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FFP relies on Look Solutions USA for North American atmospheric effects
Pyrotechnic and special effects design company FFP’s roots go back more than thirty years in Germany. Since establishing its U.S. operations in 2014, the team expanded their relationship with fog and haze provider Look Solutions, regularly using Look Solutions machines, from the Tiny Fog range to the Orkas.
“Ninety-five percent of our projects are full service; we provide the effects, the crew and deliver logistically”, says Nicolai Sabottka, Director, FFP. “Look Solutions has every size of machine, with every output, and that makes it a very good partner for special effects companies. All special effects companies will get asked challenging questions, so you need to be able to rely on your partners to develop the right products. Look Solutions also benefits from a variety of fluids, so you’re ready for every possible environment or unthinkable situation you could be in.”
Originally from Germany, Sabottka says that German engineering was how FFP started. “We were engineering our own flame systems, and that made us well known in the special effects market”, he reports. “We started to get approached by a lot of U.S. clients and decided to branch out to Los Angeles. We brought Look Solutions machines over with us, but then we found out that they had representation on the East Coast. That’s how we got in touch with Nathan Kahn (President of Look Solutions USA). We’re very happy clients and carry pretty much every product.”
FFP now has a large team delivering productions around the world each year, including work for German band Rammstein. Sabottka has a long-standing creative relationship with the band, designing their iconic fire effects. Keen to keep pushing boundaries, he and Basak Ozer, SFX Designer, alongside the wider team have also developed an atmospheric effect that showcased another dimension of FFP’s special effects capabilities.
“Rammstein decided they wanted to use the world’s largest wind machine during one of their shows”, says Sabottka. “So you have wind, but how do you make it visible? With sixteen Orkas, strategically placed behind the wind machine creating a gigantic stream of fog inside the stadium. I don’t think anyone else in the world had done that.”
Martin Hoop is one of FFP’s most senior special effects designers and currently crew chief for the Morgan Wallen worldwide tour. He oversaw the Larry Hoover Benefit Concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2021, where FFP created a fog-only environment using more than thirty Look Solutions machines from the Cryo and Orka ranges - a show that looked deceptively simple, but was technically one of the most complex.
During the design process, Basak Ozer recalls, the creative goal was to make it feel as though the artist was walking on the moon, requiring a massive atmospheric environment rather than a standard fog effect. “No flames were used in that show and it was one of my personal favorites”, she says. “We had only two or three weeks to pull it together and used virtually every fog unit we had to achieve the look at the required scale.”
Renzo Cargnelutti, also a designer of special effects for FFP, designed effects for high profile artists such as Lady Gaga. He chose Look Solutions Cryo Foggers for Gaga’s 2022 world tour, using twelve Cryo Fog machines. And Lukas Riffel, SFX Designer, often works on specialist projects requiring compact and highly targeted atmospheric effects, including the use of Power-Tiny Foggers on Travis Scott’s headpiece and the shark cage effect on Drake’s 2024 North American tour.
“Our main workhorse is the Cryo range, we use the Cryo Fogger and the Cryo Gate”, says Riffel. Jonas Born, Head of R&D, oversees each project FFP completes alongside Sabottka and Ozer, and is the technical mind behind many of FFP’s proprietary machines and customized systems, including the five-finger flame effect used for Lady Gaga.
Pictured (left to right): Christine Rogers, Paddy Hail, Naloni Hydo, Liam Luckhurst, Marley Martin, Carly Brummit, Susana Malhoa, Martin Hoop, Steffen Tammen. (Photo: FFP/Look Solutions)
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