In Focus with UNIT's co-founder Adam Luckwell

13th January 2025

In Focus with UNIT’s co-founder Adam Luckwell

Unit Studio’s co-founder, Adam Luckwell, has spent over three decades immersed in an industry defined by its relentless pace, creativity, and evolution. Yet, for all the change he’s witnessed, Adam’s enthusiasm for filmmaking and visual storytelling has only deepened. From the artistry of crafting visuals to the camaraderie of working with a team of inspired minds, Adam’s career is a testament to resilience, ingenuity, and a love for the craft that runs in his blood. Adam shares a few of his personal stories and professional milestones that have shaped his life.

Amanda and Adam Luckwell

My Partner

Anyone who runs a business will know there is no work life balance. To make it a success you have to be all in. I could not do what I do without the support of my wife Amanda Luckwell. In addition to being a long suffering wife she is also my partner in the company. She does things that I would not even attempt to do. She is my inspiration. Every time I find myself flagging or fatigued I look at her ever burning energy and it reinvigorates me, even when the going is tough.

My Mother Mary

My mother was a very successful ballerina and dancer in the West End. She was actually one of Tom Jones’ backing dancers. She still recites distressing stories about the abuse she was exposed to from choreographers and dance mistresses during those years. It has left a scar on her psyche that even now in her 70s is still raw.

Go go with Tom Jones

Broken Ballerina

We collaborated on a beautiful short film called Broken Ballerina, view above, directed by Dean Freeman and graded by our creative director Denny Cooper with further VFX by UNIT artist Alec Eves. Anyone who knows me would agree that I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, but this piece of work really touched me and resonated hugely because of my mother’s experience.

It’s in the blood: Baby Adam gens up on his future

The People

I still love coming to work every day. I get to work with some of the nicest, creative artists and people in the business at UNIT. The real mix of characters and skill sets across all areas of the business – Sound, Design, Colour, VFX, Online, Offline, VFX, Longform – can literally make anything on a screen. I love it when our guys and girls find particularly ingenious ways to solve problems that make the budget, time and creative ideas come to life. Family is an overused word in our industry and sometimes wrongly used but at UNIT it is truer than most. Amanda and I, the two UNIT owners are married, our daughter does the PR, the head of facility has had a baby with one of the senior producers, the baby’s godmother is the head of production, my son’s godfather is the commercial director. When I say it’s tightly knit I mean exactly that!

The Tech

On a Saturday in 1981, my mum took me to see my dad at the office. I was 7. He was working (which was pretty standard!). I went to the top floor of one of their buildings on Noel Street and was greeted by a magical site. A model of a city had been laid out on the floor with blue neon lights, it was a Phillips ad. They had a huge mechanism of welded metal which was transporting a camera through the model. I was mesmerized and asked what it was. The pipe smoking John Beedle, the then head of engineering, turned to my dad and said: “I don’t know Mike, what do you reckon? – check out the motion control rig?’ Through the years they co-opted other things like medical lasers and missile tracking hardware (to do the black, white and pink Financial Times ad), but that moment with the Philips model was the moment I was hooked on the technical intricacies and advancements in our industry.

The Craft

I love the process of what we do, it’s changed a lot over the years and has become a lot less guerilla and a lot more corporate but there is still a huge amount of visual craft and artistry in creating the visuals we so proudly make. I resisted the temptation to display stills or posters of films we had worked on. I still love coming to work every day.Instead we have been collecting set and costume designs pictures for over 35 years. Once upon a time a designer would have drawn the set and then this would have been passed to the carpenters to make the set – no VFX, no virtual production, no green screens. A guy with a canvas and some paints and a chippy.

Wall Gallery

If you came to have a look round UNIT you can see work up featuring the costume designs for Sigourney Weaver in ‘Alien’, Marilyn Monroe in ‘No Business Like Show Business’, costume designs from ‘The Godfather II’, set designs for ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘King Kong’ and ‘My Fair Lady’. All a reminder that the industry we work in is driven by art and creativity.

Tradition

London has a great history of filmmaking. I have thought about moving out of Soho to cheaper areas like Farringdon or Shoreditch many times. They may be cooler in some ways and cheaper, but I love the antiquity of Soho. It’s also a throwback to my own background. My Grandparents Bill and Kay Luckwell used to make B movies for Hitchcock, my Dad started MPC in 1974 (on April Fool’s day), he met my mother after he cast her on a Gibbs SR toothpaste shoot. My wife was a producer on Bond Films at MPC and now two of our children are in the industry, one working with us at UNIT and the other as a production co-ordinator at Jellyfish. To make a success in the film industry you have to go beyond liking your job, you have to live and breathe it, but our family are the worst people to go and see a movie with…

Well, we did move, just across the road from Soho, to our new eight-storey home on Margaret Street in Fitzrovia. You’re welcome to come for a tour of our state of the art creative space and of course our popular bar.