Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Hussey.
Hi Sean, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in rural Oxford, Connecticut. The son of a helicopter electrician and a nurse, I found a love of the arts from an early age, performing on stage and working on crew. In high school, I began to explore filmmaking and video content creation, always motivated by films that inspired me as a child: the original ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Toy Story,’ and Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar.’
This love of filmmaking led me to pursuing it professionally, and I found myself falling in love with the city of Savannah, its budding film market, and the Savannah College of Art and Design. At SCAD, I always put my best foot forward and was quickly presented with incredible opportunities. I found the path of producing, putting together projects, and leading them from conception to completion.
As I look towards graduating from my undergrad in the next six months, I am just so thankful to be in such a successful position thanks to SCAD.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
While I am very fortunate for my successes and opportunities, it has not always been a smooth road. The pandemic derailed my early college career, ending my freshman year prematurely and my sophomore year being entirely virtual. In an industry that relies so heavily to inter-personal communication and on-set camaraderie, this could very easily have set me back years or even taken me off my path altogether. But through persistence and a little bit of luck, I continued to open the door to opportunities for myself, defy the odds and maintain the course to getting my degree.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a Film and Television major at the Savannah College of Art and Design with a double minor in Producing for Film and Media and Business Collaboration. I have been able to produce award-winning sitcoms, branded content, web series, short films, and commercials, amongst others. I’ve been able to work with brands such as Coca-Cola, Epic Games (the creators of Fortnite), and Movado Jewelry. I even manage the SCAD Production Office, a department dedicated to student collaboration and production support.
However, the greatest opportunity SCAD has provided me is to work with their new XR Volume, a revolutionary piece of filmmaking technology used on professional productions such as ‘The Mandalorian,’ ‘The Batman’, and several Marvel movies, including ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ and the upcoming ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.’
SCAD was the first university in the world to have its own XR Volume and the only university in the world to have two, one each at their Savannah and Atlanta campuses. I have been working with the XR Volume and Virtual Production for over a year now, which is already puts me ahead of most industry professionals. Nowhere else can I get so many hands-on experiences with such groundbreaking technology. Having the chance to work with such incredible technology so early in my career is a dream come true, and something I never expected.
I like to tell the story that in my senior year of high school after I had already committed to SCAD, I had the opportunity to attend the unveiling of this technology at a convention in Chicago. Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic, two of my dream companies, opened the floodgates to the future of filmmaking. All I could imagine at that time was how it would be so cool to work on something like that in ten, maybe fifteen years into my career. Little did I know I would be one of the first college students in the world working with this technology just three short years later.
All of this has culminated in my thesis project, which is currently ongoing, called ‘Carved in Stone,’ a five-episode web series that combines traditional filmmaking, XR Volume filmmaking, and virtual production CGI shots. The project has been in development since February of 2022 and completed principal photography last month in December. The series follows Amelia Sloane, an archeological photographer who believes that artifacts belong with their cultures, not locked up in a museum. After the death of her mentor on an expedition gone wrong, Amelia inherits his collection of valuable artifacts and collectibles, including the legendary sword Excalibur. Amelia is tasked with returning the sword to the stone from which it was drawn, but after she leaves the sword in the wrong hands, it’s a race with the fate of the world at stake.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I have many people who have supported me along the way that I wouldn’t be here without. First, I’d like to thank my parents for their endless support and love throughout my life and career. They have provided me with the confidence and ability to pursue my dreams and shoot for the stars. I would also like to give credit to my best friend and rock Jay Hochberg, who I met on my very first day at SCAD and has been my greatest cheerleader and a constant stream of support throughout my time at SCAD.
At SCAD, I have countless classmates and mentors who have worked with me on projects or given me opportunities. These include my mentors: D.W. Moffett, chair of Film and Television; Andra Reeve-Rabb, Dean of the School of Film and Acting; Dan Bartlett, Dean of the School of Animation and Motion; and Steve Stanley, professor – Film and Television. Classmates and peers who deserve the utmost credit for their work are: Alyse Landry, one of my fellow producers and managers at the SCAD Production Office; Porter Justus, director of our thesis project ‘Carved in Stone’, and Henry Fischer, the Director of Photography of our thesis project, ‘Carved in Stone.’
Outside of SCAD, I would like to thank my professional mentors Matthew Ward and Leo Ochoa, both from Gearbox Entertainment, for their guidance throughout my career and wisdom as I explore my future.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://seanhusseyproductions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realseanhussey/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanhusseyprod/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealSeanHussey
- Other: https://carvedinstoneseries.com
