is a senior producer for LAist’s on-demand team, who focuses on arts, culture and entertainment in Los Angeles.
With our free press under threat and federal funding for public media gone, your support matters more than ever. Help keep the LAist newsroom strong,“They're well known in the industry for being a place to rent a lot of hard-to-find electronics,” Dzicek said.
“Imagine walking into a shop that would be in the world of Harry Potter, and there's just racks that go to the ceiling with everything that you can think of … military and airplane supplies to electronics … vintage microphones and knife switches.” In addition to various knobs that he repurposed for the show, Dzicek also found an FM signal generator from the ‘80s, which served as a model for a decibel-reading device used by the character Steve Harrington, as seen in the teaser trailer:Dzicek isn’t the only special effects designer who’s walked the halls of Apex Surplus. The shop’s co-owner, Adam Isaacs, estimates their credits span 5,000 different productions, including sci-fi classics like So how did a nearly 70-year-old recycling business become a go-to destination for Hollywood designers?Apex Surplus is a third-generation family-owned business, first opened in 1958 by husband and wife Bill and Charlotte Slater. Bill Slater was a Holocaust survivor who fled Austria in the 1940s and served in the U.S. army during World War II. After the war, he moved to Southern California, which was atraging, aerospace companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Bendix Company were building at a rapid rate, with lots of materials left over. Slater decided to leverage his military connections and open an aerospace liquidation business and surplus front.“ My grandpa would drive around with a semi-truck in the ‘60s and ‘70s and essentially recycle all of their old scrap metal,” according to Isaacs, who said subsidiaries of the aerospace hub in San Fernando Valley would then come to Apex to shop for secondary parts. As Apex’s inventory grew in the 1960s, Isaacs said the business expanded and started catching the eye of set decorators and production designers in the TV and film industry.After Bill and Charlotte Slater’s death, Apex was passed down to their children, Melissa and Don Slater. Melissa now co-owns Apex Surplus with her son, Adam Isaacs, who said customers today range from folks outside the film industry, like electricians, plumbers, sculptors and artists, to set and production designers who work on films — anyone with a practical, aesthetic or historical interest in vintage or obsolete electronics.Isaacs said, at heart, Apex still is a scrap metal, electronics and aerospace recycling and surplus business, though its also has embraced its role as a film prop and rental house.“Our close proximity to Hollywood has allowed us to open up this prop division and work with a lot of talented people,” Isaacs said. “There's so much creativity and artistry being produced in L.A. … We're very fortunate that we were able to reinvent ourselves as a production hub.”If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.At LAist, we believe in journalism without censorship and the right of a free press to speak truth to those in power. Our hard-hitting watchdog reporting on local government, climate, and the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis is trustworthy, independent and freely accessible to everyone thanks to the support of readers like you.Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else.Fast internet will soon arrive in parts of L.A. County for $25 a month. Here’s how to sign up
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