Not a question you’ve ever asked yourself huh? Well, you should have done, at least according to Puffin Books.

Puffin are promoting the Vampire Academy series of books with a tour with the author Richelle Mead. They are visiting a number of vampire conventions (who knew?!) and are offering the young bloodsuckers the chance to discover their vampire name.

For this they required a Random Vampire Name Generator. Some kind of promotional marketing prop that would allow people to spin the wheels to find out their vampire name. Something like Wheel of Fortune but resulting in a name like Count Anton Dragomir the Ruthless. Scary stuff huh?

Plunge created a four wheeled name spinner from foam PVC, hand finished with spray details and vinyl stenciling.

Puffin were as pleased as punch. I can only hope they survived the ravenous teens.

We’ve been doing some work with the BBC on their science show Bang Goes The Theory and we can’t really tell you much about it.

I’m afraid it’s top secret, sorry.

What I can tell you is that we’ve been working from a secret workshop in ******** with Jem Stansfield and the Bang crew making a ********, several ********s and a prototype *********. We also spent a day on the water at ********** where Jem managed to ********** on his revolutionary new *******. It was a great success.

Next week we might be fitting a ***** to the top of a **** ***** and ******** it at massive speeds along a track at *********.

This is silly.

To find out more you’ll just have to watch the new series of Bang Goes The Theory on BBC 1 later this Spring.

Earlier last year we did some event illustrations for Eventwise in association with Vibration Music. They were planning one of their Christmas parties at Lindley Hall in London.

They needed some visualisations to sell the concept to their clients. They were planning to transform this spectacular venue into a full circus, complete with big top and acrobats.

As the event neared they again approached Plunge to build the circus bar for the foyer of the event. So we did.

I understand the party was a great success.

It’s Christmas, this is no time to give up drinking!

So to celebrate the season of excessive drinking and lavish expense we’ve made a giant champagne fountain for Mask Entertainment of London.

To be honest the fountain does not actually pump champagne (though i guess is could) but the effect is quite dramatic.

We had some early teething problems with the fountain pump being too powerful and water splashing everywhere. After adding slots to the rims of the glasses and iridescent beads hanging down we managed to reduce the spray to a minimum.

It will be the centre-piece of their HAC christmas event this year.

Our prop shop has created a set of giant Rubik’s cubes for Eventwise, a party and event company based in London. they are running a disco styled party at Congress House for the whole of December and they wanted some cube seating.

The cubes are a solid MDF cube, routed and painted, with acrylic squares fitted to the outside and if we say so ourselves they look fantastic.

We had a hell of a time letting them go.

We spent the day at Pinewood Studios shooting the promo for Every Now And Then in which Shingai Shoniwa crashes a car and needs emergency help from none other than Jacques (as our DS is known).

Check out the video here…

Just imagine, you could hire this Citroen DS ambulance yourself!

What does your future hold?

Well, if you’d been in Brighton on Saturday you might have had a chance to find out.

The centre of Brighton was host to the second annual White Night Festival in which venues around the city hosted a wide range of events and entertainments to take full advantage of the extra hour afforded by the turning back of the clocks.

Plunge were asked to create a pair of giant fortune cats for an installation in Jubilee Square.

Sam Hewitt and Shardcore devised the show in which members of the public are encouraged to ask questions of the giant cats. The cats then dispense their wisdom whilst waving their arms in a bizarre and frankly slightly sinister way.

The cats were made from carved polystyrene. The polystyrene carving was then finshed with a jesmonite hardcoat. The radio controlled animatronic arm mechanisms were provided by Steve Carpenter.

The White Night event was a terrific success and the cats provided a superb central event.

To see the cats in action check out someone’s videos..

We’ve just made a crate load of splurge guns for a singalong Bugsy Malone party.

A client decided they wanted to celebrate their 30th birthday with a 1920s gangster style Bugsy party. For those of you who haven’e seen the movie it is a gangster musical, with kids dressed up as gangsters. Pretty odd really but a great film nonetheless.

Instead of normal guns with bullets the kids wield splurge guns which shoot custard pie foam.

Here at Plunge we designed a very simple gun that takes a can of theatrical pie foam. We then boxed them up in shredded paper just like they are in the film.

Apparently the party got a bit messy!

If you should want to hire a splurge gun, or even several slurge guns then please go to the splurge gun hire page.

We’ve just spent the last two weeks making a giant fly and a giant bunny rabbit.

They’re for a new show by Tiger Aspect for T4 called Red Bull Rivals. There are two ex Hollyoaks actors going head to head on 5 Red Bull events. They’re doing a cliff dive, a motorcross event, freerunning, downhill mountain biking and the Flugtag in Marseille.

For each event they are allocated a ‘guru’ and when they contacted Red Bull they were told to call Tim Simpson from Plunge after he and Plunge won the London Red Bull Flugtag in 2003.
One was for a performance called ‘Fly School Musical’ and is a giant fly. The other was for ‘Matt and his Magic Hat’ and involved making a giant top hat that magically produces a giant white rabbit on the take off ramp.

The machines were conceived by the presenters, Matt and Darren and then built by Plunge. They were mainly carved polystyrene, with a tough outer coat. The giant hat was made of Plastozote.
To see how the flying machines did in Marseille you can catch the Red Bull Rivals episode on 4OD here.

We’ve had a visit from the Sicilians and it wasn’t scary at all.

They are a lovely family who have just opened a Sicilian delicatessen in Brighton, just next to the Duke Of York’s Cinema at Preston Circus.

It’s called Mediterraneo and they have a facebook page where you can see some of their yummy food.

They wanted some affordable signage to fit in with the mediterranean feel of their olive green deli with patio.

We went for a stained plywood sign with vinyl lettering which fitted the bill perfectly.

You should go there if you can, their food is absolutely delicious!