actors sit in the car or truck and the stunt driver operates the rig from an alternate position. We drive and they act. We built pods for regular cars and futuristic transports, whatever the studio needs.”
and attitude are the most important thing in this shop. They employ a few kids with proper engineering degrees that originally came to them via an apprenticeship Elia has with the local high school. “Students shadowed my people after school and worked their summers here before going off to college,” chuckles Elia. “They graduate and end up getting a job in a cubicle working for some aerospace company. Most who get the taste of this business find it hard to leave. We offer challenges that wearing a tie and analyzing a bolt in a windowless room just can’t compete with. One by one they come back into the family. We break the monotony by the engineer being involved from start to finish. They go to the meeting, design it, program it, feed the information to the team, assemble it and take it to set. They watch it succeed or fail on set, in front of everyone with cameras rolling. I have real engineering companies call and ask what the secret sauce is that I feed my crew. The secret is getting them out of a cubicle and into the action with the people who use it. They won’t put the panel in front of the adjuster when they are the one makingtheadjustment,andeveryoneiswaitingforthem.”
Phillip has been with the company now for ten years.
Four of those years he spent primarily as a water jet operator. His background was in manufacturing prototype parts for off-road racing, a skill that pays off daily at J.E.M. F/X. “I’m more on the mills and lathe these days, but I still spend a lot of time on the water jets,” details Phillip. “All our job titles here are “anything and everything.” Wherever they need help you help. Doesn’t matter if it is woodwork, sheet metal, laser, design, CNC machining, or even going to set and blowing wind into some actor’s hair. J.E.M. F/X is 1000% a team effort.” Everything they do at J.E.M. F/X is short run prototype. If they make five of something that is a long run. “We are on a project from start to finish,” explains Phillip. “Our job is to interpret what the studio wants, design it, make it, and deploy it in the field. “Make one and make it now” should be our mantra but make one and make it by noon is just as common.” Items get used once on camera and tossed in the trash. A good example of this is a crane/winch device Phillip made for the TV Show S.W.A.T. “They had a scene that needed a crane that came out of the back of a pickup truck, got mounted into a hitch receiver and winched people from a mine shaft,”
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CNC WEST August/September 2021