Sound Guru Hemang Prajapati Joins New Film 'Social Conflict'

LOS ANGELES – Veteran sound expert and music producer Hemang Prajapati (“Among the Shadows”) has joined the upcoming film drama “Social Conflict,” from director Dwayne Barnes (“Stranded in the Motor City”).

“Social Conflict” tells the story of a decaying inner city Detroit school that is rocked by a shooting that opens up a Pandora's box to reveal a den of iniquity that rocks the community to its core. The film is executive produced by Nicci Gilbert-Daniels (“Broken Things”) and co-produced by Sareta Cheathem (“Code of Thieves”) and Jezar Riches (“Halt: The Motion Picture”).

“I am very pleased to be a part of this exciting project,” Prajapati said. “This film tackles issues such as mental health, sexuality, poverty, education, gun violence and abuse of power. It has a social message which grabbed my interest from the beginning.”

The film gives the India native the opportunity to share his talents which were honed on a variety of film projects over the years, like “Mermaid Down,” “Hangman,” “Maximum Impact,” as well as television series such as “Bridges Burnt, Tables Turnt,” “Decades Rock Live,” and others.

“Working on this film has been very rewarding and great fun. The director and producer were very open to suggestions and creative ideas,” Prajapati said. “The film had little bit of dark tone, but at the same time it was uplifting. I had a creative idea regarding this film where I suggested them that we would use dark and eerie sounds to enhance the emotion and mood for certain scenes and blend it with brighter sounds and it worked out great.”

With a background that includes work with a number of musical groups and recording artists, the veteran sound editor and music producer understands the importance that sound has to convey the emotional connection between a film and its audience.

“As famous American director George Lucas has said: ‘The sound is 50 percent of the entertainment in a movie.’” Prajapati explained. “Some directors and producers understand significance of it whereas, for some directors, , other aspects are more important like visuals. Nowadays, directors and producers are becoming more and more aware about substance of sound. They are realizing that it can make or break a film.”

Prajapati comes to the film after completing work on “Mino: A Diasphoric Myth,” a fantasy drama from writer/director Ashunda Norris (“12 Weeks”) after working on the thriller “Wayward Nature.”

“‘Mino: A Diasphoric Myth’ was really interesting one. It’s a fantasy and sci-fi project that takes you into a whole different world. “‘Wayward Nature’ was a horror and thriller film and before that was ‘Among the Shadows,’ ‘Maximum Impact,’ and ‘Hangman,’ so they’re all different genres and stories that are very different from each other and because of the variety of projects over the years that I had a chance to experiment with sound and learn a lot.”

As for the future, Prajapati remains optimistic about returning to work in a post-pandemic world: “Pandemic has struck everyone’s life in one or another way. It has affected our industry greatly,” he said. “We just have to learn to exist with it till we find efficient cure. Luckily, I had few projects during this pandemic which kept me busy during tough times. But I’m looking forward to working on more films and producing music for films and television.”