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Lutter Panni
“We can fulfill virtually any request,” says Panni Lutter, set decorator and co-founder of Made in Helsinki, describing the location. An enormous studio that also serves as a scenery and prop storage, created by a set decorator and a production designer simply because they had seen a gap in the market. A place where you can shoot music videos, commercials or even movies; where organizing a special wedding or a house party is no problem. A place where you can drill or paint the walls and replace the flooring; one that includes a makeup room, has sufficient power, and offers thousands of props to use.
Made in Helsinki has served American, English, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Indian, and of course, Hungarian crews, working with stars such as Penélope Cruz or one of India’s most famous actors, Shah RukhKhan. Even so, Panni’s most coveted memory is when the studio was able to house five short film sets of five different directors at the same time. Because here you can do that too.
Panni Lutter didn’t study this profession. She simply started working on sets, and eventually became a set decorator – the professional responsible for making the ideas of the director and the production designer come to life. “I knew that I had arrived the moment I started working” she says. Since then she has worked on movies like White God, The Childhood of a Leader and Kills on Wheels. When needed, she crafted cherry trees for Jupiter’s Moon, or got hold of a plane used in the 50’s for The Queen of Spain.
This is the kind of expertise she brings to Made in Helsinki, which is primarily about freedom for her. Having a place where she can do whatever she wants, where this freedom is shared with anyone who brings a project to the table.
Made in Helsinki has served American, English, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Indian, and of course, Hungarian crews, working with stars such as Penélope Cruz or one of India’s most famous actors, Shah RukhKhan. Even so, Panni’s most coveted memory is when the studio was able to house five short film sets of five different directors at the same time. Because here you can do that too.
Panni Lutter didn’t study this profession. She simply started working on sets, and eventually became a set decorator – the professional responsible for making the ideas of the director and the production designer come to life. “I knew that I had arrived the moment I started working” she says. Since then she has worked on movies like White God, The Childhood of a Leader and Kills on Wheels. When needed, she crafted cherry trees for Jupiter’s Moon, or got hold of a plane used in the 50’s for The Queen of Spain.
This is the kind of expertise she brings to Made in Helsinki, which is primarily about freedom for her. Having a place where she can do whatever she wants, where this freedom is shared with anyone who brings a project to the table.
Ágh Márton
“I’ve always found it tedious to revisit the same „trendy” locations to shoot in the city. The market in Hungary is so tiny, however, that crews often can’t afford a studio where we would build the scenery. Bridging this creative gap was the motivation behind creating a place between the two sides. A studio you can redecorate anytime. An empty workshop where you have to start from scratch. A permanent and flexible location,” says Márton Ágh, production designer, co-founder and the mind behind Made in Helsinki, describing its beginnings.
Ágh has been working as a production designer for almost 20 years, even though he only ended up at the University of Fine Arts by accident. After a friend’s suggestion, he wanted to study costume design—a course taught parallel with set design. This is where he took interest in the field. He completed his first feature film, The Alchemist and the Virgin, in 1997. He has worked together with renowned directors like Zoltán Kamodi, Árpád Schilling, Kornél Mundruczó, László Nemes Jeles and Peter Greenaway.
“We had occasions where we had to create a floristry or the conference room of an architecture firm,” he recalls, although the work he does in Made in Helsinki is of a different scale than creating the production design for a feature film. These moments, however, are still important to him, as is making sure the place is more than a studio for film crews. “We’d love to do something else here as well, not necessarily film stuff. This is what the future is about. So far, we have worked with almost anyone, regardless of the project or the motivation. We have to be flexible enough; and that, coupled with our curiosity, means we won’t reject anyone.”
Márton Ágh regularly works nights at Made in Helsinki too. “Apart from giving work to a few people, we have fun ourselves,” he says about the place of a hundred faces that holds even more potential.
Ágh has been working as a production designer for almost 20 years, even though he only ended up at the University of Fine Arts by accident. After a friend’s suggestion, he wanted to study costume design—a course taught parallel with set design. This is where he took interest in the field. He completed his first feature film, The Alchemist and the Virgin, in 1997. He has worked together with renowned directors like Zoltán Kamodi, Árpád Schilling, Kornél Mundruczó, László Nemes Jeles and Peter Greenaway.
“We had occasions where we had to create a floristry or the conference room of an architecture firm,” he recalls, although the work he does in Made in Helsinki is of a different scale than creating the production design for a feature film. These moments, however, are still important to him, as is making sure the place is more than a studio for film crews. “We’d love to do something else here as well, not necessarily film stuff. This is what the future is about. So far, we have worked with almost anyone, regardless of the project or the motivation. We have to be flexible enough; and that, coupled with our curiosity, means we won’t reject anyone.”
Márton Ágh regularly works nights at Made in Helsinki too. “Apart from giving work to a few people, we have fun ourselves,” he says about the place of a hundred faces that holds even more potential.