Lorain County company provides drone for Bruce Willis movie ‘Wake’
by Brad Dicken
CLEVELAND HTS. — A Lorain County company is making drones for the bad guys, at least those who dwell in Hollywood’s imagination.
Dronewerx is providing custom-built and ominous-looking drones for “Wake,” an action movie starring Bruce Willis and Ben Kingsley that began filming in the Greater Cleveland area Monday.
Matt Mishak and Mike Hanna, the men behind the company, packed up two of their newly crafted drones and headed out to the east side for the first day of shooting, just a day after they had completed the drones.
Mishak said they also learned one of the first lessons of movie making — things don’t always go to plan. They were scheduled to shoot an indoor scene that features their drone prowling through an old country club with dark leather furniture, but problems with getting some earlier scenes completed meant they got bumped from the day’s schedule.
He said they’re slated to return next month to shoot the delayed scene and about 10 others that will feature their drones.
Mishak said it’s just as well that the first day of shooting saw their Hollywood debut pushed off by a few weeks. A test flight of the backup drone ended with a malfunction that knocked the drone out of commission before they even left Lorain County.
“I was a little bit nervous about not having the backup drone, so maybe it was a little bit of a blessing in disguise,” Mishak said.
Mishak was nervous as he did test flights of the drone for the scene, but the craft drew impressed comments from the crew as he carefully piloted it near a fireplace.
“I could tell we hit the nail right on the head,” he said of the drones, which were designed to match the vision of director John Pogue.
