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McGrew Studios

McGrew Studios

Specialty costume, prop, decor, design & fabrication for the entertainment industries.

Appointments and Info:
801-596-2210
info@mcgrewstudios.com
Our workshops are based in Northern Utah.
Projects available across the USA - and the Universe!
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Behind the Scenes

Staff and friends, 2010. Photo: Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribune.

Core Group: An Artistic Bunch…

JENNIFER McGREW
Cutter-draper-pattern-maker, tailor & dressmaker, crew chief & shop management.  Loooong history designing and building for theater, musicals, ballet, mascots & corporate  – plus over the past decade- for film, tv, commercials and other oddities including producer, professor & script developer.  BA, MA, MFA.
$500 set monkey or day rate,
$600 design/build day rate
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5263962/?ref_=nv_sr_1
http://jennifermcgrew.com/

ROBERT HIRSCHI
Tech guru, photography, videography, drone pilot, programming and applications plus VFX specialties including compositing, animations, blood, fire, water, magic, making things disappear and making things explode. Musical composition, mixing, soundtracks and editing. AI generated imagery, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Disco Diffusion, Lucid Sonic Dreams XL, Blender, Unreal Engine, Marvelous Designer, ZBrush, iClone, Adobe Premiere, Aftereffects, HitFilm Express, Sony Vegas Pro, A-Frame, advanced Java, JavaScript, Jquery, PHP, CSS, HTML5 and naturally, WordPress. Robert is a developer for a variety of websites, among them McGrew Studios. The consummate outsider artist and musician, one of Robert’s most recent youtube channels, BBGun, is populated with quarantine-era specialties featuring ‘Robert and the Clones’ as well as songs with his BBGun bandmates.
$500 day rate, or per-project bids for VFX, editing, animating, coding, databases, websites, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/c/RobertHirschi
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4442489/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_30
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmvfvIJu7MFk8t3aPApC5Ng/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ranoblood/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/NoBloodtoSpare/videos

HRAEFN WULFSON
Pronounced “Raven” (it’s Anglo Saxon), is a fine artist, painter, producer and production designer. Nearly a decade working in Los Angeles on sets, props, miniatures and special effects for lots of commercials and a bunch of films you know and love including Holes, Windtalkers, The Alamo and more. Hraefn has spent a lifetime studying runes, their origins, their artistic representations and lore, and is currently in preproduction for a new program you’ll find fascinating (and possibly quite controversial) called The Rune Show.
$500 day rate
$600 on set or design day rate

https://www.hraefnwulfson.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1442084/?ref_=nv_sr_1
https://www.instagram.com/hraefnwulfson/

CRIT KILLEN
Master creator of props and special effects for films you love including Blade Runner, Titanic and Beettlejuice.  Crit taught screenwriting at UCLA/USC and production design at BYU and has consulted on scripts of 90+ Hollywood feature films.  Crit currently teaches screenwriting at Utah Valley University. His career spanning 34 years has given him the opportunity to work on some eighty five motion pictures in production design and on another ninety some films behind the scenes, crafting stories and consulting on script and film structure.
$600 day rate
$700 on set or design day rate
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0453139/?ref_=nv_sr_1

CAROLYN RICHARDSON
Illuminated illustrations, captivating caricatures and fantastic costume renderings. Carolyn is a frequent guest artist at the corporate gatherings of Adobe, USANA, Lagoon, Young Living and many more who treat their employees with her heirloom portraits. A production manager plus costume and props designer/technician, she also creates promotional illustrations for websites and media campaigns. Carolyn is a production manager and art director for Buie Entertainment plus an accomplished Salsa dancer.
$100 per hour charicatures rate or per-project bids for book projects, illustrations, costume renderings, etc.
https://www.instagram.com/carolynmrichardson/
https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.richardson.902
https://www.buieentertainment.com/

DAVID POWELL
David specializes in fine art, storyboards and concept art plus is a master leather worker and armor designer for live performances as well as motion picture spectacles including the films of Arrowstorm Entertainment. He is also a lead designer for Utah’s famous themed live attraction, Evermore. A craftsman specializing in industrial design and CAD applications, David’s work includes metalsmithing and fabrication for Badali Jewelry’s licensed specialties inspired by films and novels, to one-of-a-kind collectible ensembles for discriminating clients.
$500 day rate or per-project bids for concept art, storyboards, artisan leather work, etc.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5800285/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr47
https://www.instagram.com/powellartsworkshop/


A Brief History of McGrews

Updated 2/14/2016

 In 2001, McGrews opened its doors to the public in downtown Salt Lake City.
From a modest 300 square foot commercial loft space, our workshops have expanded to a more than 3000 square foot storefront (and for particular projects – up to 10,000 feet of workspace and showroom). From its humble beginnings as a sole proprietorship, McGrews is now operated by several designers and their artisan staff, plus at least two college interns every semester.
The Pierpont Avenue storefront looked like this, below, in 2010, prior to a major remodel.

A neighborhood focal point on Salt Lake’s historic Pierpont Avenue since 2001, McGrews has added appeal and magic to the downtown area.

Our shop, along with our staff and friends have played host, formally and casually, to the many gallery strollers, tourists, photographers, journalists and adventurers who’ve perused the block’s interesting features.

