Following the recent premiere, British actors James McAvoy and Mark Strong are currently appearing extensively on our TV screens to promote their new British blockbuster movie, “Welcome to the Punch” released in cinemas across the UK on March 15th. The new Brit-action thriller is written and directed by Eran Creevy working alongside Executive producer Ridley Scott. Creevy, who achieved a BAFTA nomination for his directional debut with the 2008 Urban Thriller “Shifty” describes the experience of working with Scott as “incredible”, adding he felt “privileged to be in the same room as him and be treated like an equal”. The story is that of a former criminal, Jacob Sternwood (Strong) who returns to London from his Icelandic hideaway when is son is involved with a heist gone wrong. This gives Max Lewinsky (McAvoy), one last chance to catch the man he’s always been after.
Some eighteen months before the release of this action packed thriller had even been announced, Lugo Hotel Furniture were delighted to be invited by the production team to become involved in the set design for one of the pivotal scenes of the film.
The Lugo team worked very closely with acclaimed set Director, Crispian Sallis (son of British actor Peter Sallis), head of Red Diesel productions, and a previous winner of an Emmy for his work on Ridley Scott’s epic film “Gladiator”.
Lugo were briefed in great detail to produce a complete five star hotel bedroom set at Three Mills Studios in East London, where the scene was filmed. This included designing and producing all furniture within the scene as well as the soft furnishings. As this luxurious bedroom set was to be showered with bullets during the scene, Lugo’s design team had to pay careful attention to every detail of the furniture to ensure that it performed for the cameras. The glass used on table tops, wardrobe handles and mirrors was specially constructed so that it shattered exactly as the Director had instructed. Similarly the chair, sofa and bed cushions were filled with fine feathers to enable them to explode for the camera upon impact.
Three exact sets of each piece of furniture had to be manufactured by Lugo for the five star bedroom suite in order to allow Crispian Sallis and his team a couple of ‘takes’ to achieve the perfect final scene from different camera angles.
All those at Lugo who were involved with this exciting project are looking forward to a company night out to the local cinema to watch this fantastic piece of British film-making and to spot the fruits of our labour on the big screen. Project co-ordinator to Lugo, Kelly Knight comments “It was a fantastic project to be involved in, and although I can’t wait to see the movie I imagine it will also be quite unsettling to watch our furniture being sprayed with bullets in the hotel shoot-out scene!”.
