EMPIRE OF LIGHT

In order to bring Sam Mendes’ upcoming film Empire of Light to life, Kemp London was commissioned to transform Margate’s beachside Dreamland building into the neon-spangled, titular Empire Cinema.

We worked with Historic England to remove much of the original Dreamland signage, which we packed up and stowed in the building’s auditorium. The momentous task took about two weeks.
Then, over the course of five weeks, we created a set of large-scale neon signs and strips to adorn the fictional cinema. This included enormous yellow neon lettering to spell out ‘EMPIRE’ and ‘CINEMA’ vertically along the building’s fin.

For the lower-level facade, we produced a readograph lightbox sign with hook-on letters, which were set up to exhibit 1980s film names such as The Shining and The Blues Brothers.

A full-size replica of the Empire Cinema’s façade was constructed further down the promenade. We replicated the readograph and some of the neon for installation there.

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