As a cultural anchor, we’ve provided a hub for society’s movers. At special gallery events, meetings and impromptu get-togethers, celebrities, artists, composers, authors, chefs and politicians have congregated. Many citizens have stopped by over the years to chat about the news of the day and their current projects.

The personal and professional paths of many people have intersected and shifted course within our midst.

Clients and projects have included everyone and everything imaginable, from films and plays to political campaigns, dance productions and pets.

December 2015 ended with McGrews (plus 99% of Pierpont Avenue’s other tenants) moving out! We moved nearly fifteen years worth of collected materials, tools, costumes, props and fixtures, and it was quite an ordeal! The historic building we occupied for so long was purchased earlier in the year by out-of-town investors who more than quadrupled the rents…. and thus goes the timeless tale of gentrification.

Location shooting. 60 mph winds on the Salt Flats to make our Wheel of Time-inspired film "Flight from Shadow"
Location shooting. 60 mph winds on the Salt Flats to make our Wheel of Time-inspired film “Flight from Shadow”
Our designers and crew are enthusiastic about our NEW location in Salt Lake’s Granary District.
 Our new, larger space allows us to build larger productions plus host more guest designers, workshops and events.
 Regardless of where we do the majority of our actual work (for some projects we rent extra warehouse space plus we’ll often take our work home with us), the view shared by everyone on our team is that each project and each performative event deserves excellence in its form and function, engineering and execution, tailoring and fit. That’s the way it is with this bunch.
 Naturally, there are many good stories about how everyone met one another and decided to join forces. Jen, though, scolds that “collaboration” is the wrong word. “Collaboration,” she thinks, is something college students are forced to do in ‘group work.’ In the real world, she says, the discriminating and determined among us get to choose our associates and co-creators.

Operation managers Jen and Hraefn, hamming it up for a photo. Designer and shop steward Jen oversees all the tailoring and wearable elements of the business. Producer and designer Hraefn (pronounced "Raven") Wulfson oversees everything related to production design, sets, props, miniatures and special effects. Both have long resumes in the entertainment world and both work in client relations as well as script development. They are tireless artistes who champion excellent form and function in the things they create and the projects/people they supervise. On some occasions, they even wear costumes.
Shop operations managers Jennifer McGrew and Hraefn Wulfson ham it up for a photo.
Jen oversees the costumes, tailoring and wearable elements of the business.
Hraefn (pronounced “Raven”) Wulfson oversees everything related to production design, sets, props, miniatures and special effects.
Both have long resumes in the entertainment world and both work in client relations as well as script development. They are tireless artistes who champion excellent form and function in the things they create and the projects/people they supervise.
On some occasions, they even wear costumes.

Pierpont Avenue storefront. Always interesting people passing through the neighborhood. Hraefn Wulfson and Charmone Ford.
Pierpont Avenue storefront. Always interesting people passing through the neighborhood. Hraefn Wulfson and Charmone Ford.

Teaching DIY cosplay classes at the Leonardo Museum in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake Comic Con’s owner Dan Farr with Danielle Chard and Jennifer McGrew.

Kabrina Miller as Moiraine Damodred from our second 'Wheel of Time' inspired film, currently in production
Kabrina Miller as Moiraine Damodred from our second ‘Wheel of Time’ inspired film.

Hraefn and Russ, working on giant stage props for USANA
Hraefn and Russ, working on giant stage props for USANA

A few of our crew (Eliza, Jessica, Jen and Ivonne) running the Cosplay Competition and the Cosplay First Aid Station (giving free costume repair supplies and services to all Salt Lake Comic Con attendees). 2014
A few of our crew (Eliza, Jessica, Jen and Ivonne) running the Cosplay Competition and the Cosplay First Aid Station (giving free costume repair supplies and services to all Salt Lake Comic Con attendees). 2014

Staff and friends, steampunk in Salt Lake. Photo courtesy of Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribune
Staff and friends, steampunk in Salt Lake. Photo courtesy of Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2010.

Pierpont Avenue, home of McGrew Studios. Photo courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Pierpont Avenue, home of McGrew Studios. Photo courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune.

A BOWSER custom head, in progress at the shop
A BOWSER custom head, in progress at the shop

The shop gets its family name from Jennifer McGrew. She started sewing and building costumes as a youngster. Some forty plus years later, she still hasn’t been able to kick this habit.
Maybe this is a beer advertisement? Jennifer McGrew, Sundance Film Festival 2017.

In fact, for decades she has indoctrinated many others-  friends and collaborators as well as colleagues, interns, clients and the public into adopting her peculiar world view that things should be made beautifully and with quality. She is something of a sartorial tyrant on these particular matters. But it is also widely known that she is a warm friend as well as a fierce ally, mentor and cheerleader to many.
Prior to returning to Utah in 2001 and opening the shop in downtown Salt Lake City, she lived on both coasts and worked at several regional performing arts companies. She built, designed or managed wardrobe, crews, and clients for their productions plus for many other professional organizations. She even completed two graduate degrees and taught college courses for fifteen years.
If you’re interested in seeing highlights of our team’s recent projects or info from our professional resumes, we encourage you to follow us on our social media sites plus our portfolio and press pages.

Copyright © 2023 McGrew Studios

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