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Glenn Hetrick
Neville Page
Alchemy Studios Logo

Alchemy Studios is special make-up effects creator/designer. The company was originally founded in 1989 (but only incorporated in 1993) as the special effects (SFX) company Optic Nerve Studios, Inc. by effects artists John Vulich and Everett Burrell in the Vulich's garage in Granada Hills, before the company moved to larger premises in Sun Valley, California. The company became the first gainful employer of SFX artist Glenn Hetrick after he had moved to Hollywood from the East Coast in 1998. Along with longtime friend and collegue Neville Page, who became co-owner, Hetrick restructured "Glenn Hetrick's Optic Nerve Studios" in 2015 into "Hetrick & Page Alchemy Studios", or "Alchemy Studios" for short.

Work with Lady Gaga[]

Armor Sets, 2009[]

Matthew Williams contacted Hetrick after seeing a piece of clear armor he had designed for a film:

When I was first introduced to her, her art director I think it was at the time, came to me and explained that they wanted some sort of techno futuristic armor built for her, and that we were going to do different versions of it for different performances.

We had this long meeting in my office and he told me who the artist was, and I'd never heard of her. And he sort of went, very assuredly, "It's okay, no one has yet, but she's about to get huge." Now that's something you hear in the industry a lot, and often it's a pitch, like "Hey do this for me, because..." and that's not where they were at all. They were just saying, "We're here, we want these designs done, we've got the budget to do it." And it was really freaky for us, because she wasn't on the map yet, and we started building this stuff, and by the time we completed the armor, she had the number one song in the world. So it was like we were right there when that happened, which is very exciting.

We built her several suits of this armor. We did an all black metallic version of it, we did a clear see-through version of it, we did a really cool sort of china teacup version where even though it was sort of a roboty looking future armor, it was white with this sort of blue flowering all over it like china has, and each one had like a very avant-garde type of hat that went with it, and for each set of armor it was different.

—Glenn Hetrick

A Metal — January 18-19, 24-27, 29-30, February 5-6-8-9-10, 13-14, 19, 2009
B Clear — January 21-22, 25, 28, February 1-3, 12, 15-17, 2009

Sculptural headpiece, 2009[]

The headpiece was worn during "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)" at The Fame Ball on select dates in 2009.

Disco Torch, 2010[]

The Disco Torch is a new disco stick model much larger than the original Disco Stick, a yellow light is given off when the torch is turned on. The crystal disco stick was made by Glenn Hetrick in collaboration with Tom Talmon Studio who did the illumination and programming. This new model also include a hand handle. It emits a yellow light from the helicopter light inserted inside of it. The Disco Torch have two "on" mode with one being simply being turned on and the other is a strobe feature.

It was first seen at the Monster Ball: Arena Version on February 26th 2010 during the performance of "LoveGame". Since then, this version of the Disco Stick been used throughout the Monster Ball Tour. Lady Gaga uses it as a flashlight (or "Torch"), before "Boys Boys Boys" to "get a good look" at the audience and see what they're wearing.

A new version, Disco Scepter replaced the Disco Torch in 2012 to 2013 during The Born This Way Ball Tour.

Temporary Tattoos, 2010[]

Custom tattoos (makeup) on the women in prison on January 28, 2010.
"I also did hundreds and hundreds of tattoos on people for her telephone videos." — Glenn Hetrick

Instruments, 2010[]

Pyramid-shaped keytar

This keytar was made to replace the one made by Gary Card during the band version of The Fame Ball from June 26 to August 23, 2009.

"So a lot of things you see, for instance, she has multiple versions of this really giant, almost M.C. Escheresque, it's a pyramid that has a keyboard built into it, so it's like a keytar pyramid thing. And we did a clear version with internal blacklighting and we did a purple version of that." — Glenn Hetrick

After The Monster Ball Tour, a new keytar was made by Armani Privé and was used during The Born This Way Ball in 2012 to 2013.

EMMA
Glenn Hetrick and his team created a custom instrument composed of an electric bass guitar, a two octave keyboard, and an Akai MPC1000 sampler (drum machine) with a violin-like scroll and extra decorations in an "antediluvian steam punk" style.
Lady Gaga used EMMA at the 2010 BRIT Awards during a remix of "Dance in the Dark" after an acoustic version of "Telephone". The instrument was also used during the revamped Monster Ball Tour during the performance of "The Fame." For the residency show Enigma in 2018, a new EMMA was used instead and the original was added to HAUS OF GAGA/LAS VEGAS at Park MGM in 2019.
"We built something she used extensively on the Monster tour. The next instrument was a giant custom hybrid instrument that uses a base, a synthesizer, and a digital recording drum machine that we put all together into one instrument and I made it sort of very antique Victorian. It's all rosewood with lots of brass inlays and hand-etched items all over it as decoration, and she calls that "Emma." And it's what she plays - it comes up out of the stage - it's sort of like a standup base – we even built her a bow, so she sometimes strings it like a cello." — Glenn Hetrick
"...The instruments were a completely new experiment for us. We hadn't built actual instruments, so that presented its own challenges, making sure that the materials we were using didn't have a quality that created extra resonance so that when she strung it the sound wouldn't bounce around inside the fiberglass body so that the pickups would hear extra sound. That was very difficult to work out." — Glenn Hetrick

Link[]

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